Tribune doubles down on swastika tweet
Friday, Dec 8, 2017 - Posted by Rich Miller
* You’ll no doubt recall this from yesterday…
As numerous people including myself said yesterday, unless and until Nazis are given protected class status under the state’s public accommodation laws, then this is a ridiculously horrible take.
* Natasha followed up with the Trib…
We reached out to editorial page editor John McCormick, asking about the tweet and whether the Tribune considered taking it down.
McCormick emailed us: “We often receive impassioned responses to editorials, op-eds and other content we share on social media. All of us promote our work to promote conversations. In the editorial, the line excerpted in the tweet acknowledges that it’s hard to understand the First Amendment issue of compelled speech if you don’t share the baker’s beliefs on homosexuality — so let’s try an example you can relate to, something you wouldn’t want to express. The most important word in this three-paragraph passage is the word ‘required.’”
Oy.
- anon2 - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:32 pm:
Bakers are entitled to refuse a particular design, but not to reject customers because of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or national origin.
- BucknIrish - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:36 pm:
Like Christian Mitchell said “should an avowed segregationist have to serve me at a lunch counter?”
Yes government REQUIREMENTS are necessary to give people rights and dignity.
- Anonymous - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:37 pm:
anon2 hit the nail right on the head. The argument isn’t about the message, it’s about being able to exclude a group of people from engaging in commerce.
- @misterjayem - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:38 pm:
Despite the fact that they are self-absorbed and overpaid, the Tribune Editorial Board would be relatively harmless if their dorm-quality musings didn’t needlessly drag the newspaper’s reporters (and their quality journalism) into disrepute.
Shameful.
– MrJM
- Amalia - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:38 pm:
oh John McCormick. you are such a nice man. but this is just wrong.
- Philosopher king - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:40 pm:
Respectfully disagree Rich. Using “extreme” counterexamples such as this is a fairly common way of debating philosophical principles. It forces you to test the logic of an argument in the face of an extreme. In this case, the question isn’t about who isnt or is a protected class, but rather what role the government ought have in forcing someone to do something. In the case of the baker, the question is whether the government can force the baker to bake when it violates the baker’s personal beliefs, no matter the justification for them. One case is a personal belief that we typically agree with - nazi’s are bad. Can a nazi walk into a bakery and ask a jewish baker to make a nazi cake? They surely can, but we’d probably say it’s okay that the Jewish baker say no, I won’t make that cake. It’s not that one is drawing a moral equivalency between being a person who dislikes nazis and someone who doesn’t like gay people, because there is none. But at an abstract level they are comparable, because both are personal beliefs. The idea of making the former a protected class in and of itself supposes a pre-existing moral framework. For instance, it would presupose an argument such as Gay people should be a protected class because, x y z. That’s a fair argument to make, but many people could disagree with the arguments behind making such a claim.
For instance, one view of discrimination law is that the role of the state is to correct for harms caused by the state itself. This would apply to laws ending segregation - since segregation was a state sponsored and enforced policy, thus the state is required to rectify the issue.
The case of the baker is different, it is premised on deeply held religious beliefs.
- Osborne Smith III - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:47 pm:
Swing and a miss by the Trib ed board.
- JohnnyPyleDriver - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:50 pm:
as much as I despise the Trib edit board, i think it’s worth pointing out that the California public accommodations law and protected classes include political beliefs, and the AG there has determined that Nazis would be a protected class under their law. Obviously not Illinois, and it’s never ACTUALLY been taken to court, but that’s at least relevant. There was one case where a restaurant kicked a nazi out of their establishment, and thereafter settled out of court when the nazi sued
- NoGifts - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:51 pm:
“Imagine a Nazi baker being required to put a Jewish religious symbol on a cake.” There, fixed it. /s LOL
- Chris - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:52 pm:
“Bakers are entitled to refuse a particular design, but not to reject customers because of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or national origin.”
This. EXACTLY this.
The problem with the Trib’s tweet isn’t about the lack of protected class status, but a more basic failure of the analogy. Not that fixing that failure makes for a strong point, but at least it wouldn’t be comparing apples to apple pie—they are suggesting that a requirement that an apple farmer sell apples to anyone who shows up with cash is akin to being forced to bake a pie for a particular customer.
It’s an incorrect analogy, even excluding the extremely ill-advised Nazi reference.
- Left Leaner - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 12:53 pm:
Wow. Just wow. A (nearly unbelievable) new low for the Tribune editorial board.
What’s next - being OK with its reporters being required to reveal their sources? Sheesh.
- Saluki - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:06 pm:
There should be a ban on comparing anything to the Nazis. Because, in actuality, nothing is like the Nazis other than actual Nazis.
- VanillaMan - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:07 pm:
Nazi analogies are poor analogies.
People who use them choose poorly.
Editorial writers worth their pay use creativity. persuasion, logic and presentation skills to make points. Editorial writers who resort to Nazi analogies reveal themselves to be unimaginative, lazy, unpersuasive and illogical.
