Disappointing News

[_Res Ipsa]

...snip to here because I haven't quite figured out the quote function in here yet...

What I think is a little odd but probably much more defensible would be for his business to be a Christian Cake Provider where he only sold cakes for Christian weddings. If he was refusing to sell cakes to Mormons, Jews, people heading to the reception hall to be married by their friend who got licensed off the internet to perform that ceremony or someone getting married by a justice of the peace maybe he could defend the selling of cakes as being part of his religious practice. I'm not sure about that but so long as he is just an average "expert" cake maker selling wedding cakes to make a living then he isn't being forced to do anything against his beliefs. He's just being told his right to free expression doesn't allow him to engage in an act of discrimination that violates someone else's civil rights. Now I don't think the courts have come out this strongly on this matter and probably won't until forced to do so. But this is what the various precedents point to as being the case.

ETA: It's the same principle in the Masterpiece decision that I applaud, actually. Because the Colorado Rights Commission demonstrated they were opposing the baker BECAUSE of his religious belief and not remaining neutral in applying the law, it made the Supreme Court's job fairly straightforward. The commissioners do not have a right to discriminate against him based on his holding religious belief they find distasteful even if what was said was essentially an expression of certain individual commissioner's beliefs. It turned into discriminatory action.

OK...I have now finished all 59 pages of that decision, complete with margin notes and highlighter.

Yeah, this was a slam dunk for Supreme Court, and frankly?

It was a masterful piece of dodging the issue.

........They managed to rule on the whole thing without ruling on anything, to be honest; they were able to blame all of this on the state commission, and the state commission screwed up so that they could.

In the meantime, the baker involved doesn't have his questions answered, and neither do we. In fact, the justices of Supreme Court simply ask more questions without answering them; the same ones we are asking. They even mention the problem of what happens when the baker is asked to do a cake with politically INcorrect messages on them...that it's OK for the baker to refuse to bake anti-gay cakes.

But nothing got settled.

WHERE do the lines get drawn here?

PERSONALLY, I would have baked the cake, but then y'all know that already. I also think that NOT providing the cake comes really close to discrimination. But...I'm not the baker and his religious beliefs are not mine. Do I have the right to tell him what his 'really' are and which ones he can exercise?

I just think that, if a gay couple/person can come into a shop and buy any/everything ELSE, and that the only objection is to a religious event that violates the conscience of the owner, then...the gay person is not being discriminated against because of his sexual orientation.

I'm quite certain, for instance, that had this gay person wanted to buy a wedding cake for a wedding to someone of the opposite sex, a cake would have been forthcoming.

I guess I just put the line in a different place than you do.

The fact that the court avoided construing the First Amendment is a feature, not a bug. If the Court can decide a case on a non-constitutional ground, it is supposed to do that. If there is a procedural defect below, it is supposed to remand for correction of the procedural defect. I know that's frustrating, but I think it makes perfect sense. We all know that the court shifts in philosophy over time. We talk of conservatives and liberals, but what we are really talking about is different judicial philosophies. If the court reinterpreted all of its decisions every time the balance shifted a little, we wouldn't be able to rely on any interpretation of the constitution from year to year or decade to decade. Interpreting the constitution only as a last resort and the doctrine of stare decisis give us more long term stability in the judicial system.

The problem with your concept of when discrimination exists is that it is not consistent with the actual language of the Colorado Civil Rights Act. Did you catch which part of that statute is the key one?

And total props to you for hacking through the opinions. I wish more folks did that.

[_Niadna]

The fact that the court avoided construing the First Amendment is a feature, not a bug. If the Court can decide a case on a non-constitutional ground, it is supposed to do that. If there is a procedural defect below, it is supposed to remand for correction of the procedural defect. I know that's frustrating, but I think it makes perfect sense. We all know that the court shifts in philosophy over time. We talk of conservatives and liberals, but what we are really talking about is different judicial philosophies. If the court reinterpreted all of its decisions every time the balance shifted a little, we wouldn't be able to rely on any interpretation of the constitution from year to year or decade to decade. Interpreting the constitution only as a last resort and the doctrine of stare decisis give us more long term stability in the judicial system.

