But they would be happy to bake him a wedding cake, for sure.

Hey James your analogy would be relevant if you were born a white nationalist

Gyms are not bakeries, dear. A private club, like a gym, can generally choose who to admit - just like how when you go to Club Z, it's only men, because it's a private club for men. If you were to go to Club Z and start spouting racial garbage, they would be within their rights to expel you from their club.

A bakery, which is open to the public, cannot discriminate against members of that public based on something as arbitrary as sexual orientation. If you wanted them to bake a cake with racial epitaphs on it, or a picture of you naked, they could refuse based on that, but not just because of a person's race, gender, etc.

@ 6, Either the latest trolls have become even more obtusely stupid, or life in the age of Tdumbp and Republinazis is so nihilistically hateful and insane that it can't be effectively parodied. Regardless, they're just boring and exhausting.

The bottom line is really whether or not you think the government in a free society has the right to force private entities into business contracts with each other. A privately owned bakery is not really a "public place" or "open to the public" in any more of a legal sense than is a nightclub or a gym.

The bakery issue is due to a state law (Colorado), not a federal one. The Colorado law is very unequivocal, any operation open to the public at all can not discriminate on certain factors, sexual orientation being one. 21 states have similar laws, but there is no federal law stating you have to bake a cake for a gay wedding. This same state law would make it illegal to bar someone from a gym or nightclub sexual orientation or gender.

You can feel one way or the other, regardless of the demographics in question.

@9 The bottom line is whether one thinks anyone holding a government issued business license should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, ethnicity or religion despite your freedumb Libertarian rhetoric. We already regulate what people can do in commercial/work environments.

@10: Regulating commerce in general is very much different than the government forcing you to do business with someone. I assume you are smart enough to know this and are just pretending to be dumb.

I did not make any actual arguments one way or the other, so I am unsure where this rage is coming from, but I hope you find a way to calm down.

@11 We are already telling business which entities they can/cannot work with (professional licenses, criminal activity, and on) so I am not sure who you are calling dumb, fuckwit.

your framing of the issue is that of Libertarian wingnut. My telling you so apparently makes you think I am raging? interesting.

@11) You have made it abundantly clear that you have zero understanding of US civil discrimination laws, zero understanding of US business regulations, and zero understanding of the legal requirements of opening and running a business in the USA. Stick to W.O.W.

Have you not noticed a trend here? Every comment posted here rightly points out how stupid you are. Even with an anonymous avatar that stings.

@14: Those are not examples of what I am talking about. The government telling a person he can not practice medicine without a license is not the same as the government telling a doctor which patients he has to accept and treat. Once again, I am just going to assume you are pretending to be too dumb to realize that. It is an odd rhetorical strategy, but I am giving you a lot of credit for sticking with it!

@15: Give me an example of how I got all of those things wrong. After all, the only statement of fact I made is that there is no federal law stating you have to bake a cake for a gay wedding under threat from the state. Are you saying there is such a law? What is the US code number for that law?

I think you may be thinking of the Public Accommodation Law, but of course, that would not apply in that particular case. I am sure you have it memorized since you know so much about these laws, but here is the law in question:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/…

What is "W.O.W?"

@17 "is not the same as"

That's called a strawman because nobody said it was the same, but government and the courts already tell businesses who they can and cannot work with or hire for a variety of reasons (from public safety to racial discrimination) so claiming the bakery case is some kind of "new encroachment on freedom" is simply not true whether or not you think that calling people dumb is an argument. Now fuck off.

@18: That is not a strawman argument, because your point was that because the government already regulates some business practices, they can regulate any other, something which is disproved by looking at basic regulatory law.

Me telling you why your fallacious argument was dumb is not in itself a fallacious argument.

Now please, stay the fuck on so I can keep laughing at your absent logic and profoundly dumb statements.

@19 yes, it is a strawman, businesses are regulated in who they do business with for a range of reasons already (from public safety to discrimination). Your appeal to ad-hominems and gratuitous affirmations is not convincing in the least.

In our current age, of the MeinTrumpfy, war is peace; freedom is slavery; and ignorance is strength. And everything else is just "FAKE NEWS!!!".

"I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man." --Oscar Wilde

Glad to see you haven't Oscar's trepidation to do battle here, Theodore.

Now this -- is Entertainment.

Pretty good mug shot of Johnson, have any more? I spend some time in Fremont and I'd like to make sure i recognize him if I encounter him.

@21 hooo, so sorry that repeating the facts that Teddy desperately wants to ignore doesn't meet your approval, or is it that you too think that prohibiting sexual discrimination forces business to do thing in ways that prohibiting racial discrimination or obscenity or crooks don't already do?

But Theodore dear, wouldn't it be true that most gyms - or at least the ones that operate under a membership program (which is most of them) - are not open to the public? If you have to pay dues, are you a public entitiy?

For instance, if I went to the Rainier Club and asked them to bake a cake for a gay wedding, could they refuse? They wouldn't of course, because they're not Bible-addled nitwits, but couldn't they, if they so chose?

That’ll show’m won’t it. You just gotta love the oxymoron of an organization called “The Southern Poverty Law Center”.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017…

@23 Theodore’s ignoring facts (and here I was, thinking it was just the other way round…)? Wouldja mind, pointing a few of them out to me? Greatful, I’ll be.

I guess he did Nazi that coming.

Greg Johnson's website publishes such alt-right novels as "Hold Back This Day", probably his most successful endeavor. I've read it, and though it is very well written, it's pure racism.