As The Cookie Crumbles

Nothing like a good soap opera to piss off the masses. And as in most soaps, there are instances in real life when people just cannot leave people alone, when they can't get their way.

One such instance is the flap going on about a vendor's refusal to take a special order from a gay activist group for rainbow colored cookies, for "National Coming Out Day". The vendor's name is Just Cookies and they lease a space in the municipally owned facility called the City Market.

What actually transpired is a little unclear to this author. One story said the order was for rainbow colored cupcakes. Other media outlets reported the order was for cookies. It does make a little difference when you think about the name of the store, in question. The very name says "just cookies" and only an idiot would think that cupcakes would be on the menu.

But now the stakes have been raised higher and the story gets better.

Now that the thing has been blown out of proportion by the militant wing of the local gay community, the order has become irrelevant. It has become an issue on whether the store has the right to refuse a special order based on what the order represents or is bound by city ordinance to produce anything that a protected special interest group demands, when they demand it.

In Indianapolis, the city ordinance is clear that gays are a protected group. But the co-sponsors of that ordinance have supported the bakery's rights by clarifying that the ordinance protects against discrimination in matters of housing, education, and employment. Nowhere in the wording is there any implication that a business must sell special ordered cookies with rainbows on them.  Nowhere in the wording does it imply a business must be compelled to support any political cause that is against their personal belief system.

So according to the militants who want to use this as a political issue by using government to do their bullying for them, the bakery should lose its lease. These people are no different than other opportunists who want to create a crisis, when one does not exist.

There was no reason the organizer who tried to place the order couldn't have ordered the cookies and decorated them anyway they wanted. If the owner had then refused, there may have been more ground to stand on in their complaint. Or, they could have just said "thank you" and called another bakery. But instead, they wanted to take a page out of the Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson playbooks and seek media attention so they could advance their cause free of charge.

Imagine a world where any business owner would be forced to produce whatever a potential buyer wants, for fear of being labeled a bigot, a racist, or a hater of any kind.  We are getting close to that world now. What has started out as a noble quest for equality, fairness, and justice for people who have been historically wrongly discriminated against has now become a quest for empowerment. Instead of seeking out real instances of wrong treatment, they are more than content to manufacture and exaggerate them.

Doing this only diminishes any cause's credibility and risks missing a real instance that needs to be addressed and corrected. Maybe the old children's fable of "the boy who cried wolf" should be retaught and reviewed at the upper levels of education, instead of the crap they are putting out now.