By supporting this editorial, tronc reveals itself as being a publication written by unintelligent people.
It’s their choice to do so, and it is my choice to support media intelligently written.
- Chicago 20 - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:10 pm:
“We all have our likes and our dislikes. But… when we’re doing news - when we’re doing the front-page news, not the back page, not the op-ed pages, but when we’re doing the daily news, covering politics - it is our duty to be sure that we do not permit our prejudices to show. That is simply basic journalism.”
- Walter Cronkite
- Jocko - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:13 pm:
What is it about conservatives and apologizing? Just admit it was a lousy analogy and move on.
They could’ve asked, what about a Muslim baker being asked to put a likeness of Mohammed on the cake?
- cdog - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:15 pm:
Nice to see a Philosopher King weigh in on this.
To add, during the oral arguments this past Tuesday, it was reported that even the more liberal justices Sotomeyer and Ginsburg were exploring the First Amendment rights of speech that an artist might have.
They sought to clarify how much artistry was involved in the cake decorating profession.
This goes beyond accommodation statutes.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:19 pm:
Somebody should send John McCormick a link to Sullivan’s take on this. I think it’s spot-on. Here is a gay man taking the side of the baker, and making a heck of a compelling argument for why. Here’s an excerpt:
“Which is why I think it was a prudential mistake to sue the baker. Live and let live would have been a far better response. The baker’s religious convictions are not trivial or obviously in bad faith, which means to say he is not just suddenly citing them solely when it comes to catering to gays. His fundamentalism makes him refuse to make even Halloween cakes, for Pete’s sake.”
Money quote:
“In other words, if the liberals were more liberal, and the Christians more Christian, this case would never have existed. It tells you a great deal about the decadence of our culture that it does.”
As Rich would say, go and read the whole thing.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/andrew-sullivan-let-him-have-his-cake.html
- NoGifts - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:20 pm:
I don’t know who said it, but “when you use the Nazi comparison, you’ve already lost the argument.”
- SKI - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:23 pm:
Your logic is flawed Philosopher King. The problem with this example is that it is not really that similar. In the example, a Jewish baker is refusing to bake a cake and decorate it with an offensive symbol, a swastika. The Jewish baker is not refusing service because they are aware that this individual identifies as a Nazi, but because the product requested is offensive (i.e. Nazi symbol on a cake).
In the case where the baker is refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple, he is not refusing because he is being asked make a cake that is offensive, he is refusing it strictly because of the persons sexual preference. They were not asking the baker to put offensive images on the cake or anything different than what a straight couple would ask for.
Back in the day store owners would refuse service to people of color under the guise of religious beliefs. This case is no different.
- Blue dog dem - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:46 pm:
We will never be able to legislate right from wrong. We will never be able to legislate unions. The only way is through consumer spending. With the advent of social media, these folks will meet their maker(so to speak). Let those who believe in their cause have their way. Its only temporary until co.sumers make them think otherwise.
- Michelle Flaherty - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:47 pm:
What’s the Sun-Times to do but come out as anti-swastika cake?
#2NewspaperTown
- igotgotgotgotnotime - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:56 pm:
If your religious conviction requires you to discriminate against any person on the basis of their innate identity, you should probably think about that.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 1:58 pm:
This tweet shoulda been swept away by a hurricane…
Then McQueary can finally save face, it’s like a perfect storm two-fer…
Needless to say, about the tweet and the doubling down are not passing, for me, any measure of trying to encourage honest discourse.
- Former Hillrod - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:05 pm:
@ igot
Many Christians and probably Muslims do not believe that that identity is not innate but a choice.
- igotgotgotgotnotime - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:11 pm:
I enjoy my art after dinner with coffee. My heart is heavy when I break it into pieces with my fork, it’s like defiling a Da Vinci, and then I think; It’s just a darn cake, and I feel better.
- igotgotgotgotnotime - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:13 pm:
Just when did you choose your sexual identity, Hillrod, and was it a tough choice? I don’t remember choosing mine.
- Chris Widger - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:21 pm:
I think a better example than the Tribune’s absurd example would be something like “What if a gay baker were asked to bake a cake for a graduation ceremony a gay conversion camp was having?”. If the idea is for the shoe to be on the other foot, the Tribune’s hypothetical doesn’t actually do that (and is otherwise extremely offensive). You can still poke holes in my example, but the Tribune’s example precludes earnest discussion.
- ArchPundit - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:24 pm:
===Back in the day store owners would refuse service to people of color under the guise of religious beliefs. This case is no different.
Many of the arguments for slavery, Jim Crow, and anti-miscegenation laws were based on religious claims. That’s why we don’t allow those engaged in commerce t discriminate against a person of protected class because of their religious beliefs.
