By James Esseks
In the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled for a bakery that had refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. It did so on grounds that are specific to this particular case and will have little to no applicability to future cases. The opinion is full of reaffirmations of our country’s longstanding rule that states can bar businesses that are open to the public from turning customers away because of who they are.
The case involves Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig, a same-sex couple who went to the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver in search of a cake for their wedding reception. When the bakery refused to sell Dave and Charlie a wedding cake because they’re gay, the couple sued under Colorado’s longstanding nondiscrimination law. The bakery claimed that the Constitution’s protections of free speech and freedom of religion gave it the right to discriminate and to override the state’s civil rights law. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled against the bakery, and a state appeals court upheld its decision.
In reversing the lower court’s ruling, the Supreme Court focused on how this particular case was handled by the commission, which decides cases under Colorado’s nondiscrimination law. The court raised concerns about comments from some of the Colorado commissioners that they believed revealed anti-religion bias. Because of that bias, the court held that the bakery wasn’t treated fairly when the commission decided the discrimination claim.
But — despite arguments from the Trump administration and other opponents of LGBT equality — the court didn’t decide that any business has a right to discriminate against customers because of who 
they are. Instead, the court’s decision affirms again and again that our nation’s laws against discrimination are essential to maintaining America’s open society and that states can pass and enforce those laws, including in the context of LGBT people.
First, the court reaffirmed that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are entitled to equal dignity. The ruling makes clear that it “is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons, just as it can protect other classes of individuals, in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public.” The decision continues:
“Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights. The exercise of their freedom on terms equal to others must be given great weight and respect by the courts.”
The court also reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination. It noted that while the “religious and philosophical objections” of business owners:
“are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law.”
The court further recognized the danger of free speech and freedom of religion claims that the bakery advanced in this case, stating that:
“any decision in favor of the baker would have to be sufficiently constrained, lest all purveyors of goods and services who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons in effect be allowed to put up signs saying ‘no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages,’ something that would impose a serious stigma on gay persons.”
The decision also recognizes that adopting a rule — as advocated by the bakery — that would allow businesses to turn gay people away carries a significant risk of harm. It outlines its own fear that “a long list of persons who provide goods and services for marriages and weddings might refuse to do so for gay persons.” This would result, the decision continues, “in a community-wide stigma inconsistent with the history and dynamics of civil rights laws that ensure equal access to goods, services, and public accommodations.”
Significantly, the court cited an earlier case, Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., where it rejected precisely the kind of claims that the bakery made here. Piggie Park was a chain of barbeque restaurants in Columbia, South Carolina, that claimed its religion required it to refuse to serve Black customers alongside white ones and that applying the 1964 Civil Rights Act would violate its religious freedom. The courts rejected that argument, with the Supreme Court calling it “frivolous.”
The court on Monday ruled for the bakery because it “was entitled to the neutral and respectful consideration of [its] claims in all the circumstances of the case,” and the justices in the majority believed the bakery didn’t receive that basic fairness. The court said that “these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.”
All of us deserve a dispassionate evaluation of our claims, either when we face discrimination or are accused of it. Those are principles we can all agree on.
Monday’s decision gives a very narrow victory to the bakery. But the court has clearly signaled that the broader rule the bakery was seeking here — a constitutional right to discriminate and turn customers away because of who they are — is not in keeping with American constitutional tradition.
There are many other cases in the pipeline that may soon give the court the opportunities to sort through the legal issues at the center of the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. One is Ingersoll v. Arlene’s Flowers, in which a florist shop refused to sell flowers to a gay couple for their wedding. The Washington state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the shop had no constitutional right to turn the couple away, and a petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court remains pending.
In the meantime, Congress should pass the Equality Act, which would update our civil rights laws to provide all people with full protection from discrimination. At the ACLU, we will continue working to ensure that the Supreme Court strikes the right balance between equality and the freedoms of speech and religion. In the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision, the court reaffirmed that the latter should not be used to undermine the former.
James Esseks is Director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project
Did the baker refuse service to the customers because they were gay? No. Did the baker refuse to make a custom product that the prospective customer demanded? Yes. Did the baker refuse other requests to make a custom product that prospective customers demanded? Yes.
I just went to the doughnut shop and asked for a maple-bacon doughnut. The owner says that he does not have any doughnuts with bacon. I asked him to make me a custom one and he declined. He said that it was against his religion to handle and serve meat products made of pork.
I think I will sue.
Nice attempt at obfuscation, Jeff. Did the baker refuse to make a custom product for the customers because they were gay? Yes.
