Oh, I understand that there are technical distinctions that we can legalese our way into letting one fly, but this paragraph is telling to what I was getting at:
"
On a side note, anyone remember the uproar when a supermarket refused to put a 3 year old kid's name on a cake? No? Me neither. No-one really seemed to give a rat's arse about denial of service then, whatever technicalities were involved."
And your twice mentioning that you're making no claims about the right or wrong of it shows me that you know what I'm getting at. When one thing happened, there was *outrage* over "
HOW could this be done?" Now, let's not pretend that the mass outrage over the one and lack in the other case was driven by careful attention to legal technicality and rather it was a case of people not giving a shit when a cake is baked/not baked for a person/cause they don't like, but when it happens to someone they support/have sympathy for, they suddenly want to make a big deal out of it. In the public consciousness, people being given a service was never actually an issue - the very fine distinction of legal technicality just isn't an issue in the public consciousness until it can be used to suit an agenda - all that matters is who it happens to. The act in question, the baking of a cake or not, isn't important. If tomorrow a bakery refused to bake a cake celebrating Trump's presidency or something, all the people who were all pro-freedom to refuse service would suddenly be outraged, and the people who were previously upset about the wedding cake for the gay marriage would be "Well, you know, we can't really force a bakery to do that..."
Though it's a stopped clock type scenario, it took Rush Limbaugh to draw one side's double standard into the spotlight over this:
"
RUSH: Somebody just said, “Hey, Rush, did you hear about the guy that walked into a Muslim bakery in Dearborn and was turned down?” Yeah, I heard about it. The guy is a former Fox News contributor and an actor and a comedian named Steven Crowder, and he walked into a Muslim bakery in Dearbornistan, Michigan, and he told them that he wanted them to bake a cake for his gay wedding, and he was turned down.
And everybody’s asking, where’s the outrage? I’m so glad you brought this up, because, see, it’s not about that. You would expect that if there’s anti-gay bigotry, there’s anti-gay bigotry, wherever it is, it’s unacceptable. And so Crowder just found some anti-gay bigotry in Dearbornistan, Michigan, Muslim bakery. Well, you see, Muslims — (interruption) Dearbornistan, it’s a joke. Yes, it’s Dearbornistan. Everybody in Michigan calls it that. This is just lighthearted jocularity. Don’t panic in there.
This makes a great point. You see, folks, this isn’t about anti-gay bigotry. If it were, there would be just as much outrage at this Muslim bakery, but they don’t care. The Drive-Bys, the militant gays, they don’t care. They went shopping for this in Indiana. They went shopping for it. They went shopping for it New Mexico. They went shopping for it in Oregon. They went shopping for it in Colorado."
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/...chigan_refuse_to_bake_cakes_for_gay_weddings/
(I know it wasn't Rush who did the video, but he is the one who brought it to a wider public's attention)
Whatever legal technicality we choose to bring up to and can, in finer point, allow us to make this distinction, those finer technicalities are not what drive this narrative and this outrage and it's a bit disingenuous to pretend - not that you're doing that - like that's what the people outraged over this, on either side, are concerned with.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the strong arm of the law ever came crashing down on those Muslim bakeries? Did they eventually give? Did it ever make CNN/NBC/etc?