The problem with your concept of when discrimination exists is that it is not consistent with the actual language of the Colorado Civil Rights Act. Did you catch which part of that statute is the key one?

And total props to you for hacking through the opinions. I wish more folks did that.

(sigh) the PROBLEM is...I'm not a lawyer. Not even close to one, I had to look up the term 'stare decisis," to figure out that it meant something like 'go by the precedents."

The problem with stare decisis, however, is that we don't have that many precedents to go by in this situation, that of clashing civil rights between gay weddings and evangelical Christian objections to them...and many of the precedents we DO have about government actions against religions are patently unconstitutional and HAVE BEEN FOUND TO BE SO.

I think...with my own very personal bias firmly in mind here...that Supreme Court should actually MAKE a precedent that we can all follow.

I also think that it should, of course, rule that in the case of clashing civil rights, where one party is forcing another to violate his rights, the decision should go to 'no, you can't do that."

Oh. That's awkward.

OK...

In the case of the baker and the wedding cake v the gay couple wanting one.

the baker has only two choices here; provide the cake for a wedding that violates his religious beliefs, OR pay some very nasty legal consequences/or go out of business.

The gay couple is NOT forced to get their cake from that baker. They can go to another one. They can have a friend bake it. They can bake one themselves. They can go without a cake. The consequences are not exactly dire here, and in the meantime, that baker will provide goodies for them for any other event, or even just because they want a cupcake.

Shoot, they can have the baker do a beautiful cake for them, not tell him it's for a wedding, and put their OWN 'groom and groom' cake topper on it. They have lots of options...including getting their cake from that baker, since the problem wasn't their sexual orientation, but the WEDDING.

But they weren't out to simply get a cake. What they wanted to do was to force the baker to approve of their wedding. And THAT they had no right to do.

I think, again with my own bias apparent, that no matter how screwy some belief seems to be to the rest of us, that people have the constitutional right to have them, and to act accordingly.

NOBODY has the right to say 'well, but our minority status is more important than your minority status, so you have to do what we want you to do."

[_honorentheos]

I think...with my own very personal bias firmly in mind here...that Supreme Court should actually MAKE a precedent that we can all follow.

I also think that it should, of course, rule that in the case of clashing civil rights, where one party is forcing another to violate his rights, the decision should go to 'no, you can't do that."

…

I think, again with my own bias apparent, that no matter how screwy some belief seems to be to the rest of us, that people have the constitutional right to have them, and to act accordingly.

NOBODY has the right to say 'well, but our minority status is more important than your minority status, so you have to do what we want you to do."

There already is a fair amount to consider. For example, going back to Reynolds v. US in 1878 established the very critical precedent that, "A party's religious belief cannot be accepted as a justification for his committing an overt act, made criminal by the law of the land." To make a blanket religious exemption would be to create anarchy. It established that all are subject to the law, and that the means exist to create legitimate religious exemptions to the law through legislative means. It also established that "Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices." (see https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federa ... /case.html )

In the 1940 Cantwell v. Connecticut case involving Jehovah's Witnesses being arrested under a law that made it illegal to solicit funds from someone outside of the organization being benefited, the courts restated the results of Reynolds v. Johnson while ruling that the State of Connecticut could not make laws that would discriminate against one set of beliefs over another.

