During a recent CNN appearance to discuss the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, Rick Santorum lost his cool when the conversation turned to business owners denying service to gay people.
Santorum says LGBTQ folks should stop worrying over the so-called “religious freedom” movement.
Speaking to legal expert Jeffrey Toobin, Santorum said:
“The idea that there’s a contention that bakers don’t allow gay people in their shops, that has never been the issue, and it’s not the issue. And you’re distorting it! To bake a cake for a ceremony that violates their religious tenets. That’s a fundamentally different thing than walking in the door and quit trying to be extremist on these things when that’s not the issue and you know it’s not the issue!”
“No one said you can’t walk in and buy a cupcake at a bakery,” he added.
Related: The Trans Man Denied A Haircut Over “Religious Freedom” Is Exploring A Lawsuit
Except it actually is the issue, because once the it’s-OK-to-deny-gay-people-service ball starts rolling, momentum can keep it moving; that’s the frightening prospect of a far right-leaning SCOTUS.
Toobin tries to make this argument, posing another hypothetical:
“How about when an inn owner says my inn is a product of my artistic and personal vision so an inn owner says I don’t want gay people staying here? That’s what the next case is about.”
“I would probably side with you on that,” replies Santorum.
Got it. So we’re to trust that the guy who fought tooth and nail against LGBTQ equality to keep religious bigots from going too far.
Watch the exchange below:
justyouandi
OK, this example has been done to death, but it looks like this is the only way some people are going to understand it:
A jewish baker will sell his cupcakes to anyone who walks in the door, but should he also design a cake celebrating the Holocaust, including with a swastika, and would you really expect a Muslim baker to design a cake for a gay wedding, or for any number of other events in which you and I would participate. No! They get a pass. Why shouldn’t the white Christian baker?
The anti-Christian bigotry is alive and growing.
mujerado
Except that the Jewish baker wouldn’t be basing his refusal on anything expressed in his religion, but on the fact that the Nazis persecuted his people. What have gay people done to hurt Christians? Does writing “John loves Eddy” on a cake, or putting two grooms on top of it, cost the baker any more time or effort than writing “John loves Mary” with a bride and groom? Does it do any harm whatsoever to the baker, or to his beliefs? If it does hurt his beliefs, I have to think his beliefs aren’t very strong.
If the Christian baker honestly believes Jews killed Jesus, can he refuse to draw a menorah on a cake, or to write “Happy Hannukah” on it? If not, what’s the difference? It’s based on firmly-held belief. Can the Jewish baker refuse Christian symbols, or a Christmas decoration, or a Christian marriage? Can every baker pick and choose what he puts on a cake, and use the excuse that it’s against his beliefs? Just how far down that rabbit hole are you willing to let things go?
DuMaurier
@mujerado, your point about the Jewish baker seems to say that a refusal is fine for any reason other than religious belief, which is odd (what if his objection to the swastika was—as per his own claim—religiously based? Would he then have to do it?)
In the Masterpiece case the baker was wrong precisely because he made it clear he wouldn’t make any wedding cake for a gay couple, even one that looked just like one he’d make for a straight one. There are always gray areas, but overall, a business owner shouldn’t have to custom design a product to ‘express’ a distinct message he finds offensive. Which is why a gay or pro-equality baker doesn’t have to make one with anti-LGBT symbols or words.
paul dorian lord fredine
bite your anti-christianity bull.
Chrisk
@justyouandi. How about we expand that out to any number of professions like Doctors and Landlords and such. Once you open the gates all is fair game. The cakes are just a testing ground the larger war that’s coming.
Record Man
That’s an invalid comparison. If the Jewish baker wasn’t already offering Holocaust or swastika cakes to his other customers, then he’s under no obligation to start doing it for anyone.
But if he had been selling them as a regular item in his public shop, then he can’t pick and choose his customers. The anti-discrimination laws require him to sell them to anyone with the money to pay for them.
Besides, selling a cake doesn’t equal participation in the ceremony. It’s a food item served to the guests, and what happens to the cake after it leaves the store is none of the baker’s business and no reflection on him.
We all know this isn’t about “religious freedom” anyway. That baker in Colorado thought he’d found a clever way to raise his middle finger at the gays, and get away with it. The anti-gay bigotry is what’s growing, cupcake.
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gayhope1990
Don’t care about so called Christian victims.
dwes09
It is telling that the example “jusyouandi” pulls out of his butt suggests a cake celebrating the legal union of two individuals is the moral and ethical equivalent of one advocating the torture and murder of people based on faith/ethnicity.
And he (or she) is so dull they don’t see how this is a false equivalency.
and yes, if a Muslim baker refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage, the same legal issues would apply…local, state and federal nondiscrimination laws. But like all regressives, you cannot let logic or reality interfere with your fantasy world.
maxpsfund
Real simple if you want to discriminate be a private club/business with membership. But if you are a business open to the public you serve all!