Which is why the argument about the Jewish Baker is backwards. Political belief is generally not a protected status for commerce (in other areas such as state actions it often is). The comparable situation is should a Nazi Baker be forced to make a cake for a Jewish wedding. Jews are a protected class as are all people in regards to their religious beliefs. Does the Nazi have to bake the cake since it likely violates the Nazi’s religious beliefs? Or does a KKK member need to bake a cake for an African-American wedding? The KKK usually bases their belie in a very distorted view of Christianity.
I’m pretty comfortable saying in both of those circumstances the answer is no, discrimination is not allowed in those cases as well as with a gay wedding cake.
- Anonymous - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:42 pm:
Another reason why I don’t read or buy that pos newspaper.
- wordslinger - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:49 pm:
The tronclodytes are miracle of physics. Thick as a plank, but light as a feather, all at the same time.
- wordslinger - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:52 pm:
Can you really reach a certain age and not be aware that alleged religous reasons were the base rationales for segregation and Jim Crow?
Those are crosses the KKK is burning, not golden arches.
- Sense of a Goose - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 2:57 pm:
Should a Muslim baker be forced to make a cake for a Christian confirmation with a cross on it? Ridiculous analogies abound. If you are a baker open to the public, you have an obligation to serve the public. I might be convinced if the cake design was in question but it would not be in line with my analogy. Can you open a shop entitled The Baptist Bakery and only serve card carrying baptists? Good luck with that business model.
- Blue dog dem - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 3:10 pm:
SoS. Why would you want yo patronize someone who doesnt want your business.? I auit watching the NFL because I hate the owners.
- Gooner - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 3:16 pm:
I remember when trolls used to comment on newspaper stories.
Now the Trib itself is doing the trolling.
Of course the Trib’s analogy is ridiculous. In the case in question, it is the same cake, regardless of who eats it. No special drawings are involved.
The Tribune is now the bored angry white male saying crazy things to get attention.
It is really sad how far that paper has fallen.
- wordslinger - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 3:16 pm:
–Why would you want yo patronize someone who doesnt want your business.–
That’s what they tried to explain to those black kids down at those lunch counters in Alabama. Couldn’t convince them with reason or fire hoses or dogs.
- Former Hillrod - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 3:28 pm:
@ igot
Where did I say what I believed? I was merely stating a fact and you had to get all huffy and attack me personally. Nice.
- old time golfer - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 3:33 pm:
McCormick needs to retire thats what he needs to do
- Dr Kilovolt - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 3:54 pm:
Well done, NoGifts. A far more apt analogy.
- Blue dog dem - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 3:56 pm:
Word. Not to be funny,.but what has changed. Bigots abound.
- wordslinger - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 3:58 pm:
–Not to be funny,.but what has changed. Bigots abound.–
Don’t worry, you’re not funny.
Can’t find the remote or something? If you’re lonely and need attention, get a dog.
- Wensicia - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:00 pm:
Nazis are to Jews as Gays are to Christians?
Is it possible to insult the Gay community worse than this?
- wordslinger - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:12 pm:
–But seriuosly, whst law or legislation has ever changed anyones heart?–
The law is meant to end discrimination in public accommodations, Mr.Lonely Hearts.
That’s your troll-toll for the day.
- Blue dog dem - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:13 pm:
Dog. Now thats funny.
But my question. What law or legislation has ever changed anyones heart?
- Blue dog dem - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:15 pm:
But I will pray for those sort of folks tonight and I hope it does some good. I know laws dont work.
By the way, whats trolling?
- Gooner - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:15 pm:
Blue Dog,
Your heart is not my concern. I don’t care if you are a nice person or mean. I’m not your dad. I’m not your wife. I don’t care.
I care if you discriminate.
Period.
End of story.
- Blue dog dem - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:26 pm:
Gooner. I can understand. But I only know it’s gotta start at the heart. If not, its meaningless.
- Gooner - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:32 pm:
No Blue, it really doesn’t.
Your view is amazingly self-centered and self-important.
Do you want to hate based on race? That’s your problem. It means your parents failed.
You want discriminate? Now we have a problem. The court system is going to figuratively kick you in the behind.
That’s the full story.
- Blue dog dem - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:41 pm:
Gooner. This is were your wrong. Suppose these dummies are forced to open there doors to everyone. Are you going to patronize them. No. I would rather them put a shingle one their door. Then I know not to do business there. It is you who are misguided. Dont know your parents, so I wont say they failed.
- cdog - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:43 pm:
This case is not about public accommodations.
Hello? What’s so hard about googling-up and reading about this.
This case is about regulatory bodies establishing rules which restrict a person from expressing their free speech rights, and exercising their religion with their art.
- wordslinger - Friday, Dec 8, 17 @ 4:45 pm:
–This case is not about public accommodations.
Hello? What’s so hard about googling-up and reading about this.–
What’s so hard about actually reading the thread reference to lunch counters for context before commenting?
More of a “wait to talk” then “listen” type?