Audio: EW Jackson on Gays, “Being Black,” and Baking Cakes

E.W. Jackson, from yesterday’s Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi and Tom Sherwood:

Here is what I have a problem with. I think that there has been an attempt to try to equate homosexuality with being black, or being American…an American of African descent. You cannot equate the two. Because one is an immutable outward characteristic which allows discrimination upon the mere visual inspection of a person; seeing them. The other is a matter of behavior, and where behavior is involved, people have to make judgments about how they feel about that behavior…

…If you own a bakery, as happened out in Seattle, and you bake cakes for people, and a couple comes in and says, look we’re a homosexual couple, we’re getting married, we want you to bake a wedding cake for us, see that’s behavior. Now, do you force that bakery…you’ve gotta back this cake for this gay couple, we don’t care what you think? Or do you allow them the freedom to say you know, I’ll bake…any other kind of cake, but my own convictions prevent me from doing what you’ve asked me to do? See, that’s very different than a black person walking into the bakery and saying will you bake me a cake, and the person saying, no I’m not going to bake you a cake because you’re black.

So, by this “reasoning,” what if a bakery owner belongs to a religion that “believes” black people (or Jews or Muslims or any other group of people) are bad, “unclean,” whatever? Should they not have to bake a cake for them either (or serve them in their restaurant, retail establishment, hotel, etc.)? I’m simply not following E.W. Jackson’s “reasoning” here, maybe someone can help me out. Also, in what way is homosexuality just some sort of “behavior,” as opposed to a deeply ingrained, even “immutable,” characteristic, just like being attracted to members of the opposite sex (aka, “heterosexuality”) or even race (which is largely a construct, as basically NOBODY is purely of one “race” or another – except for the HUMAN race, of course – and everyone has a wide mix of genetic material from hundreds of thousands if not millions of years of ancestors)? Finally, how should personal religious beliefs mix in a society that is governed by a secular constitution, the rule of (civil) law, and NOT by religious law? On all of those areas, I  believe that E.W. Jackson is extremely (emphasis on “extreme”) confused.