But they already did come knocking for an industry I was in. Despite the fact there are stores in all 50 states selling the product, and it’s gray-area legal in all of those states and explicitly legal for cannabis in about half the country, it’s difficult to openly sell blown glass art pipes on PayPal for long. They will shut down your account, keep your money for as long as possible and ban you for life ostensibly for violating federal paraphernalia law. Thankfully, it’s not as if PayPal has a monopoly on handling payment.
Yes, a moral difference clearly in favor of the conspiracy theorist.
1) A cake is not as important as speech.
2) The gay couple had many other alternative options.
3) There was no shadowy group working to ensure that nobody would bake a cake for the gay couple.
There is a clear group setting out to unperson Alex Jones.
The issue wasn't what they were purchasing but rather the reason they were refused service - their sexuality. If Alex Jones had been deplatformed because he was gay then you can bet you're ass we'd be mad. If the couple was denied service because they were known to say controversial things in public and the bakery didn't want to be associated with that I'd have no issue with that either.
By 'free speech' I assume you mean the universal idea that we should be able to express ourselves rather than protection from the government. I'm going to presume (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you also believe businesses 'are people too' and should have analogous rights. What about the business' "freedom of speech"?
I’m saying the what is far more important in this case than the why.
Speech is a fundamental freedom and getting a baker to make you a wedding cake is not.
> What about the business' "freedom of speech"?
PayPal is free to say they don’t like Alex Jones.
Facebook is free to put out a notification telling people Alex Jones is a liar.
I’m guessing you are really asking about freedom of association?
Provided there are clear alternatives then I don’t normally have a problem with a private company deciding who they want to do business with.
But that’s not the case here with social media or with credit card payment processing.
If there were thousands of alternatives available then it wouldn’t matter.
Instead there are only a handful of major corporations that control the respective markets and they appear to be colluding to deplatform Alex Jones.
The ruling was also very specific in that the case was not to set precedent and the ruling absolutely does not permit businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ.
1) Free speech purists, whether they agree or disagree
2) People who actually believe him
3) People who think Alex Jones' acting is a hilarious trainwreck of emotions (me!)