In this context “narrowly” refers to the grounds the decision is based on. As in, not a broad sweeping rejection of the couple’s claim, but a narrow ruling about the commisson’s decision making process.
A ninja four-per. Not bad.
Sounds like SCOTUS just didn’t want to get into another gay rights issue, especially one based on such a superficial, ridiculous, contrived incident. They don’t have to rule on everything that comes to them.
And given that the court dodged the constitutional question, that issue may arise again… possibly with a different member of the court. Stutzman from Washington state is awaiting a decision on petition for cert.
All the more eyes on the lookout for any sign of a retirement at the end of term. Fodder for sevrral more threads, I suppose.
OK, I stand corrected.
It seems as if we agree on something. I thought it was a typical terrible Kennedy opinion, not necessarily for the holding, but because as always, he is so light on law and heavy on emotion.
Note how very few case cites are in his opinion? He seems to base his whole jurisprudence around whether he thinks someone is being a meany pants or not.
I suspect the court will rule for Civil Rights except when it collides with due process in the lower courts.
Another possible name for that is Justice.
Certainly one can find cites and precedents to support just about any position one would want to reach. Would it really make a difference to list more of them, other than to give lower courts later to be guided by the ruling some more solid ground?
It is not “justice” as it is not based upon anything but a hunch. Under Kennedy’s analysis, suppose that instead of being a traditional Christian, Phillips was a member of the ku klux klan and believed that blacks were inferior and should not intermix or conduct business with white people.
Let’s again assume that he sincerely believes that because of taking certain scripture out of context. Don’t fight the hypo: good, bad, or indifferent this is a seriously held belief that he practices in daily life.
Does Colorado have to be nice to him? Not “demean” him or show more “neutrality” towards his position? What does a nice adversary administrative proceeding look like?
If the committee had said, “Listen, we respect your religion, however with think it a greater state interest to make sure gay people are treated properly” would that have been enough?
I mean, Kennedy himself in Obergefell said that there was no rational basis to oppose SSM and that laws to that effect were simply oppressive. He didn’t sound very tolerant of religious beliefs, except when giving them lip service.
After reading the opinion twice, I have no earthly idea what the test is for a state in this area other than to be nice.
Don’t forget, being respectful and tolerant:
That man needs to retire.
This was poor test case. I don’t think someone should be required to use their artistic expression in ways that offend them, this one was close to the line though, and the big problem is that it will be followed by others that will want to discriminate for reasons that can’t be justified in terms of free speech or artistic expression. Nothing is resolved here, but I do fear what may follow will not end well.
But the concept of ‘free exercise of religion’ presupposes religion as a separate category. If you can just compare the deference to be afforded religious belief to that afforded truly committed Nazi, KKK etc belief, there’s no reason to speak of free exercise of religion. It just folds entirely into freedom of expression generally, where cut outs have been made for exactly the case you mention. You can’t deny access at a (n even privately owned) establishment that serves the public based on the (secular, which it basically is) belief in a racial caste system.
Many people don’t accept this distinction anymore. They view religion (usually Christianity in particular) as crap and see no reason for such a distinction. But court decisions have long made this distinction, and the ruling is in keeping with that. The actions of the commissioners were not ‘mean’, but rather treated the baker’s religious convictions as if the same as ‘defending the Holocaust’, just a different universal bugaboo than your analogy, the KKK, but basically the same idea.
The court rejected that newer idea over the old one that says exercise of religion is not the same as any arbitrary belief you can give as example. Homosexuality clearly* is dealt with in the scriptures of Abrahamic religions, religions with deep roots in various cultures, not religions I just made up. It’s thus an issue of freedom exercise of religious freedom as it has long been defined. Which doesn’t mean carte blanche for however the believer wants to act based on their beliefs (the part which isn’t really defined by this narrow decision). But the decision reaffirms it’s not like ‘how about if it was the KKK?’, because this case deals with religious belief and that’s not.
*by which I mean the topic clearly comes up. I don’t mean all believers in Judaism, Christianity and Islam agree on gay rights as a practical issue which they obviously don’t. The caste system imposed by Westerners against black Africans in the last several centuries OTOH simply doesn’t come up in Abrahamic scripture. That’s only related to Abrahamic scripture via inference or analogy, wild extrapolation actually. And back to the point, the USSC has never accepted those extrapolations as actual religious beliefs.
Why in the world does the USSC get to accept or not religious beliefs or extrapolations thereof. Isn’t that exactly establishment of religion?
No.
Agreed. Where in the Constitution does the government have to be “nice,” “respectful,” or “tolerant”? If the government is fucking me over, I don’t care if they do it nice. If it gives me what I want, I have no injury if they do it in a mean way.
On what Constitutional basis does any of this matter?
I don’t disagree with you. However, if you talk to a white supremacist, they will cite scripture for support of segregation. In any event, do we want nine unelected lawyers deciding what is a “real” religious belief? What if those nine decide that, say, Judaism is not a “real” belief?
Well he also did point out the hypocrisy in the Phillips case versus other cases with bakeries that refused to make an anti-homosexual cake. And apparently the reason for the hypocrisy was based on religion.
But that’s the nature of these civil rights laws: they favor the groups that they favor and these laws are permitted. If have a business that excludes Jews, nobody cares about tolerance of my beliefs. Why is homosexuality different, assuming as Kennedy does, that the state can make this choice for private businesses? The state can do it, so long as it is nice about it?
Of course a guy refusing to make an anti-SSM cake isn’t covered. What protected class is he discriminating against?
Civil rights laws do not favor any one group in favor of another. Anti-discrimination laws are worded to include things like race, religion, political opinion, country of origin, etc, not “blacks”, “Jews”, “Democrats”, “Hondurans” or anything like that. White people are included under “race”. Christians are included under “religion”, etc. No anti-discrimination law would be found constitutional, otherwise.
Agreed. But the analogy would be if a person refuses to make an “I hate niggers” cake would be treated the same as someone who refuses to make a “Black is Beautiful” cake.
The idea of the law is to promote racial tolerance and diversity. If a person refuses to support racial bigotry and hatred, those things are not equal to the first. The first cake above clearly does not advance the objectives of the law while the second arguably does.
Likewise, people who oppose SSM are not a protected class. Those who wish to enter a SSM, or at least want to buy a cake in support of one, arguably are.