Gay Cake Bake Legal Case

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The Christian Baker who refused to bake a cake with a homosexual wedding message on it lost everything.  The business is gone.  They went bankrupt.  The court case, however, lives on, and The United States Supreme Court has heard the oral arguments on it.  This is dangerous.  I am not excited when the federal government, especially the courts, begins to stick their fingers into issues regarding our rights.  In fact, the Constitution strictly forbids it.

Natural Rights have five characteristics, four of which are listed in the Declaration of Independence.

1. We are entitled to our natural rights.

2. Our rights are self-evident.

3. We were endowed with our rights by our Creator (rights are God-given).

4. Our rights are unalienable.

5. The rights of one person extends only to the limits of the rights of another.

Notice that nowhere in any of that is it stated that government's role is to guarantee our rights, or force the members of the population to follow the government's definitions of our rights.  In fact, if you read the Bill of Rights, you will notice that the Founding Fathers believed that the federal government was the greatest threat against our natural rights, and therefore told the government "hands off," "do not touch."

The beginning of the 1st Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law."  The 2nd Amendment concludes with "shall not be infringed."  The 3rd Amendment begins "No soldier shall."  In the middle of the 4th Amendment it states, "shall not be violated."  That's not language ordering the federal government to guarantee our rights, it is language telling the federal government that our rights are out of bounds when it comes to their authorities.

Legal scholars and most Americans believe that all changed with the 14th Amendment.  The "Equal Protection Clause" and the "Due Process Clause" were designed to protect the rights of the newly emancipated former slaves.  The previously pro-slave States of the defunct Confederacy were passing laws that discriminated against non-whites.  The clauses of the 14th Amendment were designed to disallow the State governments from passing such racist laws.  The 14th Amendment specifically states, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The 14th Amendment is a part of the argument being used by the homosexuals in their crusade against Christians.  They call refusal to accept and promote homosexuality "discrimination."  They have equated their campaign to normalize homosexuality in our culture with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

First of all, we must go back to the fifth characteristic of our natural rights.  A right cannot extend into the rights of others.  I have a right to swing my arms, but I do not have a right to swing my arms into the nose of my neighbor.  My right to drive through an intersection stops at the tip of the bumper of the next driver.  I have a right to seek medical care for my ailments, but I do not have a right to force a particular doctor to be the person to administer that care.

The alleged right of the homosexual to marry or have a gay relationship cannot slam its fists into the nose of the religious rights of those who do not recognize homosexuality as normal behavior.

We must also pay close attention to the language in the 14th Amendment.  Notice that the way it is written it does not require individual citizens or businesses not to be racist.  The mandate concerns the States.  The 14th Amendment says that the States cannot make laws that interfere with the privileges or immunities of the people, nor their rights, without due process of law - and those laws must be equally administered to all people.  No preferential treatment under the law is allowed.

The 14th Amendment applies to the States, and laws that they may make, not to the citizens' daily lives and activities.

Technically, if a business owner wishes to discriminate, they can (as long as there are no State laws prohibiting that practice).  Remember the signs on the walls of businesses we used to see all the time, "We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone"?

A few years back a mall security guard arrested and threw off the mall property a youth pastor for "proselytizing" on their premises.  Truth is, I wrote back then that while I believed it was messed up regarding what they did, as the private owners of that property, the owners of that mall had every right to have a code of conduct related to their property, and anyone who did not abide by that code of conduct could be, and ought to be, removed from the property.  It's their mall.  Their mall, their rules.

Do we really want government dictating to people what they can and can't do with their own property?

Government already does, in many way, as it is already.

We have property taxes, we have to get permits to do this or that.  Heck, in my city, Murrieta, California, I am being ticketed for having a dead front lawn, and a tree in my back yard with dead leaves on it.  Meanwhile, I had a neighbor receive a warning for over-watering his lawn.

I have been refusing to pay the tickets.  It's a property rights issue, in my opinion.  It will get interesting soon, I am sure.

To be honest, my property is none of the government's business.

Which brings us back to the cake bakers.

According to the media, the case regarding Colorado Baker Jack Phillips, and his refusal to create a custom-cake for a homosexual wedding, is one that will define the government's role regarding free speech, religious liberty, and same-sex marriage.

Do we really want the federal courts and the federal government making decisions regarding our rights, like that?

Doesn't the 1st Amendment begin with the words "Congress shall make no law"?  And if the legislature can't touch these issues, what makes the courts think they can?  The federal court system does not have the authority.  Such an authority is not expressly enumerated in the United States Constitution. . . at all!

For those of you who wish to use the Marbury v. Madison argument, it's a bad argument.  Do you really wish to believe the courts can give themselves authorities through the opinions of activist judges?

Attorneys for Phillips have explained that he seeks to exercise his freedom only to speak messages that he agrees with, while still welcoming all customers into his store. The First Amendment’s free speech and religious liberty clauses protect his freedoms to do just that, according to his legal team.

We must ask ourselves, "Is it government's role to mandate mutual tolerance?  Is it government's role to compel our speech, and force us to participate in a movement even if we are in disagreement with it?  Should, then, atheists be forced to bake Christian cakes?  Should Muslims be forced to bake Jewish cakes?  Should gay bakers be forced to bake cakes with anti-homosexuality messages on them?  If the Christian must be forced to bake a gay wedding cake, then the previous situations must also be allowed.  We live in a society where we demand that there is no preferential treatment, right?  Besides, how is a disagreement over a sexual behavior even remotely related to 'discrimination'?  Do we really want government imposing its view of marriage on the rest of us?  Must we be mindless automatons who only agree with government dictates (resistance is futile)?  If government must guarantee the rights of gays with Christian Bakers, then it would be reasonable to assume government must also guarantee the rights of Christians around homosexual business owners and force those gay business owners to comply with the demands of Christian customers, even if the homosexual business owner disagrees with it, right?"

The thing is, the whole definition of our "Constitutional Rights" is a large part of the problem, here.  We don't have Constitutional Rights.  We have "Natural Rights" that were given to us by God, not by government.  It is not the government's role to guarantee our rights, and subsidize or force by law our rights, should we not have access to our rights because of other citizens.  If it is government's role to guarantee our rights, and use the courts to order that our rights are complied with, then I must ask, "Where's my court-ordered gun?"

Now that the Supreme Court has a hold of the cake case, the truth is, no matter what happens, there are going to be unintended consequences connected to the ruling that will change our society forever - and that is not a good thing.  Government has no authority to be involved in our natural rights, or the institution of marriage.  Frankly, the Constitution was written in such a way as to tell the federal government, "None of your business, don't touch."  The problem is, in many ways we are living in a post-constitutional America.  The Rule of Law has become the Rule of Man, and when that happens, it's normally not very long before the people begin dancing around a golden calf.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary