Judge orders Colorado baker to serve gay couples

[k9bfriender]

@adaher

Expressly Christian businesses that serve only Christians or people who want to buy Christian goods and services have a right to exist. Masterpiece Cake Shop was not such a business, but I think any business that advertises itself as expressly Christian would have no problem winning a case against serving people in ways that are not Christian. After all, if you don’t want Christian services, why would you go to a Christian goods or service provider? It’s like going to a kosher restaurant and demanding pork and then claiming discrimination. Christian bookstores don’t have to order “50 Shades” books for customers, or sell Korans.

Does that mean that they could refuse to allow non-christians from buying their wares? If so, then that’s just justifying discrimination, based on not liking someone, and if not, then it doesn’t have anything to do with this case.

It is nothing at all about going to a kosher restaurant and demanding pork. They don’t serve pork, they aren’t discriminating against you by not serving you pork. Now, however, if you go to a kosher restaurant, and they refuse to serve you because you are are not a jew, that is discrimination.

@Velocity

As much as this is framed as an LGBT/civil-rights issue, I can’t help but suspect that another, underlying motive beneath much of this is a desire to see religious people squirm. Like a “let’s see how this Muslim reacts in the presence of pork” curiosity. Sure, some are genuinely in this for gay rights, but some others are motivated by “His religious views object to LGBT, therefore, let’s FORCE him to promote LGBT to see the contorted expression on his face!”

Once again, it’s not anything about that. We are not asking a muslim to interact with pork, we are asking a muslim not to discriminate against a non-muslim.

I am not sure what the reason is for constantly trying to reframe the situation into different terms so that, with that new reframing and different situation, there is a whiff of hypocrisy. But, that is only due to making up a situation that is not in any way analogous to the situation at hand, and then demanding that they are similar.

Any motivation that you assume on the part of those who are against discrimination is just that, a motivation that you have chosen to assume about others, a motivation that is in fact contrary to the facts, not a motivation that they have shown.

Now, if there is a whiff of “Lets see how this bigot reacts when he is forced to treat the people that he despises as people,” there may be a bit of that, I’ll admit. But no one is being asked to do anything they normally wouldn’t do, they are just being asked to interact with people that they despise. They have an out. If they want to no longer have to interact with people that they despise, they don’t have to. You are welcome to despise anyone you want in private. You have freedom of association in private. If you are open to the public, you simply have to treat everyone equally, even if you hate them because they are different from you.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@DSYoungEsq

Finally, I will note for the record that this decision had NOTHING to do with “due process” except to the extent that the First Amendment’s freedom of religion guarantees are only applied to the states via the concept of “due process”. It’s not a due process case (the decision isn’t based upon a decision that the Colorado CRC denied the baker a proper process), but rather a First Amendment Free Exercise case.

Your summary is almost totally incorrect, and I have to wonder if you actually read the opinion. The question presented was one which involved the Free Exercise Clause. The Court’s actual disposition of the case mostly ignores the Free Exercise Clause and instead relied on the fact that the CRC denied the baker due process by expressing hostility to his views. Kennedy was at pains to say absolutely nothing about how the FEC applied to this case.

[Chimera]

The ‘narrow’ ruling was basically saying that you cannot force an artist to make art that is at odds with their beliefs.

So for example, you can’t sue them because they refuse to put a swastika on a cake, or because a black artist refuses to paint a KKK mural.

The bakery still has to sell you the cake. They cannot refuse that just because they don’t like you or agree with your politics/ideology/sexual orientation.

[ElvisL1ves]

@UltraVires

But the traditional Judeo-Christian opposition to homosexuality is so well known that we can take judicial notice of the belief, even if we disagree with it.

Not sure how traditional it is, but it’s well known, yes.

Or are you saying that the committee should grill the guy and prove that he really, really opposes homosexuality due to his religious beliefs?

Or help him understand he’s rationalizing.

Yes, *sincere *religious belief requires some respect, but so do its victims. That seems to be Kennedy’s message, along with the nearly explicit statement that the ruling would have gone the other way if the Court hadn’t preferred to duck this silly case instead.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Chimera

The ‘narrow’ ruling was basically saying that you cannot force an artist to make art that is at odds with their beliefs.

So for example, you can’t sue them because they refuse to put a swastika on a cake, or because a black artist refuses to paint a KKK mural.

The bakery still has to sell you the cake. They cannot refuse that just because they don’t like you or agree with your politics/ideology/sexual orientation.

The ruling didn’t say any of that. It said, “we’re not going to decide this stuff because we don’t have to, so Fuck You Bakers and Gays.”

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@ElvisL1ves

if the Court hadn’t preferred to duck this silly case instead.

I don’t even understand why they took the case if all they were going to do was punt. How did them taking this case help anything?

[Chimera]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

The ruling didn’t say any of that. It said, “we’re not going to decide this stuff because we don’t have to, so Fuck You Bakers and Gays.”

Except the legal guys seem to be reading that from the response, so I’m going to go with their opinion and not yours.

[mhendo]

There’s an interesting article by George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision in this case also serves to strengthen the case against Trump’s travel ban.

As Somin points out, the central issue here is that the court found “clear and impermissible hostility” to religion in the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of the baker’s religion. As he also points out:

The evidence of “clear and impermissible hostility” in the travel ban case is actually much stronger than in the Cakeshop litigation.

Somin recognizes that there are some issues that might distinguish the two cases, and that might lead the justices to rule differently in the travel ban case, but he believes that the similarities outweigh the differences, and that a consistent ruling would find against the travel ban.

Other legal scholars make some similar arguments about the significance of the Masterpeice decision for the travel ban here and here.

[UltraVires]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

The ruling didn’t say any of that. It said, “we’re not going to decide this stuff because we don’t have to, so Fuck You Bakers and Gays.”