No, the baker refused to make a custom product for a customer because of the baker’s faith. The fact that the customer was gay had nothing to do with it. There were other products in his bakery that that customer was welcomed to purchase.
SCOTUS agreed with this 7-2.
I’m wondering if Eric thinks that everyone should be forced to do work they don’t want to do?
Should a gay public speaker be forced to be the MC at a “pray away the gay” meeting put on by crazy right wingers?
Should a gay owned bakery be forced to make a cake for a Log Cabin Republican group that says “Gays Support Republicans” (I had a roommate that was a “Log Cabin Republican” when I lived in SF)?
Should a minister be forced to come nude to a nudist wedding?
Should a priest or rabbi be forced to so a wedding for a couple who worship Satan (but still want a Catholic and/or Jewish wedding to make their parents happy)?
If someone has a cake for sale and he decides not to sell it to someone because of their race or religion I think they should be be put out of business but I don’t think we should force a black muslim to make a cake that says “The White Race and Christian Religion are Superior to all others”.
P.S. I’m wondering if Eric thinks ShopRite should be forced to make this cake for this crazy family?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/happy-birthday-adolf-hitler-boy-nazi-leader-denied-shoprite-cake-article-1.358050
No, I don’t. Slavery has been abolished. I’m wondering if Ken thinks a restaurant owner should be permitted to refuse to serve non-whites, Jews, or mixed-race couples on religious grounds. I’m wondering if Ken knows that nudists and Nazis have freedom of expression rights but are not protected classes. I’m wondering if Ken knows about the separation of church and state.
This is a ridiculous counter which indicates great cognitive dissonance and troubling lazy ass pivoting to a tired and irrelevant “calling people that disagree with you as being supporters of the worst types of bigotry”). It also is indicative the the lack of rational consideration that plague people having adopted certain causes in a way that seems to be their pseudo religion/faith. I know you can do better.
Wedding cakes are pieces of art. A customer that wants a wedding cake from a baker is basically commissioning an edible work of art to display at their ceremony. There are no wedding cakes for sale sitting on the shelf. Or if there were, the baker would not have had any problem with any customer buying that cake off the shelf.
If I create a general product for sale it is, and should be, illegal for me to refuse sale to anyone based on their sexual orientation (and all the other protected designations). But it is reverse discrimination to force someone to create a custom product that is against their beliefs. What if a couple that belonged to the Aryan Nations/Church of Jesus Christ Christian demanded to have a cake made with a swastica and other related words and images? Would you force the gay baker in S.F. to make that cake?
At the very least I would expect you to acknowledge the conflicts and trade-offs.
I think a restaurant owner or bakery owner should have to serve anything “on the menu” to anyone that comes when they are open (subject to the ability to serve them and restrictions on the number of people in the building by the fire department).
I don’t think that a Jewish deli should be forced to make a “ham” sandwich, or a Jewish bakery should be forced to make a “first communion” cake.
However the Hindu owned “Jewish deli” or “Jewish bakery” had ham sandwiches or first communion cakes on the menu but refused to sell them to someone that is gay I think they should be shut down.
P.S. Interesting how Eric just skipped over my first two questions (maybe he does not want to answer them since it seems like many on the far left think that only Christians should be forced to make Gay or Earth worship cakes but Gays and Earth Worshipers should never be forced to make Christian cakes)…
The problem you have here is this isn’t a food choice, it’s a combination of wedding decorations and a message on a cake. You don’t have as clear cut a case there.
I’m betting that the Christian cake guy did not offer two guys on the top of a cake as a “choice” in his book of cakes.
http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/Colorado-officials-say-gay-cake-ban-did-not-violate-rights-298728361.html
Should anyone who decorates anything or who puts messages on anything be forced to do work they don’t want. Should gay decorators be forced to “decorate” the places that tell gay kids they are sinners and should a gay mural maker be forced to do an anti gay message on the conservative church’s wall?
It is “clear cut” unless you just want to F with Christians because you hate them (the gay guys did not pick this guy because he was the only bakery in town). I’m no fan of super conservative bible thumpers but I don’t go out of my way to F with them by referring them to my liberal friends on the “Civil Rights Division” who will F with them even more…
So should they be able to deny a black and a white couple? Two black people? That’s really the key question here, for me.
Like these folks, who claimed a religious basis for serving whites only.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/256/941/2349546/
I’m happy that Don had to go back more than 50 years to find that case.
