1.29.15 Editor’s Desk

Let’s be honest. Wedding cake isn’t all that different than a regular cake—at least in flavor. It just looks fancier. But lately it seems that’s the only thing major media outlets want to talk about.

In what is quite possibly the dumbest argument to come out of the same-sex marriage debate—and there have been a lot of asinine arguments—we’re suddenly a country that cares about not only weddings, but the food at the reception.

The basic discussion is simple. Can a business refuse services to someone because of their sexuality. No. There’s that annoying “all men are created equal” part of the Constitution that, no matter how hard some try, never incorporates the word “some” in front of “men.”

But it also begs the question as to why in the world anyone would want to utilize the services of someone who is so anti-them?

Would any gay or lesbian person approach Chik-Fil-A and ask them to cater their wedding reception? Of course not. It’s not only extremely tacky, but they would be throwing money—a lot of money—at a business with a track record of actively fighting against LGBT equality.

The corporation would probably refuse to cater such a wedding anyway, but who would be surprised by their response? It would be like clutching your pearls because you found out Mike Huckabee, the minister-turned-FOX-News-talking-head-turned-Presidential-candidate, doesn’t want to be the lucky guy standing before two men or two women as he joins them in holy matrimony.

Huckabee has every right to refuse to marry two people whose relationship he doesn’t support. Just like a Rabbi can refuse to officiate the wedding of a protestant male and a Jewish female, or a Catholic priest can refuse to officiate the wedding of two divorcees.

But now it’s all about the cake. Who can bake them? Who has to bake them?

Ever since it was decided that businesses cannot discriminate against same-sex couples for basic services—all of which developed from a case where a Colorado baker refused to bake the celebratory cake—there’s a new obsession with the three-tiered monstrosities.

And in all fairness, it’s not the media that’s obsessed—it’s the religious right.

The newest chapter of this insanity again comes out of Colorado, a state that has become a serious threat to taking Florida’s coveted “Weird News Capitol” crown and sash. This time, a baker is sued because she won’t bake a cake with “God Hates Gays,” complete with a giant “X” over a depiction of two men holding hands.

The “Christian” customer complained that he was discriminated against based on his “creed” and “religion.” How would he have reacted if the person in line before him ordered a cake with an image of Jesus on the Cross with the word “Myth” stamped across it? Outraged, is my guess.

For what occasion, exactly, does one order a God Hates Gays cake anyway?

And just days ago, Ben Carson, a Republican presidential hopeful, warned that gay couples who “force” bakers to make their wedding cakes run the risk of being poisoned by said baker. Thanks for planting that idea out there, Carson. What’s scarier is the comment drew laughs from his crowd at the Iowa Freedom Summit.

Take a moment and step back from the ridiculousness of this ongoing “story.”

We’ve become a country with talking heads more concerned about who makes who’s cakes than, say, education initiatives for our schools or the terrorist acts of ISIS.

Eventually, I hope, this chapter of insanity will close and those who have nothing else to say will fade into history.

As long as there is hatred for LGBT people, these crazy incidents will continue to trickle into the headlines. And as long as LGBT people keep trying to unexplainably throw their hard-earned money to businesses that vehemently dislike us, we’ll keep seeing this argument tie up our courts and waste newsprint and air time.

Anti-LGBT businesses will disappear in time. Hatred and inequality doesn’t survive in the corporate world. When word spreads about the mistreatment of any group, people just stop using that business’s services, and they’ll close their doors.

That will be the true icing on the cake.