Nobody Has a Right to an Anti-Gay Wedding Cake, Either

Theodore Shoebat is the answer
to the question, “Why should anybody care so much about freedom of
association, anyway?” Shoebat and his father, Walid, have a
Christian conservative site that
features stories with headlines like “The Homosexual Empire,”
“America Is Becoming an Agent of Satan (We Are Now Living in Sodom
and Gomorrah),” and “America’s Most Embarrassing Muslim Spy and His
Terrorist Connections Have Been COVERED UP and are NOW
EXPOSED.”

So probably not the site for me, and a lot of folks, and that’s
fine. The Internet is a big and wonderful place. Shoebat recently,
though, performed an
experiment some fans of freedom of association simply ponder.
He called a bunch of gay or gay-friendly bakeries to see if they
would make a cake for him that says “Gay marriage is wrong.” He has
posted videos of his conversations on YouTube and you can
watch them here.  

Shoebat is kind of his own worst enemy in trying to perform this
experiment. He can’t keep from referring to the homosexual agenda
“in California” and trying to argue with the folks in the other end
of the call rather than simply asking if they’d sell him the cakes
he wants. And his claim that they all rejected him isn’t exactly
true. His first call is to a cookie place, not a bakery. After
arguing with the woman and saying that she’d be discriminating
against him if she refused to make his cookie, she finally says
she’ll do it, though sarcastically says she’d add a big penis to
the cookie. When a baker says they won’t make him the cake because
“They don’t support that,” he doesn’t respond by saying that he’s
not asking them to support his position, just make a cake. Instead
he asks them why they don’t support his statement, which is missing
his own point. Shoebat needed to be making the argument that it
shouldn’t matter whether they agree, because they’re just providing
a service.

But while it would have been better for a more articulate person
to have performed this experiment, it’s instructive nevertheless.
If bakers are a “public accommodation” as is argued, there’s no
reason for them to refuse to make these cakes or cookies or what
have you. The bakeries would not be saying “Gay marriage is wrong.”
They’re just selling a cake to somebody who believes that. Just as
making a gay wedding cake is not an endorsement of gay marriage.
It’s just fulfilling a customer’s orders.

But it’s wrong on both counts. Nobody should, by order of the
government, have to make Shoebat’s stupid cakes. And nobody should
be forced to make gay wedding cakes either. Ethical and moral
consistency requires demanding both or neither, not one or the
other. Somehow some people see that it’s
obviously wrong for anybody to be forced to make Shoebat’s cakes,
but not gay wedding cakes.

Related:
“Nobody, Gay or Straight, Has a Right to a Wedding Cake”