This comes from the Family Research Council's press release on this week's
historic court decision in Oklahoma, quote attributed to president Tony
Perkins:
Of course Colorado doesn't have civil marriage equality (or hasn't
"redefined marriage," as Tony would put it). The cake was for the
non-legally-binding party of a couple who had legally married in
Massachusetts prior to entering this cake shop. The issue in that matter
has nothing to do with any sort of local policy change on marriage,
court-enforced or otherwise, and everything to do with local
nondiscrimination law. It doesn't matter if Colorado is months, years,
or centuries away from getting marriage equality, or if the cake in
question is for some other tangential party (anniversary, shower, etc.)
related (or not) to their love—the nondiscrimination law prevents the
sort of discrimination that the cake baker showed to the same-sex couple
because it was based on WHO THEY ARE as customers (i.e. gay).
Now, people like Tony deny that and say, "oh, but he would've baked them
a birthday or some other kind of cake." That changes nothing and
absolves no one. If you gladly bake a cake for a customer's Super Bowl
party yet deny his request for a wedding cake because he is marrying a
woman of another religion, the second part is still problematic, even if
the first cake was both ornate and delicious. As long as the customer
puts in a request and is denied the request specifically because of who
he or she is (e.g. a human customer who loves humans of the same
gender), then you might just run afoul of your state's nondiscrimination
law. This fair treatment of customers does not hinge upon a change in
state marriage policy, and it sure as frosted roses doesn't "prove" why
expanding marital freedoms is a bad idea.
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