Jack Philips, the owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood Colorado is the owner of the infamous “Gay Cake” refusal.
Quite simply, he refused to create a wedding cake for 2 men, David Mullins and Charlie Craig, about to marry. He reasoned that he would have to act against his religious beliefs.
Craig and Mullins filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (similar to Privincial human rights commissions, in Canada). It ruled against Philips, claiming religion was just an excuse to justify bigotry.
So, Philips took his case to the Colorado Court of Appeals. The C.C.A. ruled that no religion had to be endorsed, but that service couldn’t be refused on protected grounds, such sexual orientation.
Finally, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which eventually ruled in the baker’s favour. However, critics complain that the ruling was on overly narrow grounds and did not actually make much of a precident. It wouldn’t address questions for florists, photographers, caterers, or others with a similar dilemma. The Supreme Court did however find the Civil Rights Commission was overly hostile to Philips.
The ruling sparked mixed opinions. Philips claims he has since had people calling to make ridiculous cakes, such as Satan cakes and cakes in the form of sex objects.
But now, Jack Philips is back in the news, and for basically the same reason: refusing to bake a cake for a transgender person named Autumn Scardina, celebrating the 7th anniversary of a gender change.
However, there is more than just a whiff of a conflict of interest here. Scardina is a lawyer whose firm does cases of employment disputes.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission has ruled that in principle this appears to be a discrimination case. So it would seem that matters will be heading down the same road as before.
However, Philips has decided to take a new approach here: suing governor Jerry Hickenlooper and other government officials, claiming religious persecution seen .
It will be interesting to see how things play out.
Author’s Views: To disclose outright, I believe that the baker should be able to refuse or accept any deal they want, and to accept or reject any business they want. It would be different if it were a government agency, or a monopoly. Several questions I must ask.
(1) As for the gay couple, why not simply find another baker? While it may be annoying to you, why not take your money and business to someone else?
(2) If you wanted others to know about this baker, why would it be necessary to sue him or go to the Civil Rights Commission? Was the purpose to harm his business?
(3) Part of the backlash against letting gay couples marry in 2015 was the claim (derided as paranoia) that it would lead to religious freedom being stepped on. Does this not prove that claim right?
(4) Regarding Autumn Scardina and the transgender cake: why go to this “specific” baker, when you knew about the case?
(5) Was it an attempt to get money from him and/or to further harm his business? Or to use your law firm to make a political point?
(6) As for both the gay cake and the trans cake: do you really want the cake for your “big day” to be made by somebody you filed a civil rights claim against? It’s not like he cares about keeping your business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0iXllUjIqI
(From Fox News)
Yes, this is old by the time that this post goes up. However, just putting in my 2 cents.
Chris Cuomo, a ”Journalist” working on the American station CNN, shocked the U.S. public by defending the group Antifa.
This group showed up for ”Unite the Right 2”, in Charlottesville, where white nationalists were going to march. This was on the anniversary of the violence last year that left 1 dead, and many injured.
However, there were only about 25 white nationalists, who left quite quickly. But there were thousands of counter-demonstraters, seemingly with no one to stop.
Without an enemy to oppose, Antifa decided to attack members of the public, including journalists.
Antifa, short for Anti-Fascist, or (anti first amendment, as it is often denegraded), is a left wing semi-organised Communist group that has a lengthy history of committing violent acts to shut down speakers they accuse of ”hate speech” or of ”endangering others”.
While Antifa is mostly known in the U.S., there are branches of it that operate in other western countries.
Yes, preventing violence …. by engaging in violence.
Of course, this makes sense because they conflate ”ideas” with actual ”violence”. Others speaking right leaning ideas is violence apparently.
What is truly disgusting this that Cuomo, who pretends to be a journalist, has gone full blown activist by defending the group, saying that their violence is not the same — morally — as people preaching hate.
Author’s Views
There are very disturbing facts about Cuomo’s monologue.
First: Cuomo is a journalist, at least he claims to be. The 1st Amendment is sacrosanct in the American way of life, enshrining free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of association and assembly. The 1st Amendment is something necessary to protect free speech and a free press. How a journalist on a major news network shrugs that off is stunning.
Second: Cuomo doesn’t believe that people shouting hate should have the right to speak. Certain people are disgusting, yes, but they do have the right to speak their vile garbage. Words, unless they are: (1) threats; or (2) a call to violence are not actual violence. Sickening, but yes, this is a defense to racist people.
Third: Cuomo, in his monologue, omits that Antifa routinely attacks people who are right leaning, though not white supremacists. This happens to speakers such as Ben Shapiro, Milo Yiannopolous, Ann Coulter, and many others. Being an outspoken conservative does not equate to being a nazi.
Fourth: Cuomo seems fairly indifferent to Antifa attacking innocent bystanders, and yes, even journalists. Perhaps collateral damage is okay as long as the intent is good.
Fifth: Cuomo is disingenuously being selective about which violence is ”wrong”, and which is ”morally right”. Double standards should not exist if one is morally consistent.
Sixth: Cuomo omits that Antifa has been classfied as a terrorist organization by the Department of Homeland Security. Yes, the Feds consider them terrorists.
Seventh: Cuomo doesn’t seem to register that these ”defenders of the people” almost always conceal their faces with masks or bandannas, yet the ”bad guys” never do. Odd.
My thought is that censorship should be a last resort, not a first. It is very unsettling that some are completely fine with taking away people’s right to speak. Calling someone a racist, or calling their words or ideas hate speech doesn’t make it so. And even if it is, why start down the path of censorship?
