Never mind the many other bakeries nearby
Never mind that there are many other bakeries available to the couple. According to:
- Yelp (The Best 10 Bakeries near Downtown, Portland, OR)
Yellow Pages (Best 30 Bakeries in Portland, OR with Reviews – YP.com)
OregonLive.com (4 Portland bakeries make list of America's 50 best)
Foursquare.com (The 15 Best Bakeries in Portland)
The Helen Bernhard Bakery specializes in wedding cakes.
Finally, The Knot website lists 114 total vendors under Wedding Cake Bakeries near Portland OR
LET US CONSIDER the reason behind anti-discrimination laws in the U.S.
Back when segregation was common, blacks often were turned away from lodgings and restaurants. Even water fountains and bathrooms were segregated. (This was not only in the southern states.)
The federal government stepped in and forced businesses to cater to all comers, regardless of color, particularly businesses on heavily traveled routes, so-called “U.S.” highways.
Everyone, the courts ruled, had a right to decent accommodations and while there were those who fought the idea, over time almost all Americans accept the courts’ rulings as final.
NOW we have another same-sex couple who – with a wide selection of vendors – insists on having a cake made by perhaps the only vendor around Portland OR that has religious objections to catering to same sex couples. No one suggested in either case that the couples should be prevented from marrying – the only issue is the bakery owners refused to countenance the marriage by providing product – in one case, flowers, in another, a wedding cake.
If the Portland bakery was the only bakery in Portland that could provide a wedding cake, then the couple suing the owners might have a case.
But as clearly shown above, there are many bakeries in and around Portland that make cakes, some even specializing in wedding cakes.
This is the 21st century; save for the Amish, most Americans drive miles to stores, malls, schools, fitness clubs, etc. and et al. There was no indication in the MSN article that the couple lacked transportation, either private or public. Indeed, Portland has a multitude of public transportation options. (See http://tinyurl.com/ycexzvyr)
Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian claimed that "Today's ruling sends a strong signal that Oregon remains open to all."
Rachel Bowman-Cryer and Laurel Bowman-Cryer praised the ruling in a statement released through their attorney: "It does not matter how you were born or who you love. All of us are equal under the law and should be treated equally. Oregon will not allow a 'Straight Couples Only' sign to be hung in bakeries or other stores."
Unfortunately, business owners can be pilloried by vindictive would be customers who complain that their rights were violated by the business.
Never mind that, as in the case of the Portland bakery, there are many competing bakeries; if one baker preferred not to cater to a segment of the population the baker found offensive, the prospective customer should have gone to another bakery.
Under the current political correctness, merchants have no rights.
The Portland bakery fined by the state has since closed down; the logical result of a rejected customer’s complaint. Now no one can buy a cake, wedding or otherwise, from what must have been a well-respected business.
I am left wondering why would the lesbian couple make an issue of the owner’s refusal to sell to them when they could have, and IMO, should have, taken their custom to a bakery where it would have been welcomed?
Is this becoming the “American way”? If it is – and it seems to be becoming just that -- it is a shame.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
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