The backing by the LDS Church, the Utah senators in Congress and a majority of the Utah state senators of a Colorado cake baker’s refusal to bake a cake for a gay couple on religious grounds would be laughable at best if it were not so totally offensive. A “Friend of the Court” brief, really?
I am certain Jesus would not have signed on; however, I will give the baker a pass (not the rest of his supporters), if the baker can comply with the following: (1) come up with a way to beam him or herself into the bakery without using our air space; (2) ensure that none of the ingredients for the cake are planted, grown or sold or otherwise disseminated from our lands and markets or baked through the use of our appliances or utilities; serves no other customer who enters or travels to the bakery by our public space, including our air, our sidewalks and our streets; and (3) accepts payment from those customers who are able to somehow beam themselves into the bakery, in kind and in the bakery, before they beam out.
It would be easy to go on, but I see it is not necessary; the problem is solved; the baker could not bake a cake for the gay couple or any cake for that matter. Lester Maddux closed his restaurant in 1965 rather than agreeing to serve African Americans, claiming that, “President Lyndon Johnson and the communists put him out of business.” No Lester, it was America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The baker’s supporters should check out our Declaration of Independence, specifically the second paragraph, which states, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
God creating us in His own image is a pretty fair argument on its own, but the pious will have answers for that. Can anyone really believe this baker’s claim has anything to do with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” I don’t believe it. Discrimination, self-serving piety is what it is.
Leonard W. Burningham, Esq., Salt Lake City