Judge rules Orlando bakery didn't discriminate against anti-gay customer

[DonViejo]

Source: LGBTQ Nation


By Erin Rook · Sunday, February 12, 2017

A Florida bakery that refused to make a cake with an anti-gay message was found not guilty of discriminating against a customer who requested a message the owners found hateful, News Service of Florida [link:http://m.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2017/02/10/judge-sides-with-orlando-bakery-owners-who-refused-to-put-anti-gay-slogan-on-cake#reports].

Orlando area bakery Cut the Cake first attracted the attention of religious conservatives after it was [link:http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2015/04/former-televangelist-attacks-florida-bakery-to-make-a-point-about-religious-freedom/targeted by Arizona evangelist Joshua Feuerstein], who called on April 1 to request a cake that read: We do not support gay marriage. Owner Sharon Haller asked if it was a prank call before saying her bakery wouldnt put a hateful message on a cake.

-snip-

Robert Mannarino accused Cut the Cake of religious discrimination for refusing to make a cake that said, Homosexuality is an abomination unto the Lord. But Haller and her daughter Cyndol Knarr, who co-owns the bakery, said they didnt technically refuse the Mannarinos request. Knarr gave him a quote over the phone $150 per letter, for a total of close to $6,000 and then hung up before completing the order when Mannarino said he was recording the call. Judge J. Bruce Culpepper agreed.

Petitioner did not offer evidence or elicit testimony that Cut the Cake refused to provide him a baked good specifically because he was a Christian. (In fact, all Cut the Cake did was quote a price for the cake, then hang up the phone without completing his order), he wrote.

The judge further questioned the authenticity of Mannarinos claim that he is a Christian. Though Mannarino told the court he reads the Bible often, according to the judges Thursday ruling, he was unable to provide another biblical verse from memory when pressed. He also claimed that the phrase he requested was a direct quote from the Bible, but the judge could find no evidence to support that.



Read more: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/02/judge-rules-orlando-bakery-didnt-discriminate-anti-gay-customer/

[Beakybird]

1. Ha Ha Ha

[50 Shades Of Blue]

2. K & R LOVE IT!!!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Best part: Judge saw right through the fake christian.

Mannarino is an alt-christian.

All hate, no Jesus.

[matt819]

21. Better yet

He is an alternative Christian. It's consistent with alternative facts, etc.

Maybe he should have quoted from those two Corinthians.

[mountain grammy]

4. Great!

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Just some jackhole trying to scam a settlement

I must've missed the scriptural passage that condones such behavior.

[angrychair]

6. That would be the 9th commandment

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour"

As an atheist I am well versed in the Bible and the Koran and a couple others...

[azureblue]

9. The judge shoudl have asked him --

"do you eat pork or shellfish? Do you trim your beard? Have you ever lied? These are all forbidden by the Bible, and I will bet you have done all of these things. Certainly lie."

[HuskyOffset]

16. not to mention...

...he was probably wearing a shirt made of more than one fabric right there in the Judge's courtroom!

[Cirque du So-What]

19. He should wear the hairshirt in court

The choice of true penitents for millennia.

[tenorly]

7. The GOP can't have its cake and eat it too.

This must be their idea of testing the waters against rights. I'm just surprised they didn't try this stunt earlier.

Good for Judge Culpepper.

[benpollard]

8. The Judge should require the bakery to make the cake

The Judge should require the bakery to bake the cake and for Mannarinos to purchase it for the quoted price. They could then donate the money in Mannarinos name to a LGBT organization.

[yeoman6987]

31. That's a good idea

Judge probably looked at his financials and employment history and thought, "so pathetic".

[azureblue]

10. So now

can the bakery counter sue for legal fees and damage to reputation? There is a price to stupidity and bigotry and this clown should pay up.

By The Way - who paid for this guy's lawyer?

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Business is business

If you don't want the business, quote a very high price, which is what
all of them should have done instead of making a religious case out of
a business transaction.

There was always the old joke, that I've seen posted a few times in
businesses.

'You need credit? You have to see our credit manager. Her name is
Helen Waite. If you need credit, go to Helen Waite."

