Baking Gay Cakes and Painting Neo-Nazis

Kyle Kulinski made a response to Dave Rubin’s stance on whether or not a baker should be able to say no to making a cake for a gay wedding. Normally Kyle is more reasonable but in his response he completely misrepresented Dave Rubin’s position. Another problem here is Kyle completely conflates this commissioning issue with the issue of receiving service from an establishment.

Kyle showed a clip from the most recent Joe Rogan podcast featuring Dave Rubin. In the clip Joe and Dave only start the conversation about the topic, and it cuts before Dave really makes his point. Dave Rubin advocates for a baker’s right to deny a custom, commissioned gay wedding cake, but it’s already law that the baker cannot refuse that gay couple a cake already made, on the shelf. This distinction is important, because Kyle later goes on to say, “Well if gay people are in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi and break down and need gas and food, then all the racists deny them SERVICE, now their lives are in danger.” This is simply not Dave Rubin’s position, and the law already on the books would prevent this behavior, just as Dave explained. But, that doesn’t mean that a gay couple can force an anti-gay Christian artist to paint their gay wedding. Or a Christian can force a Muslim writer to write an article about how bad Muslims are.

But not only did Kyle selectively edit it to hide that fact, he opens his criticism with, “Dave Rubin has a pretty Far-Right position.” And later goes on to criticise Dave for painting the government as the big bad wolf, and says that Dave thinks the Civil Rights Act of ‘63 is only for race. Not only is that not true, but Dave says so in the same podcast that Kyle clipped, but that’s the way Kyle presents it to his audience.

Dave uses an example of a Jewish painter being forced to paint something Pro-Neo-Nazi as an example to how wrong this mentality is of forcing someone to perform an artistic task despite, or in opposition to, their principals. And because Kyle has conflated the right of service to the right of commissioned services, he goes on, “The fact that you brought up Neo-Nazis, that shows that you don’t understand the issue by any stretch of the imagination.” Kind of ironic coming from the dude that’s completely conflated the issue in a nonsensical manner to make himself seem smart to his audience. Sometimes I see Ben Shapiro act the same way, but it bothers me every time I see it.

Kyle makes the argument that certain characteristics are protected under law and some are not, like being a Neo-Nazi versus being gay, because one is a choice and the other is something you can’t change. He’s right in that sense, kind of like how an off clock is right twice a day.

Kyle ‘resents the fact’ that Dave drops that he’s gay in that conversation, asking “Why would that be relevant? You’re playing identity politics. You think you have more of a right to talk about it because you’re gay versus someone like me because I’m straight.”

Dave Rubin regularly does this in all of his conversations, not because he believes in identity politics (he fucking hates it, and Kyle would know that if he ever actually watched Dave’s content), but because he’s willing to use that tool incase that makes his arguments more compelling to someone who does think identity politics is a legit thing. I would assume if you asked Dave about it, he would say that he’s trying to turn hearts and minds to his way of thinking, libertarianism, using any method he has available to him. When half the country was ready to vote Hillary because she was a woman, and that became half of her campaign rhetoric, I would think Kyle of all people would understand that. Instead he further misrepresents and twists Dave’s words.

The final point Kyle tries to drive home is, Dave Rubin’s mention of Neo-Nazi’s is “a really bad point, don’t make that point again.” And he starts chuckling. This is why you try to avoid being biased, because otherwise you make yourself look like an idiot to anyone who’s actually paying attention.

I really expect better out of Kyle because he is usually better about getting the facts together. But in this instance he failed and I hope he takes the video down or makes a correction and apologizes to Dave.