A local baker is coming under attack for creating a custom cake for a client, featuring a red "Make America Great Again" cap. In other words, a Trump cake.
Rachel Dott is the owner of Coccadotts Cake Shop in Albany. They are best known for appearing three times on the Food Network's "Cupcake Wars". They are also well known locally for their elaborate, custom designed cakes and cupcakes for kids and adults across the Capital Region.
Earlier this week, Dott posted a photo of a cake that had been created for a customer, as she often does. Her Facebook page is a giant gallery of cakes featuring everything from designer handbags, to Jack Daniels bottles. This time however, her client wanted a cake to look like the -GASP- red MAGA cap.
As Dott expected, there was immediate backlash. What she did NOT expect were the personal attacks on her and her family, and threats of protests and violence against her shop. While she removed the post and deactivated the business page, the vitriol continued on other social media platforms.
This is just one example of the hate that she has faced:
Whoa. I'm not even getting into how a discussion over a cake somehow devolved into a Blue Lives Matter debate, but this is just insane.
Can we just all take a timeout here? Let's rewind all the way to 2018, when the US Supreme Court heard the case of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. The baker claimed that doing so conflicted with his religious beliefs, and he had the right to refuse. The Supreme Court disagreed with him, and ruled that denying the couple the cake amounted to discrimination based on their sexual preference or identity. You know what else is protected? In most states, it includes age, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, mental illness, gender, religion and yes, political affiliation.
So, if Coccadotts had refused to bake the cake, they would have been guilty of the same thing as the Colorado baker. I suppose Dott's biggest offense may have been putting a photo of it on the shop's social media page. But so what? It's an example of her work, which is quite varied and specific to each of her customers. The mere act of baking the cake is not promoting a political agenda. It is fulfilling an order. However, a refusal to bake the same cake would amount not only to discrimination, but using her shop to make a political statement.
To the people who were outraged that a baker would refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, but are all up in arms over a MAGA confection: You can't have your cake and eat it too. -Kelly
LISTEN BELOW to the podcast on this topic.