[7962]

12. But isnt there something illegal about quoting a price like that?

I mean, "per letter" price should be the same for everyone then, right? How can you discriminate in pricing for the same item?
Because this tells me that a bakery who got an order for a cake for a gay marriage they didnt agree with could similarly charge 1000.00 for it so they wouldnt get the order. Or not? Just seems like its a window for others to use to push their own agenda

[cstanleytech]

14. Nope, its called the free market and if you dont want to pay what you are quoted

you are free to do your own cake decorating.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Price differentials exist on many items

There are retail prices, wholesale prices, negotiated prices. Look at automobiles.
Prices charged to customers vary widely, even for the same item. Time was distributor
prices and laws prevented a lot of things, like manufacturers selling direct to the
public. But I do see your point. To bake a hateful message into a cake cost us
anguish, sleepless nights, paying the baker and the letterer more ... one might
even quit. So there are costs to it, and those might be defensible in court. Risk
of employee turnover. Though it sounds like 'we do hate - for a price.'

What a yucky matter.

[forgotmylogin]

23. Exactly

It would be the same as taking an obscure foreign car to a mechanic. If he has to spend time doing research how to work on the car, he deserves to charge for it.

Similarly, if a religious bakery doesn't want to do a same-sex cake, they have the right to price-quote what will make it worth their while; they shouldn't have the right to refuse. The customer can accept the price, or take their business elsewhere.

The customer in each case should have the option to buy a blank cake at the standard price and add their own decoration themselves. That gives the bakery an out if the customer then displays a picture of it on social media and says "Here's XYZ Bakery's cake" when they've added a confederate flag, the bakery can respond "We sold them a blank cake, that's our cake, but we did not accomplish the hate speech."

[MichMan]

18. I dont think you can quote different prices like that

I am really perplexed why so many here are defending the bakery charging an obscene amount because they don't want to bake the cake. As was posted, an anti gay bakery could simply do the same thing in reverse and based on the comments supporting this type of practice, it would be acceptable?

If a place of business charged POC or a gay/transgender person more $$$ for rent or for the cost of a vehicle, there would be understandable outrage here condemning the practice and demanding legal action. Those type of actions are illegal as well they should be.

[bucolic_frolic]

28. You're right, it should be that way

but in the current environment, it can't be. Every cake baked for either side
comes with publicity, some of it unwanted, and legal costs. When these
difficult cakes come along, a business is going to want a premium just to
bulk up overhead in the event of legal problems which are expensive. I doubt
there's a rule that he must apportion expected legal expenses on the rest of his cakes
when he suspects this one is going to cost him 5 grand for legal and court
costs.

[Crash2Parties]

22. All they'd have to do is show that the price is much lower for non-LGBT people.

Racists tried that trick years ago & the courts saw right through it. It is the opposite of "free market".

[forgotmylogin]

24. They should refuse the decoration, but offer instead a blank cake at regular price.

Sell the customer the tools and the frosting to decorate it how they want, but any artist deserves the right to refuse a commission for specific art they feel they cannot accomplish.

[Crash2Parties]

32. *if* the business is set up as commission work. It's not. It's set up as a bakery w/ special orders

[forgotmylogin]

35. Isn't every cake with customization a commission?

I think they just need a sign. "We're happy to take special requests, however, management reserves the right to quote and apply a surcharge for designs that require specialized artistic ability, are deemed risque or offensive, or require special resources to accomplish."

You want your cake covered in gold leaf? Sure, but you pay for it. You want your cake covered in hate-speech? Sure, but you pay for it.
You want a gay cake topper? We don't have them, but we'll charge you to special order it ahead of time so you can place it on the plain cake we make for you.

[haele]

34. Or they could give him a cake an option of a pack of candy letters he can spell his message with.

There's all sorts of eatable and non-eatable cake party decorations you can get at bake shops or even places like Target, Walmart, and Party City. Just ask for a plain cake with the frill decorations if the baker objects, and then go for the alternatives. Unless the look is more important than the taste. In which case, get a fake cake.

That's what I've always wondered about wedding cakes. If there's an objection on the message, they can make due with an option to make the layer cakes with everything but the topper or names, and then who knows what it's used for?

I've seen "wedding cake" style cakes for everything from graduation parties and promotion parties to baby showers and anniversaries. It's just a style. And it's business - who gives up money and the chance to get their quality product out in public?