Just this year (2018) my sister had a Catholic friend find out that a Catholic priest would not marry them for “religious” reasons (he was super conservative and was not happy that the two unmarried/never married Catholic “kids” in their late 40s were “living in sin”.
I’m wondering if Don would sell flowers to the Westboro Baptist Church if they came to town and wanted to use flowers in a hate message.
No, it was the one cited by the Supreme Court in their ruling.
I sell plants to anybody. But you’ll have to wait for my memoirs to hear all the dirt….
False equivalency. By a mile.
It’s only a false equivalency is you believe that gays and blacks don’t have the same rights.
It does not have anything to do with blacks or gays, it is about individual freedom to not be forced to create custom artistic products and services that include symbolism and messaging that go against your strongly-held beliefs. It is not any illegal refusal to provide a product/service that is for sale, it is a refusal to provide a product/service that is not for sale and has never been for sale.
If I open my doors to the public and offer goods and services, any individuals who walk through that door have a reasonable expectation that it is available to them (unless there is a legal proscription such as alcohol, tobacco, etc.). This was a clear refusal to provide a product to the public in the public square, simply based on who those customers were. That is discrimination.
If this baker wants to provide his services to only selected individuals, he is free to do that privately. But when you open to the public, you cannot discriminate.
His assertion that it is based on his religion is exactly what was asserted to maintain whites-only premises, to refuse service to Jews by Christians, to refuse service to Catholics by Protestants.
It has to do with whether or not that Freedom means you have the right to discriminate against people based on certain characteristics. Whether those characteristics are race or ethnicity or sexual orientation.
The difference here is art and freedom to not be forced to make art that conflicts with personal values… especially those that are standard and known.
Let’s say I was a Christian fundamentalist marrying another Christian fundamentalist and you owned a custom t-shirt printing business. Can I force you to make t-shirts for me that says:
“Gays are Immoral!”
“Abortion is Murder!”
So that is where my question came from: should they be able to deny a black and a white couple? Two black people?
So I can demand that you sell me anything that can be for sale at a nursery, or are there products that you would refuse to sell me because you don’t carry them and/or don’t want to sell them?
You can buy anything that I sell at my nursery. Try not to be too demanding about it.
Those would not be for sale at my nursery, so you would have no reasonable expectation to buy them from me. Nor would anyone else.
First, the baker did not deny common store service to anyone. All patrons where free to buy anything for sale in the bakery. A wedding cake sale is a basically a commission for an edible work of art. It is completely custom. It requires artistic motivation.
To use your analogy, what about a liberal black artist being commissioned to create a work that says “All Lives Matter” for a white customer after that customer saw the “Black Lives Matter” work done by that same artist?
It is ironic where you are trying to go with this because you are basically advocating slavery base on a social justice agenda. In that you can force people to do work against their interests and values.
If Don really sells plants to anyone I’m wondering if he will tell us when we can come down and buy some pot plants?
Dude, that is, like, totally illegal. For me to sell pot plants.
It is interesting that most of the mainstream media does not mention that they guys asked the bakery to bake a “custom, penis-shaped cake for the wedding reception”.
https://medium.com/@allanishac/supreme-court-to-hear-case-of-baker-who-refused-to-make-penis-cake-for-gay-union-cb608974b09a
As a straight white guy I’m betting that every bakery is not going to make me a “custom, penis-shaped cake” (and it is not because they hate straight people).
Don can sell or not sell whatever nursery products he wants to. What he can’t do is to refuse to sell the products to certain individuals based on their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or other protected class.
Some of you are creating weird red herrings to back you point. Meanwhile Jeff keeps dodging the question as to whether someone can deny a wedding cake between two blacks or a black and a white.
Don and his business where bad examples because Don sells plants.
Now let’s assume old Don owns a custom t-shirt screen printing business. And he makes custom shirts for everyone that walks into the door. Except that Don is a black female who is a member of NOW and is very active in BLM and Antifa and the customer is a white Christian Trump supporter with a MAGA hat who orders two custom t-shirts:
1. Says “ALL LIVES MATTER!”
and
2. Says “ABORTION IS MURDER”!
If Don refuses to make these products for this customer, should the customer prevail in a law suit to force Don to make the t shirts or be fined for non compliance by the state?
No, because there is no long-standing nor well-known standard for any religion having a religious conflict with anyone who is black getting married.
However, all major religions have a history of some rejection of homosexuality, and only recently did Democrats flip to support gay marriage when they noted it would be a nice wedge issue for their identity politics mob strategy – that by the way (talking about the identity politics mob strategy where people call other people nasty hateful names just because they disagree with the memes of that strategy) hotly contributed to their massive election defeats in 2016. And what did the political left mob do… more of the same. I call that insanity.
