Life Begins at Conception, Says Department of Health and Human Services

[Jazzhead]

Exam question:

If I am a sign painter, and I advertise that service, am I free to turn down a customer who wants a billboard saying "F*ck all Ni**ers!!"?

I paint signs for a living. I offer a service to the public. Can I exclude one group and still continue to practice my trade?
How is this not bigotry to refuse to paint a sign that I find offensive?
How is refusing to create anything I find offensive not 'bigotry' or 'discrimination'?
Is it okay for the government to punish me for not complying with their orders to create something I find offensive?
When is it okay for the Government to force me to create something, regardless of whether I find it offensive?

For extra credit, list fundamental civil rights, in order of importance.

Easy exam.   Of course you can refuse to paint a message you find offensive.  Just as the baker can refuse to write words on a cake he finds offensive. 

But that's not what the baker did.   He advertised wedding cakes, and then refused service to a gay couple without any discussion whatsoever regarding the design or message on the cake.   The message wasn't the issue.  The baker's arbitrary bigotry was.   

[txradioguy]

Easy exam.   Of course you can refuse to paint a message you find offensive.  Just as the baker can refuse to write words on a cake he finds offensive. 

But that's not what the baker did.   He advertised wedding cakes, and then refused service to a gay couple without any discussion whatsoever regarding the design or message on the cake.   The message wasn't the issue.  The baker's arbitrary bigotry was.

The message WAS the issue.  The entire sham idea of a gay "wedding" is a "message".


It's amazing how in just the span of a few sentences you can take both sides of one issue.

I guess that's the upside to having situational ethics like you do.  You can be for something before you're against it.

[Jazzhead]

The message WAS the issue.  The entire sham idea of a gay "wedding" is a "message".


.

A customer can't expect to be able to read the baker's mind.  All the customer knows is that the baker advertises that he makes wedding cakes.  The customer entered the shop seeking the advertised service.   And that service was rejected for no valid reason at all (message, design),  but rather ONLY because of the baker's religious antipathy to gays.

Again - why is the existence of a legal remedy for such bigotry "tyranny"?     

[sneakypete]

A new human is created at conception. But the life is there before that. You don't put a dead sperm and a dead egg together and life begins. IMO, anyone who kills that life after conception is guilty of murder. Except is not an unlawful killing according to the state. Abortion is state sanctioned murder. That doesn't change the fact that it is murder. It is merely okay according to the state. So the question for me is whether or not I support the state that sanctions murder. And I do. Through forced taxation.

@bigheadfred

Don't feel put upon,Fred. Those of us who aren't superstitious support organized religions against our will though forced taxation. Nobody wins but the taxman.

[txradioguy]

A customer can't expect to be able to read the baker's mind.  All the customer knows is that the baker advertises that he makes wedding cakes.  The customer entered the shop seeking the advertised service.   And that service was rejected for no valid reason at all (message, design),  but rather ONLY because of the baker's religious antipathy to gays.

Why should the baker have violated Colorado law at the time?  At the end of the day...it wasn't his biblical belief that...correctly...homosexuality is a sin and that marriange is between a woman and a man though that did play a part.

It was the one point you ignore from everyone here that points it out.  At the time his bakery was targeted...gay "marriage" wasn't recognized in Colorado.  Hence it wasn't legal.

Why should this baker be forced to produce something for a ceremony that wasn't even legal in the state at the time?

Again - why is the existence of a legal remedy for such bigotry "tyranny"?   

You tell me...you're the one that wants tyrannical fixes to issues clearly defined in the Bible as well as the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

[txradioguy]

@bigheadfred

Don't feel put upon,Fred. Those of us who aren't superstitious support organized religions against our will though forced taxation. Nobody wins but the taxman.

What church are you being forced to support?

[sneakypete]

If they are the same sex they don't.  At least, not to the same sex, they have the same rights as all of us, a marriage is between a man and a woman.

