You're conflating discrimination on the basis of the product being created vs on the basis of whom the product is being sold to.

The cake being commissioned was not materially different from any of the other cakes the baker made. What was materially different was who he was selling it to.

I am a computer geek and suck at words, but I thought that is what I said. If you provide a standard service, you can't deny that service to people. If you have something different, say a wedding cake that takes tens of hours and is a one off custom work of art, that is different.

I do custom software development. What is the line for what work I am compelled to take on versus what projects I can choose not to do? Would I be required to take on making a grindr clone if my only objections was religious?

You don't have to take bad faith arguments at face value.

When the baker says that his wedding cakes are a custom work of art tailored to each client, he's bullshitting you. He simply wants to discriminate against gay people. It really is that simple. There is no material difference between drawing flowers on a cake for a gay wedding and drawing flowers on a cake for a straight wedding, the same as there being no material difference between drawing flowers on a cake for an interracial wedding and a non-interracial wedding. When people make up false pretenses to justify their discrimination, your job as a rational human being is to identify it as such, not be a sucker.

I absolutely guarantee that if a straight couple had came in, commissioned a regular wedding cake, and then once the cake was done said "Oops we're not gonna buy it, can you sell it to our gay friends' wedding instead?", the baker would not have sold them the cake at that point, because again, it's about who he's selling it to, not what he's making.

Dude, have you bought a wedding cake? Mine was $2500. WTF? We had a dedicated time slot where we had our own private cake tasting to determine what cake we wanted and they establish a relationship with you and understanding of what you want and spend days making our cake. I don't see how that isn't a work of passion tailored to an individual's request. I don't think you understand the process and are assuming it's something it's not.

Nice use of a lot of derogatory comments though. That convinces me, I mean I don't want to be a sucker or a non-rational human being. You know people can have a different opinion and you don't have to degrade or otherize them. I'd rather keep my too much good faith in people's arguments that take on your toxicity.

If he refused in your hypothetical situation then yes, that would be discrimination 100%. I don't think your hypothetical is what happened though.

Who cares how long the cake took. I’m a programmer. Most projects take far longer than a cake takes. Maybe you don’t believe coding is partially an art form, but I do. I can’t imagine discriminating against people would make sense as a programmer just because projects usually take dozens upon dozens of hours.

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By deciding bad faith people aren’t bad faith, you’re effectively, screwing over the victims of discrimination. Which effectively “degrade or otherize them”.

“I'd rather keep my too much good faith in people's arguments that take on your toxicity.” What does this mean?

These are the exact sort of stuff that people say to defend bigoted grifters on Joe Rohan’s podcast like Ben Shapiro. Something like “Rogan says Shapiro is a genuinely good dude. Why assume he is speaking in bad faith when he pushes everything his billionaire fracking backers believe and thinks gay or trans people are awful…but that’s just against his Jewish faith which he is not consistent on any way. Since he isn’t consistent in general”

Except one of the (standard) services of the bakery was "custom wedding cakes". And he didn't refuse to make some specific art that depicted homosexuality or whatever, he refused to make any custom wedding cake for a gay wedding. As in, they could have requested the exact same cake as a straight couple - let's say white, three tiers, pink icing - and he would have refused.

Just like if your 'service' is making meals to anyone who comes into your restaurant, you can't deny black customers. This seems like the same thing to me.

But it doesn't seem like the same to me. If he refused to sell a cake out of the display, it's an obvious violation. If he refused to take an order for a wedding cake, obvious violation. It looks like to me he refused to meet for a consultation on making a custom cake, which is something different. Maybe I am convoluting the process I went through with something different.

When I got married we could either fill out an order for a cake, and say we wanted white frosting, white cake with raspberry, to serve 200 people, etc by filling out their standard wedding cake form. Or, we could do a custom cake, where we had our own individual tasting of cakes and talked with the person about the details of what we wanted and design the details of the cake. The second option was not their standard service nor a standard cake, the first was. The first can not be denied, the second can (though your still a shitty person/business if you do). It's no different than an artist with a gallery. Anyone can buy their paintings, but anyone can't commission a piece. The artist has, not regency, I can't think of the word, but they have a say on who they take commissions from.

The point is this is why we need the ACLU. Someone who is willing to take the other side in uncomfortable/ugly discussions, so that we keep our rights. It is easy to give up rights. It's hard to get them back. I'm super uncomfortable with this discussion because I don't agree with the baker or what he did. But I think we need to be willing discuss infringements on rights, even when we agree with them.

It certainly is an uncomfortable discussion, although that often means it's an important one. I suppose I'd question whether the ACLU (or whoever) should push for the rights of the baker or the couple, since they seem to be at odds. Generally I think people have a right to run their business how they want, but also that people have a right to be free from discrimination based on their sexuality/race/gender/etc. I also don't agree with the baker, but I think I'd be uncomfortable with the state forcing him to create specific art.

I do see a distinction between denying a particular commision and denying someone even the option to request a commision though. If he refused to make a cake that said 'Jesus loves gay marriage' I probably think that should be allowed. But refusing to make any custom cake at all for a gay couple seems much different.