My ideological friends of a different stripe, some belonging to the mob and others not so much, like to play identity politics rock, paper scissors. A most difficult character for them to score a win with is a poor, black, Muslim, female. And let’s assume she is devote and conservative and clearly biased against homosexuality and gay marriage. So what would you say if this women owned the bakery and would not make a custom wedding cake for a gay couple? My guess is that no gay couple would even go to that bakery to ask for a wedding cake because of the difficulty of the aforementioned rock-paper-scissors game…. no fodder for the mob strategy. But look… there… a white Christian baker!!!! Ding, Ding, Ding…. now there is something the mob can since their social justice identity politics teeth into!!!! Grab your pitch forks and torches. We have some lynching to do!
That is unless we can lock that baker in chains and whip him until he does the work we demand he does!
is this for real?
You’ve been ranting against identity politics since I started reading this site. didn’t just writing this make your inner Heritage Institute angel cringe, since it’s based on nothing but identity politics? This isn’t about who the individuals are or what they wear or who they’re affiliated with except insofar as they are being legally discriminated against, if that’s the case. so in this weird fantasy sketch of yours, Fake Don has every right to refuse T-shirt printing service because nowhere in the law are neanderthals and the deeply and painfully misguided (to be polite) allowed protections to obtain the same public services as everyone else. You can be denied service for being offensive. You can even be denied service for “exercising your first amendment rights.” Fake Don here can simply say, “no, I don’t make shirts with language that i feel is offensive.” What Fake Don can’t do is say “No, I won’t make you this shirt because you have no arms” or “no, I won’t make this shirt because you’re Christian” or even “no, I won’t make this shirt because you’re white.”
You’re getting so bent out of shape because of these fantasies that you’re creating. The law is not the magic SJW hammer that you seem to want everyone to think it is. People should be treated equally. period. It’s not that hard. “Treat others as you would yourself” or as my mother always said “Just don’t be a jerk and don’t hurt people.”
“But his Christian beliefs!” This isn’t about that despite what this baker and his supporters are trying to say. The law exists to protect people from discrimination, NOT to protect the right to discriminate. Religion isn’t a handy loophole to establish a “get of bigotry free” pass. This baker could have found a million defensible reasons not to make this cake. “I’m on vacation that week,” “I have more commissions than I can handle just now,” whatever. That doesn’t make him any less a bigot, and it would make him a bit of a liar, but it would have protected his decision legally, no muss no fuss. and make no mistake, his decision NOT to do that was a political one and not a religious one.
This overblown moral outrage circus isn’t about much more than people at the community table not wanting to let others join.
[moderator: released from spam filter!]
I think you are all missing the point that the reason the guy did not make the cake was not because the guys were gay it was because he didn’t make penis cakes.
This guy didn’t even make Halloween cakes for anyone (gay or straight, Christian or Pagan). If I go in to buy a tree from Don and I ask him to cut the branches off and carve the trunk in to the shape of a penis he can say no.
If I send in my former gay roommate who asks Don to do the same thing he can also so no. Just because you are a member of a “protected class” does not give you the ability to force anyone to do anything you want.
I thought your article was satire… like from the Onion. It was fact? Really? The order was for a wedding cake decorated with an image of a male sex organ?
Was this actually reported in the mainstream media and I missed it?
No. That was a satire about the case.
Hey Ross. With all due respect you stepped in your own doggie doo doo.
Those t-shirt messages are completely supportable and legit except in your identity politics bubble. If Don can refuse service to the Christian because of his values… well then you just supported the SCOTUS decision… although you will deny it.
This gets back to a point that rings truer and truer every day.
If not for double standards, leftists would have no standards.
Same can be said for many of the self-“righties” (or, on both sides, the ‘self-righteous’)…
Jeff
What you’ve said here might hold some water (I guess) as an argument if what I had written had ended where your quote ended. But it didn’t. You’ll note that I pointed out specifically that Fake Don absolutely can’t refuse service because of offensive customer # 1’s religious beliefs.
Quality of the t-shirt messages aside, this isn’t a matter of opinion or “identity politics,” it’s a matter of law. and a very narrow matter at that. There are multitudes of reasons that service can be declined. It just can’t be declined based on a very specific reason set.