The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws. The constitutional inhibition of legislation on the subject of religion has a double aspect. On the one hand, it forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship. Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion. Thus, the Amendment embraces two concepts -- freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society. [Footnote 4] The freedom to act must have appropriate definition to preserve the enforcement of that protection. In every case, the power to regulate must be so exercised as not, in attaining a permissible end, unduly to infringe the protected freedom. No one would contest the proposition that a State may not, by statute, wholly deny the right to preach or to disseminate religious views. Plainly, such a previous and absolute restraint would violate the terms of the guarantee. [Footnote 5] It is equally clear that a State may, by general and nondiscriminatory legislation, regulate the times, the places, and the manner of soliciting upon its streets, and of holding meetings thereon, and may in other respects safeguard the peace, good order, and comfort of the community without unconstitutionally invading the liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The appellants are right in their insistence that the Act in question is not such a regulation. The State could not make laws that were not neutrally applicable or act as a gate keeper who was to decide whether or not an act was legitimately religious in order to be permitted. It creates discrimination.

It also took on the question of speech. Part of the charge was that the men had disturbed the peace by sharing their views against the Roman Catholic church that incited hostility toward them. In the ruling, it is discussed - "We find in the instant case no assault or threatening of bodily harm, no truculent bearing, no intentional discourtesy, no personal abuse. On the contrary, we find only an effort to persuade a willing listener to buy a book or to contribute money in the interest of what Cantwell, however misguided others may think him, conceived to be true religion.

In the realm of religious faith, and in that of political belief, sharp differences arise. In both fields the tenets of one man may seem the rankest error to his neighbor. To persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement. But the people of this nation have ordained, in the light of history, that, in spite of the probability of excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long view, essential to enlightened opinion and right conduct on the part of the citizens of a democracy.

"The essential characteristic of these liberties is that, under their shield, many types of life, character, opinion and belief can develop unmolested and unobstructed. Nowhere is this shield more necessary than in our own country, for a people composed of many races and of many creeds. There are limits to the exercise of these liberties. The danger in these times from the coercive activities of those who in the delusion of racial or religious conceit would incite violence and breaches of the peace in order to deprive others of their equal right to the exercise of their liberties, is emphasized by events familiar to all. These and other transgressions of those limits the States appropriately may punish. (my note: the paragraph above is worth rereading)

"Although the contents of the record not unnaturally aroused animosity, we think that, in the absence of a statute narrowly drawn to define and punish specific conduct as constituting a clear and present danger to a substantial interest of the State, the petitioner's communication, considered in the light of the constitutional guarantees, raised no such clear and present menace to public peace and order as to render him liable to conviction of the common law offense in question."

Weighing in on action in the other direction, multiple cases were decided that laws which compelled participation in an act of religious significance were unconstitutional. For example, Abington School District v. Schempp where a statute that required Bible readings at the start of the school day was challenged by an Universal Unitarian and decided in 1963. Long standing tests like that of deciding if there is compelling state interest in making laws shifted to that of examining facial neutrality as discussed in Res Ipsa's example (Employment Div. v. Smith in 1990 - https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federa ... /case.html ) where: "Although a State would be "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" in violation of the Clause if it sought to ban the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts solely because of their religious motivation, the Clause does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a law that incidentally forbids (or requires) the performance of an act that his religious belief requires (or forbids) if the law is not specifically directed to religious practice and is otherwise constitutional as applied to those who engage in the specified act for nonreligious reasons."

On the other side are the attempts to legistate in response to the courts. For example, the Smith case led to the creation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. And the response to Oberfell vs Hodges includes states writing laws attempting to prohibit restricting acts "motivated by religion" and not just religious acts themselves. These laws get to your argument but are subject to challenge, which in my opinion they must be and will almost out of necessity be deemed unconstitutional.

Consider going back to the early cases. How does a court not overrule Reynolds v. US and other subsequent law and turn every claim that an otherwise illegal act is justified based on being motivated by religous belief? It can't. There is an implied bias in these laws that suggests we all know the limits of these laws and the types of religious acts/people we are protecting with them and anything that varies from those will of course be shot down and treated as illegal acts. In other words, the laws will require discrimination rather than religious neutrality. I don't think there is any way around that.