I don’t understand why people give credence to religion unless they can prove god is real and she said what she said. They can’t even agree on what should or shouldn’t be in the bible, so why allow them to speak as if they know without proof!
Thad
Rick Santorum lost his last election. Why are you unearthing him?
dwes09
He is unfortunately called in as a “spokesperson” and “consultant” for news media doing stories on “faith based issues”. He is on the news way more often than he should be, though to be fair he often comes of as worthy or ridicule and sometimes is ridiculed by the person interviewing him.
paul dorian lord fredine
frothy didn’t actually throw a fit about anything, just spewing more of his christocrap.
justyouandi
DuMaurier, I don’t know any Christian who believes the Jews killed Jesus.
Devout Christians and Jews (and Muslims) believe homosexuality is sin, so designing a wedding cake for a gay couple would be celebrating sin. Simple as that.
I’m sure a gay couple could easily find a baker and florist in any city who would be happy to accommodate them. Stop bullying the businesses you know before you walk through their door won’t bake your cake.
Kangol
There is not a single word in the four Holy Gospels, which detail the life of Christ, mentioning homosexuality. Not a single word. You find me one. Jesus Christ of Nazareth never mentioned it. He did mention mistreating strangers and other crimes that anti-gay fanatics engage in. You sound like one. Also, not all devout Christians, Jews and even Muslims believe homosexuality is a sin. Please take your homophobic, un-Christian verbiage elsewhere.
Toofie
100% correct Kangol!
Chrisk
@Kangol. The bible is also very pro abortion. Many examples in there that support it. Yet they’re still frothing at the mouth insane over that.
Josh447
True. But “God” did and I think he trump’s Jesus as the final say. He did after all, have Jesus murdered as sacrifice and if his behavior is studied, he would be a prime candidate for capitol punishment. If you ever find him, run him into your closest police station.
The reason Jesus said nothing in the Bible about homosexuality was due to the Council of Nicea 325a.d. and the “deals” that were made about what books would and would not constitute the Bible.
Irregardless, homosexuality is as sacred as heterosexuality as love is the core for marriage. “God” being the flaming director of confusion through divide and conquer, made us the bad guys. It’s all changing though. God, or it, is losing control as people wise up. Things are coming to the surface and corruption is up and resolving, though it will take decades to do it all.
justyouandi
Hey guys, I’m not preaching here ….. I’m telling you the reasons these people took the positions they did.
bodie425
Well, the Bible isn’t very kind to gluttons either so does that mean bakers can refuse to sell to fat people? Sick of christian bullshit. On the other hand, if I knew a baker was a fundegelical fuckwit, I wouldn’t want to spend a cent at their establishment. I do want to spend my money at businesses that value me and the LGBTQ community as a whole.
gayhope1990
Go to your straight websites.
dwes09
You may not know any Christians who believe Jews killed Jesus, but as a Jew, I most certainly have interacted with some. And beyond our anecdotal experience, statistics show they are out there and that the belief is one of the drivers of anti-semitism.
But that is not the point. The point is that this is a secular republic and local, state and federal regulations applying to public places of business trump religious belief. Or at least have throughout the modern era, until the rise of modern dominionism.
dwes09
“The bible is also very pro abortion.”
As far as I recall from my brief reading of them, specifically Christian scripture (the four Gospels, and associated writings) say nothing at all about abortion.
Tanakh (what Christians call “the old Testament”, as well as the Prophets and associated books) accept abortion and miscarriage as a fact of life (intentional causing of an unwanted miscarriage through injury of a pregnant woman is, in modern terms, a misdemeanor and abortion is never mentioned at all). And Tanakh is quite clear that a fetus is not considered a person until it has been born and taken its first breath, when the soul/spirit was presumed to enter the body. The punishment for disobedience to one’s parents or blasphemy is worse than that for causing an unwanted miscarriage.
And the biblical punishment for homosexuality is the same as that for adultery, so the Uber-Christian revulsion towards it is rather perverse, as adultery seems rather popular with them.
Evangelicals and fundamentalists seem to know very little about what the books they profess to revere actually say or mean.
maxpsfund
Why should any public business be able to discriminate against anyone on an unproven belief system? You want to discriminate against people be a private club/business with membership. Advertise your beliefs and tell the world, then the people who want to support or not support your business can freely do so and you stop being a hypocrite.
greybat
Rick doesn’t seem to know that Wedding Cakes have no Religious significance, nor are they used in any Ceremony that I know of.
They are a Refreshment served at a Party.
David
This sad pathetic closet case is desperate for airtime as Fox News has stopped taking his calls.
Invader7
Santorum is a cupcake. And a vile, pathetic, evil bung hole. CNN brings on some of the sleaziest losers-he being one.