I get that you refuse to accept the nuance between refusing service based on something considered offensive and something protected by law, but this is exactly what it is. This is clearly exhibited by your insistence on this all being based on a lack of standards, or a double standard, or “victim mentality” or whatever you want to call it, but it’s not. it’s the law of the land. Now, if you’ve got an issue with that, you should say so clearly instead of throwing up a baker’s dozen of strawmen, but until then, you’re just spouting rote conservative buzz phrases meant to pound the people you disagree with (who more than likely have less power than you in an argument) into submission through attrition.
Happy to discuss this further on the merits, or even even get a beer with you and talk it out, but from what I’m seeing here, it just sounds like you’re afraid of the possibility of someone taking something away from you that they don’t want in the first place.
Right–based on his faith, he refused to make any custom cake for a gay wedding. That’s not in dispute. From the opinion:
The Supreme Court found in favor of the baker on purely procedural grounds, based on the fairness of the administrative hearing. There was no determination on the underlying discrimination claim. The Court did not find that baker’s conduct had nothing to do with the fact that the customers were gay.
The cake guy was a way out there right wing conservative Christian (not that there’s anything wrong with that) who would not even make Halloween cakes for other Christians.
I would not agree that this was decided on “purely procedural grounds” as that would imply a missed deadline or wrong forms. Instead evidence of “explicit bias” by commission where they clearly did not balance competing rights. I would have decided this case differently but I understand the court’s point that the rights of the baker need to be considered.
The article is annoying through the constant references “because of who they are” which has no meaning I can determine. You can discriminate against people because of “because of who they are” in many cases. You can refuse to offer a test drive in a Ferrari if they are poor or unlicensed despite the fact that is “who they are”.
We could nitpick over terms; but procedure is not just missed deadlines and wrong forms. Procedural due process, in the constitutional sense, requires a hearing before an impartial tribunal–and that’s what the Court based its decision on.
Being an unlicensed driver is not “who they are” in the same sense as characteristics such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability. I hope you can see the distinction.
“Being an unlicensed driver is not “who they are” in the same sense as characteristics such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability”
Eric that is only personal your interpretation of the phrase “who they are”. The phrase still does not mean anything.
You’re wrong, legally, and Eric’s right. The interpretation here isn’t personal opinion, it’s legal fact. You can deny service to someone who is being a jerk, or someone that is legally barred from taking part in your service, but you can not do so if they are black or gay or part of a protected class. as Eric very politely said it, I hope you can see the difference.
Anti-discrimination laws are very specific. “who they are” is very broad and can mean anything from demographic to psycho-graphic, to…
“who they are” has no meaning whatsoever and may include membership in a protected class or just might mean they have affluenza because that is “who they are”.
Jim —
Perhaps “who they are” has no meaning to you; but, in the context of anti-discrimination laws it is not meaningless. “Who they are” is not a formal, technical term but, rather, a short-hand means of distinguishing arbitrary or superficial classifications from the types of characteristics that form the basis of protected class status leading to heightened or strict scrutiny by the courts. Typically, it refers to characteristics that are considered immutable–such as one’s gender, race, ethnicity, genetic makeup, national origin, sexual orientation, or many disabilities–or characteristics that are not considered changeable because they are fundamental to one’s identify–such as religion.
I’m not holding my breath, but perhaps this will help clarify the difference for you.
Eric,
I do understand the difference between transient and immutable characteristics though not all immutable characteristics are protected. For example short guys are at a disadvantage in the employment marketplace. Is height protected? Do employers have to make a reasonable accommodation? On your list of immutable characteristics are gender and sexual orientation which are both protected in most circumstances but not “immutable” in the definition of “unchanging over time or unable to be changed”.
We may just have to disagree about this term but I find it meaningless and it certainly does not align with how most people think of themselves. Regardless of how we look at this phrase, breathing deeply is good for your health.
Immutable is imprecise but generally applicable to protected categories–some more than others. And no one ever said all immutable characteristics are covered–only a handful are.
Jim – given your comments here and an apparent disregard for the identifiable characteristics for protected class, can you share your opinion of what the bases of civil rights laws and protection are, if not the protection of the rights of individuals based on identified characteristics that tend to be defined (as eric point out) as immutable or tied specifically to the identity of an individual and also identified as protected?
The phrase “who they are” in the article is clearly meant to identify people that fall into these categories and and your argument here feels a little willfully nit-picky.
Ross: The point of departure for this discussion was my comment “The article is annoying through the constant references “because of who they are” which has no meaning I can determine.”
After much back and forth what I have been able to determine is:
“because of who they are” refers, in the law, to immutable characteristics rather than it’s commonly accepted meaning. .