@TomSea

You DO realize that is the same thing as telling a heterosexual sexual man he has the "right" to marry any man he wants to marry,right?

Are there any other "rights" you are willing to allow your fellow Americans to enjoy? Is there a list somewhere so we can look at it and see what is,and what is NOT,permissible in this "Free Country"?

[sneakypete]

Again - they were not forced to provide what they had not advertised to provide.   Their customers came to them for the specific services they advertised to provide, and were turned away because - why?  You say because of the baker's "conscience",  I say because of the baker's bigotry.

You can say you can flap your hands and fly to the moon if you want,but that doesn't mean you are right.

Correct me if I am wrong,but isn't the baker an American citizen or legal resident,with the SAME RIGHTS AS ANY OTHER AMERICAN CITIZEN OR LEGAL RESIDENT?

As such,he has the right to refuse to perform services that he finds morally or legally wrong. He bought a license to operate a business and perform a service,not to become a slave to the state with no more rights than a trained dancing monkey.

The customers were not harmed by his refusal because there was and is absolutely nothing preventing them from finding a bakery that would happily produce what the wanted.

The ONLY damage done here was done to the previously unquestioned RIGHT to individual freedoms.

Which may well come back to bite both you AND the homosexuals who filed the law suit in the ass,since we are either ALL free or NONE of us are free. Be VEWWY,WEWWY careful what you ask for,or you might get it.

But no matter.  It all comes back to the fact that that the baker set the rules of engagement- he advertised a specific service, and then reneged.

The baker is a businessman or businesswoman,NOT a slave to the public. In a FREE country,which the United States USED to be,businesses had an absolute right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. This right,as well as the US Constitution was upset by those bogus "Civil Wrongs Laws" that have done more to destroy this nation than any external enemy we have ever had.

   

To provide his aggrieved customer with a legal remedy is hardly "tyranny". 

     

It is nothing less,and if you can't see this you are blinded by your own bigotry.

[Suppressed]

A new human is created at conception. But the life is there before that. You don't put a dead sperm and a dead egg together and life begins.

That means that more than 100 million times per year, lives are lost before the mother even knows they're there.  She will never even notice them.

Why would God do such a thing?  I'm serious...I'm curious why you think God would be putting lives into unviable zygotes that will never implant nor develop.

IMO, anyone who kills that life after conception is guilty of murder. Except is not an unlawful killing according to the state. Abortion is state sanctioned murder. That doesn't change the fact that it is murder.

If that's murder, then there are negligent homicides, reckless endangerments, and manslaughters being committed.  https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uoh-cda051315.php

Alcohol drunk by a mouse in early pregnancy changes the way genes function in the brains of the offspring, shows the recent study conducted at the University of Helsinki. The early exposure was also later apparent in the brain structure of the adult offspring. The timing of the exposure corresponds to the human gestational weeks 3-6 in terms of fetal development.

In addition, the exposure to alcohol was found to cause similar changes to gene function in other tissues of the infant mice. These results suggest that alcohol causes permanent changes to gene regulation in the first cells of developing embryo.

It seems that by following your logic, any sexually active woman must be banned from drinking, under severe penalty, because the effects can result even before she is aware she's pregnant.

Clearly, this HHS draft would have broad implications, were we to use logic.

[sneakypete]

Why should this baker be forced to produce something for a ceremony that wasn't even legal in the state at the time?

@txradioguy

You completely miss the main point,which is the baker has the SAME rights as the customer. The baker has the same right to refuse to bake the cake as the customer does to go some other bakery to spend  his money. WHEN BOTH HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS,NO ONE CAN PROVE HARM.

If the state has the legal authority to DEMAND the baker bake something he finds offensive,he is no longer a free man,but a slave of the state.

[sneakypete]

What church are you being forced to support?

@txradioguy

ALL of them,via their tax-exempt status.

[txradioguy]

@txradioguy

ALL of them,via their tax-exempt status.

Ummm yeah ok.  Whatever.   

