First, he’s only been sued by two people/groups…the third suit is a resurrection of an old suit that was dropped.
Second- would be interesting to see where he can find in the precepts of the Christian faith that transgenderism is a sin.
Third- all that said, leave him alone. There’s plenty of places to go get cakes in the Denver area.
This should not be a Freedom of Religion case.
It should have been argued under the Involuntary Servitude clause of the 13th Amendment. The 13th amendment prohibits both slavery and involuntary servitude.
Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person’s will to benefit another, under some form of coercion other than the worker’s financial needs.
The baker who simply does not want to bake a particular cake (for whatever reason) and is made to by force of law is a victim of involuntary servitude.
This case would have been a slam dunk. His religious beliefs did not even need to be mentioned.
That’s been argued before.
Whatever we think of PA laws, they aren’t and never will be declared involuntary servitude.
When was it argued before?
The only court rulings I am aware of ruled that involuntary servitude is permissible as punishment for a crime and for the draft.
Um…only the very case which allowed the PA portion of the CRA of 1964 to succeed in the first place.
The owner of the Heart of Atlanta Motel unsuccessfully invoked this amendment to challenge Title II, drawing on a particular conception of private property. The Court rejected this argument briskly.
That arguement doesnt work basically because he has a choice he could choose to not make custom cakes for anyone and the issue of being “forced” to labor for someone else goes away.
Legally it wouldnt be a slam dunk, in fact that arguement would be dismissed summarily.
I don’t think so. If I mow yards and the city tells me I have to mow the mayor’s yard and I don’t want to. That would be involuntary servitude.
If I bake cakes and the state tells me I have to bake a particular cake that I do not want to bake, that is involuntary servitude. I don’t see how it could be interpreted any other way.
Your example doesnt match the situation.
You skipped over some important details. The only way a PA case applies here is if the Mayor contacted you and asked you to mow his lawn.
Then his lawn is determined to be in the scope of things you already provide to other people i.e size of lawn, time needed to complete the task, and so on.
Then you would run afoul of a PA law, and it would not be in involuntary servitude. You would simply be given a choice either you can mow anyones yard that is say 4000 sq ft, or you mow no ones yard that is 4000 sq ft or more.
This isnt difficult stuff to understand.
Besides read the court case posted above, it pretty much outlines precident on things like this.
I don’t believe it. There could be dozens of reasons for my not wanting to mow the mayor’s yard. It’s out of my route. It takes too long to get there. There are snakes in the yard. The mayor is a jackass and behaves abusively.
I do not believe for one minute that I could be legally required to mow that yard.
And you might just have a good excuse such as some of the ones you listed. For the purposes of PA though you better be sure that each one you listed doesnt match a situation you’ve accommodated before.
For example, if the mayor is 3.6 miles from your base location, you better hope you’ve never mowed a lawn from that base location equal to or greater than 3.6 miles in the history of your business or you’ll run afoul. You get the idea there.
As for being abusive that is actually one there you could win on provided you had documented proof of that and that you had never been abused by anyone else previously in the same or appropriate manner and still mowed their lawn or continue to.
Your mowing example lends itself to a lot more possibilities than the Baker example mostly because it’s a fixed location where anyone can visit regardless of their location and request services.
“Second- would be interesting to see where he can find in the precepts of the Christian faith that transgenderism is a sin.”
My guess is somewhere around Leviticus—the passage in that chapter about not making women like men, nor men like women.
Actually it’s this passage Deuteronomy 22:5 A woman must not wear men's clothing, and a man must not wear women's clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD your God.
that might be interpreted that transgender is wrong.
That’s exactly what it’s saying.
Of course it is.