Immutable characteristics may or may not be protected.
Characteristics referred to by lawyers at immutable are not necessarily immutable. They may be transient but lawyers think they should be called immutable anyway.
Characteristics that would put someone in a protected group may be transient and called transient or these transient characteristics may be called immutable depending on factors best known to legal historians.
The conclusion is that based on the above Eric and yourself believe that the phrase “because of who they are” has a clearly defined meaning and I am either clueless or obstinate.
Is the above a basis for agreement?
Jim, I definitely don’t think you’re clueless by a long stretch. In the broadest sense, yes there’s a level of agreement to what you said, but I think it can be boiled to a clearer description.
In the context of an article about a legal decision, which contextualizes that decision in relation to the law, I do, in fact, believe that the “who they are” clearly reflects a description of people that have constitutionally protected rights in regard to gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disability or religion; in this case, sexual orientation.
All of this immutable and transient characteristics word defining is secondary to simply saying constitutionally protected characteristics. Again, those are fairly strictly and clearly defined by the constitution and various laws. no need for historians 🙂
So, I don’t think the article is unclear, maybe a bit imprecise, but given the context, it’s hard to be unsure of the meaning. My issue here is that I made the mistake of thinking you were commenting on the content of the article, or the content of Eric’s first post in this thread, both of which I think have some salient points on how to view the Supreme Court decision, but that clearly wasn’t the case.
Hi Ross,
We seem to be getting somewhere. The imprecision of the phrase annoys me and if they had said “constitutionally protected group” or something similar I would be much happier.
The case at its core is people from two constitutionally protected group in conflict about the exercise of their rights. The article is by a person trying to imply that one group has superior rights to another group without explicitly saying it. Therefore the use of “who they are” is a way to humanize one group and by implication demonize the other constitutionally protected group. Clearly the author has sympathy for one group and not the other as did the commission, and the “playing favorites”, was the reason the decision was overturned.
If we used California resource law as a predicate we could say that freedom of religion was “senior” as it was explicitly defined in our foundational document. However I believe the rights of sexual minorities and religious minorities are equal even if others do not agree.
I have little sympathy for the plaintiffs in this case as I suspect they are trying to use their rights as a cudgel to harm someone else whom they disparage and thereby deprive that person of their rights.
The rock, paper, scissors game. Which victim group prevails?
Isn’t it so wonderful that a movement which echoed “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” has turned into one where the judging depends on not only the color of skin, but any other politically advantageous characteristic, preferably victim-sanctioned.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/martin_luther_king_jr_115056
Jim:
Agreed. In fact, the rest of this reply is also, I think, well said. Your comment around “seniority” status is an interesting one and worth some research and consideration (on my side, not pointing that at you). in this case, for me, I think it may fall into the difference of the right to not be discriminated against (sexuality) vs a presumed right to do the discriminating (using religious rights as a cudgel as you put it). A fine point, but, I think an important one. Happy we managed to find that common ground. I’ve been reading the Vanguard since I moved here about 2 1/2 years ago and am just now starting to think I “understand” Davis a little bit, so starting to try to engage a little. It’s good to be able to engage in this way. Thanks!
Ross’ recent post brings up another concept… being “pro-choice”… whether someone chooses to do business (private sector) with another… in the brief time I was a private consultant, knew of several folk that I’d never do business with… now I might have demurred, lying and saying, “I’m too busy”…”outside my expertise”… etc.
My declining, would have been based not on any ‘protected class’, but because they are “jerks”… perhaps jerks should be a protected class…
Public services, public accommodations is a different matter… had this been a City/Town-owned bakery, the case might have some merit, and perhaps a different outcome… but, it wasn’t.
So, if the Civil Rights Commission had simply stayed on topic instead of making snide remarks about the bakers’ religion on the record, the Supremes would have
(a) upheld the lower court’s decision
(b) found some other rationale to overturn it
(c) never have accepted the case
With the present majority, I’d go with (b).
After this decision why knows what those right wingers Kagan and Breyer will do…
Was this the only bakery within, say a 20-mile radius, or was this a “set-up” for a ‘test case’, a “gotcha”, vendetta, etc.? Am skeptical that there was ever any “injury” to to the plaintiffs… what did they do for dessert at their wedding?
Whole thing has a whiff of some form of fecal matter… never should have gotten into the court system (much less the SCOTUS), in my opinion, based on ‘facts’ disclosed to date. No sign that the bakery folk were verbally abusive in saying “no”… “No means no”, yes?
Am thinking the couple knew what the answer would be, before they even asked…