[bigheadfred]

That means that more than 100 million times per year, lives are lost before the mother even knows they're there.  She will never even notice them.

Why would God do such a thing?  I'm serious...I'm curious why you think God would be putting lives into unviable zygotes that will never implant nor develop.

If that's murder, then there are negligent homicides, reckless endangerments, and manslaughters being committed.  https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uoh-cda051315.php

It seems that by following your logic, any sexually active woman must be banned from drinking, under severe penalty, because the effects can result even before she is aware she's pregnant.

Clearly, this HHS draft would have broad implications, were we to use logic.

The answer to your question is covered on page 337, Section A, Subsection 1703a in The book The Law Of Creation--First Edition.  Sooo, you either skimmed over it or you have lost your copy, Andrei (obscure reference to the movie The Hunt for Red October).

Seriously, though, I think it is one of those things that is unknowable. So if you can't know it then don't worry about it.

[Jazzhead]

@txradioguy

ALL of them,via their tax-exempt status.

Tax the churches?  I'm all for it!

[stephen50right]

[bigheadfred]

+1000

[INVAR]

Tax the churches?  I'm all for it!

That will not be the only thing you will applaud be done to Christian churches and Believers either.

I think punishments are what you said you applaud government imposing upon those you have decreed to be 'fanatics' and 'bigots'.

[bigheadfred]

That will not be the only thing you will applaud be done to Christian churches and Believers either.

I think punishments are what you said you applaud government imposing upon those you have decreed to be 'fanatics' and 'bigots'.

I think if you tax the churches there will be more money to fund abortions. Whether they be human beings or wedding cakes.

[Jazzhead]

Taxing the churches (and the mosques and the synagogues) will never happen - but in my perfect world they'd be taxed on all property and income not associated with their charitable and educational endeavors.   It might encourage more churches to focus on their charitable missions as opposed to proselytizing.   

[Jazzhead]

Indeed.  What should unite us all is the desire to see the need for abortions to be as rare as possible.   

Every child should be a wanted child.  Effective contraception to enable family planning holds the key.   

[bigheadfred]

Indeed.  What should unite us all is the desire to see the need for abortions to be as rare as possible.   

Every child should be a wanted child.  Effective contraception to enable family planning holds the key.

And that effective contraception begins with sharing the Good Word with the morality it involves.

[thackney]

It seems that by following your logic, any sexually active woman must be banned from drinking, under severe penalty, because the effects can result even before she is aware she's pregnant.

Related existing law:

First Woman Charged Under Tennessee's Controversial Drugs-During-Pregnancy Law
http://time.com/2983767/first-woman-charged-on-tennessees-controversial-drugs-during-pregnancy-law/Jul 14, 2014

2 women charged with felonies after drug use during pregnancy, authorities say
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2017/03/2_women_charged_felonies_after.html
 March 21, 2017

Utah Mother Charged With A Felony For Using Meth While Pregnant
https://thinkprogress.org/utah-mother-charged-with-a-felony-for-using-meth-while-pregnant-1b916dd2cca/
APR 22, 2014

[thackney]

Tax the churches?  I'm all for it!

All non-profits?  Or just religious based community organizations?

[txradioguy]

Ok someone explain to me how this is considered an "unviable fetus".

That's a baby at 4 months old...or 16 weeks...4 weeks LESS than what most states who allow abortion state as their limit as to how far along a woman can be in order to perform an abortion.  That's right a baby in some states can be aborted at the 5th month of pregnancy.

Anyone who can look at that 3D ultrasound and still refer to that living breathing baby as an "unviable fetus" is a ghoul that has no soul.

[Smokin Joe]

Taxing the churches (and the mosques and the synagogues) will never happen - but in my perfect world they'd be taxed on all property and income not associated with their charitable and educational endeavors.   It might encourage more churches to focus on their charitable missions as opposed to proselytizing.   

Excuse me? You want the churches to not preach the Gospel now?