[BartSimpson]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06 ... ouple.html

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Supreme Court sides with Colorado baker who refused to make wedding cake for same-sex couple

The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, in one of the most closely watched cases of the term.

In a 7-2 decision, the justices set aside a Colorado court ruling against the baker -- while stopping short of deciding the broader issue of whether a business can refuse to serve gay and lesbian people. The opinion was penned by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is often the swing justice in tight cases.

The narrow ruling here focused on what the court described as anti-religious bias on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it ruled against baker Jack Phillips.

"The Commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion," Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion.

The court said the broader issue, though, "must await further elaboration."

“The reason and motive for the baker’s refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions. The Court’s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws," Kennedy wrote. "Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor in the balance the State sought to reach."

At issue was a July 2012 encounter. At the time, Charlie Craig and David Mullins of Denver visited Masterpiece Cakeshop to buy a custom-made wedding cake. Phillips refused his services when told it was for a same-sex couple. The state civil rights commission sanctioned Phillips after a formal complaint from the gay couple.

Mullins has described their case as symbolizing “the rights of gay people to receive equal service in business … about basic access to public life."

But the Trump administration backed Phillips, who was represented in court by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit. He had lost at every step in the legal appeals process, bringing the case down to the Supreme Court's decision Monday.

Phillips has said he lost business and had to let employees go because of the controversy.

And he has maintained that it’s his choice: "It's not about turning away these customers, it's about doing a cake for an event -- a religious sacred event -- that conflicts with my conscience," he said last year.

The court in December specifically examined whether applying Colorado's public accommodations law to compel the local baker to create commercial "expression" violated his constitutionally protected Christian beliefs about marriage.

By wading again into the culture wars, the justices had to confront recent decisions on both gay rights and religious liberty: a 2015 landmark opinion legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide and a separate 2014 decision affirming the right of some companies to act on their owner's faith by refusing to provide contraception to its workers.

The Trump administration agreed with Phillips' legal claims to a large extent. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in October issued broad guidance to executive branch agencies, reiterating the government should respect religious freedom, which in the Justice Department's eyes extends to people, businesses and organizations.

But civil rights groups were concerned the conservative majority on the court may be ready to peel back protections for groups with a history of enduring discrimination – and predicted that giving businesses the right to refuse service to certain customers would undermine non-discrimination laws and hurt minorities.

When the justices heard arguments in December, Kennedy was plainly bothered by certain comments by a commission member. The commissioner seemed "neither tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips' religious beliefs," Kennedy said in December.

Liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the conservative justices in the outcome. Kagan wrote separately to emphasize the limited ruling.

But Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

"I see no reason why the comments of one or two Commissioners should be taken to overcome Phillips’ refusal to sell a wedding cake to Craig and Mullins," Ginsburg wrote.

This is a win for freedom of conscience. Note that it doesn't just mean that religious people get to object to performing services that create an endorsement that offends their conscience but that it can also mean that other people with deeply held convictions can refuse to perform acts that endorse things that they object to.

This comports with my long-held assertion that the right not to act is a fundamental human right. No one should be forced to do something that they object to doing.

[Thanos]

Keep in mind;

1) it didn't wipe out other precedents where other merchants who also refused service were found liable for rights violations
2) it emphasized that the non-objective actions/comments of the members of the Colorado right's tribunal effectively sabotaged their own legal standing

If those tribunal members had stuck to the existing civil rights laws instead of apparently using this case as an opportunity to do some kind of virtue-signalling grandstanding with no neutrality on their part present at all then there's reason to believe that the baker would have lost this case at the SCOTUS level the same way other merchants already have.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

Keep in mind;

1) it didn't wipe out other precedents where other merchants who also refused service were found liable for rights violations
2) it emphasized that the non-objective actions/comments of the members of the Colorado right's tribunal effectively sabotaged their own legal standing

If those tribunal members had stuck to the existing civil rights laws instead of apparently using this case as an opportunity to do some kind of virtue-signalling grandstanding with no neutrality on their part present at all then there's reason to believe that the baker would have lost this case at the SCOTUS level the same way other merchants already have.

If the Colorado Commission were to have been neutral in their application of the law I suspect they may have sided with the bakery.

Why?

Because the gay couple was not barred from doing business with the bakery. They had the option of buying a standard wedding cake if they wished. But what they wanted was a custom cake that the bakery did not offer to any other customer.

On that basis alone they could have applied existing law and vacated the complaint.

[Tricks]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

No one should be forced to do something that they object to doing.

No one? Or non-essential?

[Tricks]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

"The Commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion," Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion.

Which is interesting, because this ruling shows a favouring of religion. So which is it? Either you favour religion or you favour a lack thereof in this ruling. You can't have both.

[Thanos]

Tricks Tricks:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

"The Commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion," Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion.

Which is interesting, because this ruling shows a favouring of religion. So which is it? Either you favour religion or you favour a lack thereof in this ruling. You can't have both.

Depends on how the Colorado rights tribunal was behaving in the case. If they were openly hostile towards the defendant then SCOTUS falling on his side merely balances out a miscarriage of justice. I'm assuming because of this decision, where two notably liberal SCOTUS judges agreed with the conservative majority on the court that the defendant hadn't received impartial justice, that in the US one-sided borderline-tyrannical misbehaviour by rights tribunals is as bad as it is with Canada horribly misnamed human rights commissions.