Wise words: I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.
February 28, 2018 — Universities like to champion themselves as defenders of different peoples and ideologies.
However, while the former may be true, anyone who has ever spent time at one knows that the latter is not true.
In this case, 3 Ontario post-secondary institutes were facing legal challenges. But now a Superior Court has ruled in their favour.
They are: (1) Ryerson University for refusing to grant official status for men’s issues awareness, and both the (2) Durham College & UOIT and (3) University of Toronto Mississauga for refusing official status for pro-life groups.
Student Union fees are mandatory at colleges and universities. However, Student Unions are in effect able to force money from students whose views they censor.
There is no open to ”opt-out” if the school promotes certain views, or censors others.
A group dedicating to raising awareness to how issues such as higher suicide rates, job loss, courts that are stacked against them, and a general lack of resources for men is not openly hostile to women. Regardless of some feminists will say, men are not the enemy.
Likewise, a group who wants to spread their views that unborn children should have rights is not an enemy to women. Regardless of a person’s individual views on abortion, it is wrong to condemn those who take issue with the issue of stopping a potential future person.
Yet, with this February court ruling, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has said that it ”is” okay to shut down and ban student groups if their views are disliked.
Interesting observation: though probably a coincidence, it seems that those opposition to both groups are a way for some women to flex their political muscles.
Banning a men’s issues awareness group can be a way to ensure that the only issues that receive public attention are women’s concerns.
Banning a pro-life group can be a way to ensure that abortion is only looked at through the lens of the mother and her suffering, and not that of the unborn child.
However, universities are not places for free speech and open inquiry, unless the speech and inquiry are of ”approved” views. This is to say that they are not places of free speech and open inquiry at all.
(Jordan Peterson before the Canadian Senate on Bill C-16)
June 19, 2017, Bill C-16 received royal assent, becoming law. In a nutshell, amended both the Canadian Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Code to include “gender identity or expression” to the books.
For the Criminal Code, it added “gender identity or expression” to the list of protected groups which violence against would be viewed as a hate crime (if that were the motivation for the offence.
For the Human Rights Code, “gender identity or expression” would be added to the list of protected grounds which discrimination against would be illegal.
In the above video, Professor Jordan Peterson (University of Toronto), claims that this bill will lead to “compelled speech”, and that the wording leaves the possibility that it will be abused. There are obvious flaws with the bill (more on that later). But here are the quotes from the HRC and CC, both before and after.
2 The purpose of this Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, to the principle that all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.
R.S., 1985, c. H-6, s. 2; 1996, c. 14, s. 1; 1998, c. 9, s. 9; 2012, c. 1, s. 137(E); 2017, c. 3, ss. 9, 11, c. 13, s. 1.
REPLACEMENT
Canadian Human Rights Act
1998, c. 9, s. 9; 2012, c. 1, s. 137(E)
1 Section 2 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is replaced by the following:
Purpose
2 The purpose of this Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, to the principle that all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.
3 (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.
REPLACEMENT
2 Subsection 3(1) of the Act is replaced by the following:
Prohibited grounds of discrimination
3 (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.
(4) In this section, identifiable group means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, or mental or physical disability.
R.S., 1985, c. C-46, s. 318; 2004, c. 14, s. 1; 2014, c. 31, s. 12.
REPLACEMENT
3 Subsection 318(4) of the Criminal Code is replaced by the following:
Definition of identifiable group
(4) In this section, identifiable group means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.
(i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor,
REPLACEMENT
4 Subparagraph 718.2(a)(i) of the Act is replaced by the following:
(i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, or on any other similar factor,
First, what exactly is “gender identity”? On the surface, it seems to imply transgendered/transsexual people, who are actually “transitioning” from one sex to another. However, the bill fails to define or clarify this. Is it a transitioning person? Do they have to have completed it? Is there a certain standard?
Second, what exactly is “expression”, in the context it is being used? Would drag kings/queens or performers fall into this category? Is it someone who just dresses or acts in a less than usual manner? For this to be included into human rights and criminal code legislation, the wording needs to far more clear?
Third, if a person chooses to identify as anything other than male or female, are others obligated to address them as such?
Fourth, in terms of “having their needs accommodated” (with respect to the human rights code), what does this mean? Again, without specifying whether a person is actually transgender or just doing this temporarily, how would any employer or school be expected to be able to comply? Likewise, when looking at the wording “… without being hindered in or prevented from”, this is impossible to comply with, without more information.
Fifth, and regarding the Criminal Code, this seems incredibly dangerous to add. Hate crime laws are often not a good idea (as identity seems to be more important than the actual offence). But here, adding the vague wording “gender identity or expression” as a means of increasing a sentence does not seem wise.
Sixth, will these laws stifle legitimate concern and debate on the issue of transgenderism? The health and societal considerations — not to mention high suicide rates — are of a public concern to discuss. The science of “gender dysphoria“, the underlying medical condition, is still far from settled. If open discussion and debate can be viewed as “hate speech” or as “discrimination”, will this have a chilling effect on free speech?
Seventh, and referring to the above Peterson video, is gender supposed to be viewed from a biological or sociological perspective? (See the video).
Again, if this were specifically meant to protect individuals transitioning, and/or those with gender dysphoria, it would be a lot easier to support. However, the wording seems vague, and open to misinterpretation.
The public at large seems apprehensive about these changes, and with good reason.