Every successful baker I know got their business off the ground because a bunch of people saw the cake at a celebration of some sort, and they were pleasant and accommodating. A very religious (Catholic) professional baker I know makes a lot of money off R-rated and X-rated cakes for the swinger, gay, and biker communities alongside her communion and wedding cakes. She also has mastered cakes and cake-like sweets from different cultures and religious traditions so she can get business from the various refugee and migrant communities in the area.
That's how she made it through the last economic down-turn. A baker who can turn out a variety of high-quality cakes at a reasonable price - even if the decoration is minimal, is always sought after.
Bakers - or any other quality service provider - never get any additional business because they pissed potential customers off with poor service, snotty attitude, or hard line "my way or high-way" attitude.

Haele

[7962]

30. Like charging different rent to different races. nt

[cstanleytech]

13. I hope they counter sued the SOB for damages. nt

[Tikki]

17. Or at least covered Court costs...

Last edited Mon Feb 13, 2017, 11:48 AM - Edit history (1)

I know it was probably minimal; but I would want it in writing that the plaintiff
covered every bit of every cost.

Tikki

[lambchopp59]

20. Unsure if the RWNJ's are taking the cue from the likes of Trump's stupidity

Or the other way around. It seems the part of this push/pull that the RW'ers totally miss is that one celebrates a loving union between two individuals. What sort of sick, twisted hate-fest would the opposite centerpiece for?
This stuff literally makes me sick to my stomach and here's why. I had the dubious misfortune to meet, briefly, the master of hate himself, Fred Phelps. It was his extended family in that small town that incited violence and hatred specifically towards me, and everyone there knows it. I often wonder if any of the participants even have a clue how utterly horrible they acted, especially in the retrospect of current acceptance and inclusion. I'll never know. I burned my bridges back there at 16 years old and lived in a cardboard box to escape the bullying.
Beyond that, how anyone can be a "Log Cabin Republican" when 90 percent of their party wants to strip away all rights to, well, anyone not straight, white and "Christian".

[ck4829]

25. Beautiful

[Hoyt]

26. That's Resistance!

[MrPurple]

27. Plaintiff should be charged with filing a frivolous lawsuit

[melm00se]

29. be careful

what you wish for.

this created a template for anti-gay bakeries and businesses to refuse to sell to them.

[markpkessinger]

33. Not really, it didn't

The primary product a baker produces and sells is baked goods, not the message that may (or may not) be used to adorn a cake. She didn't refuse to sell cake to the guy. She simply refused to put a particular message on it. Bakers have never, so far as I know, been under a requirement that they put any message at all on any cake they sell, let alone one they disapprove of, just because a customer wants it. I can imagine many things a baker might refuse to put on a cake, either because the baker strongly objected to the message, or because he didn't want his product, and hence his business, associated with a hateful message. This baker did not refuse to sell products to this guy, or even provide products for whatever event the guy had in mind. They simply refused to put a particular hateful message on their product. I'm pretty sure an anti-gay baker would be free to refuse to put the words, "To the happy couple - James and Joseph" on a cake (ridiculously petty though it would be to refuse to do so), so long as they didn't refuse to provide cake for a gay wedding

This guy obviously thought this was the inverse of those bakers, florists, etc., who have been 'forced' to 'participate' in or 'support' gay marriages. But the notion that such vendors, when selling their products or services, necessarily support, let alone participate in, gay marriages merely because they supply cake or flowers to a gay wedding is a red herring in any case. For these vendors regularly sell products to customers while having no bloody idea how,and in what context. that product will be used. These vendors no more 'participate' in gay weddings than a florist 'participates' in the adultery of some dude who orders flowers to be sent to his mistress.

Fortunately, the Court also saw right through the guy's attempt to create a definitive association between Christianity and the message he wanted on the cake. Anti-gay bigots, after all, come in all flavors of religion and of non belief. And even IF he could provide chapter and verse in the bible that contained the text exactly as the text of his cake message was worded, those parts of the Bible that are assumed (often wrongly, thanks to mistranslations of mistranslations over many centuries), none of them are exactly core teachings of Christianity.,.

But we shouldn't really be surprised by this coming from evangelical fundamentalists. These are the same folks who think they are being 'persecuted' merely for being denied a cultural hegemony and being asked to stand on the same footing as other faiths and of non-belief..