I think the ruling said, “Okay, guys and gals, we got a lot of heat for Obergefell and if we tell this baker that he has to make SSM cakes, the right in this country is going to use this against us once again. Let’s allow the result to be that the baker doesn’t have to make the cake, but we’ll punt on the issues so that in a few years after the fervor dies down, we can make a different ruling. Gays are limited to good rulings to about once every 7 or 8 years, no more!”

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Chimera

Except the legal guys seem to be reading that from the response, so I’m going to go with their opinion and not yours.

I don’t know which “legal guys” you are referring to, but I am a Legal Guy and virtually every Doper Legal Person interprets the opinion the same way I do.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Snowboarder_Bo

I don’t even understand why they took the case if all they were going to do was punt. How did them taking this case help anything?

The case was manufactured by a Conservative Outrage For America-type group, part of a movement known to influence people who are supposed not to be influenced that way. The four (and we probably know who they are) who voted to take the case may, after discussion, actually have come to regret that there wasn’t something more respectable and historical to base an anti-gay vote on, and will wait for something better.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@ElvisL1ves

The case was manufactured by a Conservative Outrage For America-type group, part of a movement known to influence people who are supposed not to be influenced that way. The four (and we probably know who they are) who voted to take the case may, after discussion, actually have come to regret that there wasn’t something more respectable and historical to base an anti-gay vote on, and will wait for something better.

A sadistic punchline just writes itself, doesn’t it? ‘Oh, no, we simply cannot bring ourselves to rule on whether a baker can treat gays that way — well, unless those who rule against him first show his beliefs an appropriate amount of respect.’

‘You have now ruled against him — but shown his beliefs the appropriate respect? Terrific; for that you shall be commended! But, uh, he had that right all along.’

[adaher]

@DavidwithanR

But if gay men and Jews come in wanting Bibles, they have to serve those customers.

Yes. But if they came in requesting Bibles with the anti-gay parts redacted, the owner can say, 'Um, no."

[adaher]

@ElvisL1ves

The case was manufactured by a Conservative Outrage For America-type group, part of a movement known to influence people who are supposed not to be influenced that way. The four (and we probably know who they are) who voted to take the case may, after discussion, actually have come to regret that there wasn’t something more respectable and historical to base an anti-gay vote on, and will wait for something better.

for a group that “manufactures” outrage, they sure are doing great at the Supreme Court, winning multiple decisions that aren’t just 5-4 splits. They don’t just persuade the conservatives, they persuade some of the liberals on the court too.

[RitterSport]

@Snowboarder_Bo

I don’t even understand why they took the case if all they were going to do was punt. How did them taking this case help anything?

It’s possible they took the case thinking they could get a clear ruling (we don’t know who decided to take the case, right? So, assume the liberal wing took it in order to get a ruling that the baker was in the wrong. It doesn’t change the point). Then, when the voters were taken, the takers realized they wouldn’t get their win, so they compromised on this much more narrow ruling.

(Similarly, if the conservative wing thought they could get a clear victory for the baker, when it looked like it wouldn’t work out, they went for this compromise and that got a few other justices on board)

[Velocity]

Random related question: Do SCOTUS justices - all 9 of them - actually confer among themselves as to what they think the decision ought to be, or does everyone just more or less mull it over in their own heads and cast a vote come decision time?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Velocity

Random related question: Do SCOTUS justices - all 9 of them - actually confer among themselves as to what they think the decision ought to be, or does everyone just more or less mull it over in their own heads and cast a vote come decision time?

They all talk about it. They have to figure out who’s on each side so the opinion can be assigned to one of the majority.

[Bone]

@Chimera

Except the legal guys seem to be reading that from the response, so I’m going to go with their opinion and not yours.

Your interpretation and the ones you are reading that are consistent with yours are wrong. Kennedy very clearly doesn’t address whether an artist can be forced to make art that is at odds with their beliefs other than to say…well maybe. He avoided opining on this question.

Try and give the opinion a read for yourself. It’s similar to lots of Kennedy opinions in that it is terribly written.

[Corry_El]

@UltraVires

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?

Again, if you have the concept of free exercise of religion as distinct from other freedom, somebody has to decide what’s religion. That’s built in. So the ‘danger’ to the extent it realistically exists, of a major world religion being defined by USSC as not really a religion, has always been there. But it doesn’t seem that much of a danger, practically, IMO, in US conditions (some US freedoms don’t work in other countries with different histories, some for example have arguably valid reasons to limit speech criticizing component religions of their societies, or more broadly negative speech about component ethnic groups, no expressions of Nazism in Germany, etc. You can give clean sheet of paper hypotheticals why lots of features of the US system up to now wouldn’t work, doesn’t mean they are practically convincing).

Again I think it comes down to a growing % of people’s belief in the US that religion is a net negative that needs to be expunged from public life and make itself scarce behind closed doors, at the least. But the USSC here is going instead with a long tradition of recognizing a such thing as free exercise of religion within the public sphere, with religious belief being a thing to be respected by govt in at least a slightly greater (or anyway different) way than any other arbitrary belief. And it must include the idea that religious belief can be defined, as it long has been.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Velocity

Random related question: Do SCOTUS justices - all 9 of them - actually confer among themselves as to what they think the decision ought to be, or does everyone just more or less mull it over in their own heads and cast a vote come decision time?

Yes. They conference to discuss the cases before them.

If you have not listened to it they refer to this in the podcast “More Perfect” in the episode The Political Thicket. The time in that link is set to them discussing the justices conferencing but the whole episode is worth a listen.

[sup](It is regarding the case Baker v. Carr which Chief Justice Earl Warren, on retiring, said was the most important case he heard while on the supreme court. The case arguably destroyed, almost literally, two justices.)[/sup]