[_ldsfaqs]

I'm honestly shocked that the supreme court went this way to institutionalize discrimination against a minority class of people based on who they are...this is a sad day for America. As shocked as I am I'm even more shocked that the decision was a 7-2 decision. The only positive was that "the Supreme Court’s decision, which turned on the commission’s asserted hostility to religion, strongly reaffirmed protections for gay rights and left open the possibility that other cases raising similar issues could be decided differently."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/us/p ... v=top-news

Except what you stated is utterly false.... That IS NOT what happened.

The Bakers, the Florists, the whatever had "served gays" for years. PERIOD. So clearly by definition, they were not being "discriminatory" according to the Law. Therefore, you misrepresent the issue stating falsehoods of the other side in order to present the other side as intolerant and bigoted and thus worthy of being hated, when the other side has absolutely NO HATE for gays and otherwise.

The difference is, is they were asked to support an ACTIVITY with their services, the providing of services for a particular "type" of Wedding, a Gay Wedding.
This is not discriminatory because it boils down to personal values. You cannot by law and what is right FORCE others to support activities/things/values they disagree with.

Exceptions to freedom of conscious should ONLY occur in relation to "persons", not "activities".

Nobody at all has denied "gays" service (save the idiot exception), if they had then the Gay couple would have had a case under the anti-discriminatory laws.
Since they and others lifestyles and beliefs WERE served cakes for years, you cannot pervert the law to satisfy your own pet peeve to punish others who don't believe as you.

Certain people need to stop abusing and breaking the law to suit your own means and interests against the rights of others.

[_honorentheos]

I don't watch enough Fox News to know what faqs means by the idiot exception.

[_Lemmie]

I don't watch enough Fox News to know what faqs means by the idiot exception.

[_ldsfaqs]

I don't watch enough Fox News to know what faqs means by the idiot exception.

I would be referring to the idiot such as the "pic" of the "no gays allowed" sign guy earlier in the thread.

My point is, let's get real, "how many" people out there are really like that?
Almost zero.... So trying to force the average business owner who might have different beliefs, forcing them to engage in "activities" against those beliefs, is an abuse of the law, not that they were breaking the law.

They weren't weren't asked to bake a cake, they were asked to serve a wedding, specifically a "gay wedding".
Nobody should be forced to do things against their conscious.... That you all support such is telling.

[_honorentheos]

I don't watch enough Fox News to know what faqs means by the idiot exception.

I would be referring to the idiot such as the "pic" of the "no gays allowed" sign guy earlier in the thread.

My point is, let's get real, "how many" people out there are really like that?
Almost zero.... So trying to force the average business owner who might have different beliefs, forcing them to engage in "activities" against those beliefs, is an abuse of the law, not that they were breaking the law.

They weren't weren't asked to bake a cake, they were asked to serve a wedding, specifically a "gay wedding".
Nobody should be forced to do things against their conscious.... That you all support such is telling.

Thanks for explaining.

Also, we've hashed out the issue in this thread regarding the conflict between rights of belief v. rights of action. Sorry to tell you but you can actually be forced to do things or not do things that are lawful whether you agree with them or not. It's kinda fundamental to a functioning society.

[_Res Ipsa]

Faqs, have you read the Colorado civil rights statute that governs public accommodations?

The record in the case states that the bakery also refused to sell cupcakes when it found out that they were for a same sex wedding. How is selling cupcakes participating in a wedding?

[_ldsfaqs]

Thanks for explaining.

Also, we've hashed out the issue in this thread regarding the conflict between rights of belief v. rights of action. Sorry to tell you but you can actually be forced to do things or not do things that are lawful whether you agree with them or not. It's kinda fundamental to a functioning society.

Yes, it is fundamental to a functioning society, but rights end the MOMENT you infringe on someone else's rights.
Forcing a baker to bake a cake for an activity he doesn't support is the very definition of Totalitarianism, NOT "fundamental laws that govern civil society".