[BartSimpson]

Tricks Tricks:

Which is interesting, because this ruling shows a favouring of religion. So which is it? Either you favour religion or you favour a lack thereof in this ruling. You can't have both.

This isn't an either/or issue.

Like has been noted, the gay couple were never told they could not buy a standard cake. They wanted something that the bakery did not offer in the first place and then they went to the commission to try to force the bakery to bake the cake or else they wanted the bakery bankrupted with fines.

Imagine going into a Jewish or Muslim butcher shop and demanding they make you a pork roast.

Do you have a right to make them do that?

No. Because it violates their deeply held religious beliefs.

But they also don't have right to bar you from buying any of the products that they offer to anyone else.

That's the heart of this issue and the Colorado HRC should have got this right the first time and they would have were it not for that they hate Christians and have a socio-political bias in favor of gays...and two liberal Justices saw this, too.

[BartSimpson]

The text of the opinion can be found here:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/1 ... 1_j4el.pdf

[xerxes]

It’s a very narrow ruling. SCOTUS didn’t really decide in favour of the baker’s right to discriminate; rather it was roused the Colorado commission was biased against the baker in the first place and deserved a neutral arbiter.

[Thanos]

It's a great case if nothing else to use as a starting point for abolishing all extra-legal tribunals. We have legislatures and we have open courts and that's all we need to sustain the balance of justice in our societies, Canadian as well as American. We don't need star chambers that are apparently answerable to no one and that make no pretense of their overwhelming bias in favour of one side only.

[Tricks]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Tricks Tricks:

Which is interesting, because this ruling shows a favouring of religion. So which is it? Either you favour religion or you favour a lack thereof in this ruling. You can't have both.

This isn't an either/or issue.

Like has been noted, the gay couple were never told they could not buy a standard cake. They wanted something that the bakery did not offer in the first place and then they went to the commission to try to force the bakery to bake the cake or else they wanted the bakery bankrupted with fines.

Imagine going into a Jewish or Muslim butcher shop and demanding they make you a pork roast.

Do you have a right to make them do that?

No. Because it violates their deeply held religious beliefs.

But they also don't have right to bar you from buying any of the products that they offer to anyone else.

That's the heart of this issue and the Colorado HRC should have got this right the first time and they would have were it not for that they hate Christians and have a socio-political bias in favor of gays...and two liberal Justices saw this, too.

What did they want that was so special?

[BartSimpson]

Tricks Tricks:

What did they want that was so special?

They wanted an avowedly Christian firm to bake a custom wedding cake for their gay wedding.

They were not denied service and the Supreme Court noted this in arguments.

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Phillips offered them their choice of ordinary wedding cakes and they were offended and left the shop.

They had the option of a standard wedding cake for their wedding. But they wanted a custom cake that required an artistic expression on the part of Phillips and that forced expression violated his rights.

I mean, say BeaverFever owns a bakery...can I force him to bake me an "I Love Trump" cake if he's artistically and fundamentally opposed to that message?

I don't think so.

That's the principle that four conservatives, one moderate, and two liberals agreed upon in this case.

[Tricks]

They asked for a wedding cake from someone who does wedding cakes. That's not special.

How exactly is this not discrimination? Unless he doesn't do wedding cakes at all that is.

[Tricks]

I read more of the ruling itself, and the court hasn't specifically ruled in his favour. They've said he was treated like shit because of his beliefs, which I can agree, even though I find his beliefs disgusting, he can't be demeaned by the state because of them. However, the ruling also specifically says that you can't deny goods and services to gay persons based of religious objection lest it creates an atmosphere for denying stuff for gay weddings.

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Nevertheless,
while those religious and philosophical objections 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.

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When it comes to weddings, it can be assumed that a
member of the clergy who objects to gay marriage on
moral and religious grounds could not be compelled to
perform the ceremony without denial of his or her right to
the free exercise of religion. This refusal would be well
understood in our constitutional order as an exercise of
religion, an exercise that gay persons could recognize and
accept without serious diminishment to their own dignity
and worth. Yet if that exception were not confined, then a
long list of persons who provide goods and services for
marriages and weddings might refuse to do so for gay
persons, thus resulting 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.

So what it seems like they're saying is, he was treated like shit so we aren't allowing it to stand, but it's a unique case that is not representative of what a further ruling would be, and in general you're not allowed to do this. If they had been impartial to his beliefs and ruled on it from a basic point of refusing services to a protected person, I wonder how it would have went. As one of the other justice's wrote

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By contrast,
the same-sex couple in this case requested a wedding cake
that Phillips would have made for an opposite-sex couple.
In refusing that request, Phillips contravened CADA’s
demand that customers receive “the full and equal enjoyment”
of public accommodations irrespective of their
sexual orientation.

In the rest of her writing she agreed with the court decision because of how it was applied, but not that it was applied, in which she actually agreed with the Colorado decision.

[BartSimpson]

You can read it the way you wish. As I am reading this if they were neutral about his Christian beliefs (which you are not) then the ruling should be consistent with the three other similar rulings the same commission made that protected people's beliefs.

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even though I find his beliefs disgusting

I'm pulling this line out because where you find his beliefs to be disgusting then why aren't you asking the question of why this man was singled out or targeted by these activists? Why did they behave as if the only cake shop in town was this one?

You would never favor him with your business so why did they INSIST that he serve them?

Again, it's like trying to force the halal/kosher butcher shop to make you a pork roast instead of just going to a butcher shop that handles pork.