>But in a brief order issued Tuesday, the court said it would limit the issue to free speech and decide “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment.”
>A decision in favor of the web designer could have a significant impact in California and 19 other states that forbid businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ customers. It could give business owners an exemption based on their religion to refuse to provide flowers, photography or other products or services for a same-sex marriage.
The two paragraphs seem to contradict. The court is supposed to be ignoring religion, and focusing squarely on free speech. So the question isn't whether someone can be compeled to speech counter to their religion, but rather whether an artist can be compeled to make any art at all. The latter seems to have much broader implications, applying to any political or aesthetic position, not just one prefered by a major religion. The very fact that this is being taken up by the supreme court seems to suggest a reasonable chance of winning as well.
When the Court grants cert (chooses to hear a case), it takes up one or more specific “questions presented.” Here, the Court indicated in granting cert that it would only address the free speech issue.
>> But in a brief order issued Tuesday, the court said it would limit the issue to free speech and decide “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment.”
Good point. As a man, I am not comfortable watching gay porn or even two men kissing each other, even though I totally have nothing against them and I wish them the best and I am a totally atheist. I don’t think I need religion as a reason for me to not take photos which make me uncomfortable. Religion is really irrelevant here.
Further, I think creative speech is also irrelevant. I don't think it is a speech issue at all, even though compelled speech can be used as a reasoning for defending the creator's right. But what if I am just a waiter for a party, do I have to serve a gay wedding party, where lots of gay couples kissing and hugging each other? So a photographer has a reason to not be forced to serve a gay wedding party, but a waiter can not? I don't think it is fair.
I wish a society based on good faith and people are tolerate with each other.
Back in the 1960s there were some prominent Christian ministers in the American South who insisted that interracial marriage was against God's will. Will business owners be allowed to discriminate against multiracial couples as well? Doubt it. They will treat gay people differently, because there's only one kind of religious belief they seek to protect.
It's literally in their bible. Anyone claiming otherwise is not following it. All those institutions listed in the wikipedia article are not following their faith, but are modern liberalized watered down, and attempting to be hip and "keep up with the times". They caved to pressure.
> are modern liberalized watered down, and attempting to be hip and "keep up with the times"
As was every transliteration, translation and revised version of their religious texts over time. As was the new testament to the old. Likely very little that is practiced today reflects the "original" version of the religions, whatever that may be.
Yes, they corrupted the bible and their religion, we know that, and that's the point I was making. The trinity being a major invention for example. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't remnants and fragments of Truth from the original Message.
The Christian bible does arguably say that homosexuality is a vice and perhaps a form of idolatry, but it says absolutely nothing about doing business with gay people. Nothing in the Bible says that you shouldn’t make a cake or website for someone because they are a “sinner.”
What the people behind these lawsuit really seem to believe in is dominionism/Christian Reconstructionism - the political belief that the United States should be a Christian theocracy. The idea that you need to shun people for not following Christian religious laws is neither in the Bible, a tenant of mainstream Christianity, nor a political belief compatible with a free society.
> but it says absolutely nothing about doing business with gay people. Nothing in the Bible says that you shouldn’t make a cake or website for someone because they are a “sinner.”
Instead it suggests you kill them on sight.
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" Leviticus 20:13
That’s the Old Testament, which is not literally/strictly followed by Christians, nor by most people in other Abraham of religions. If you want to follow the Old Testament, be my guest, but you should also keepeth the Sabbath, giveth up pork, and kill anyone working on a Sabbath, doing seances, or says “god damn”. And if your child disobeys you, you don’t have to murder them yourself, but you must at least get your neighbors to murder them for you.
The New Testament compares homosexuality to greed and says that you won’t “inherit the kingdom of heaven.” If this woman wants to have a consistent world view, she should also check to make sure the websites she builds won’t be used for any greedy purposes such as usury. In fact, if she accepts payments by credit card…
I think it’s insane to say that making a website meant for someone’s friends and family to see is “promoting an ideology”. She would be primarily collating and displaying data provided to her by her client.
It’s also plain offensive to call having a family an “ideology.” It’s just a thing people do, they’re living their lives.
By making a website for homosexuals, she is aiding them to engage in a sinful activity. It's really quite straightforward logical behavior. And from Christianity's perspective (as well as many other faiths), this is not a "family". You don't get to impose your ideology on someone else like that. Where's freedom of expression, as per your own country's law?
> which is not literally/strictly followed by Christians
That is not accurate. The old testament is something like 80% of the bible. It contains the ten commandments, the story of creation and many other things that are still in use today. Like any other religion, different sects have different interpretations of the Bible, but I'm not aware of anyone who throws the old testament out entirely (it also wouldn't make much sense, Jesus is fulfilling a prophecy from the old testament, without that he's just some guy). Further, you will often hear about a "personal relationship with Christ" that the faithful have, that is to say everyone interpets the Bible differently.
Right, but only political extremists pick and choose the parts that they think can promote hate and ignore the rest - which is what she’s doing by not keeping the Sabbath and not killing those who do not.
Doing business with someone vs. promoting their ideology and helping them engage in sin are two very different issues. She can sell them a neutral website that does not promote homosexuality for instance, which is very different from making a website that announces and promotes the practice, which goes against her faith.
> nor a political belief compatible with a free society
So in a free society, one cannot point out contradictions or hypocrisy?
In a free society, you don’t get to try to make your extremist religious beliefs into law. Look at the theocracies of the world - they are not good places to live for most people.
Our actions and what we are allowed to do are constrained by God's orders. He owns us, and defines what we are and are not allowed to engage in. It is a consistent and non-contradicting system, unlike the liberal atheist view where the poles keep moving.
She actually does not have a right to own a business and not comply with nondescrimination law. I think the idea that “doing your job regardless of who you have to do business with” is somehow “spreading sin” is, frankly, bordering on silly. If she disagrees, no one is forcing her to be in the wedding website business. Unless her only back up plan is cake baking, she can do almost any other job and she will not be forced to go against her fringe viewpoint. I believe in absolute freedom in that I believe she is absolutely free to do whatever the fuck she wants as long as it’s not illegal.
It's not illegal to refuse to do business with someone. It's quite ironic how keeping morality is now somehow a "fringe" action, but not spreading sexual immorality.
Something being normal in a bunch of places, especially places low on the HDI, democracy, press freedom, Gini etc. indexes and coefficients doesn't make it non-extremist from GP's ( and arguably "western" point of view).
Cutting arms for thievery, or jailing converts/gays/whatever or forcing raped women to marry their rapists or go to jail/get lashed for having sex outside of marriage are "normal" things in many theocracies. Are those things not extremist, abhorrent and abnormal for your average Westerner?
Ah yes, the “those backwards brown and yellow people” argument. Also, the things you mention aren’t common in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. They’re not cutting off people’s hands for stealing in Bangladesh. But western countries are in the distinct minority in believing that marriage can encompass gay relationships.
Ah yes, the "bad faith accusation of racism to score rhetorical points" retort. You're apparently a lawyer, so you're obviously willfully misreading the comment you're replying to.
It's not accusation of racism, but it's quite clear that OP thinks lower of those places because they're not "democracies" or have "free press". As if those things are causal reasons of prosperity or something. Not to mention false accusations of people being forced to marry their rapists or something. Rape and sexual harassment are much much more prevalent in the decadent sexually immoral West that's a fact.
We're proud of our "barbaric" laws that punish the thieves and rapists and murderers and fornicators. Don't force your "enlightenment" on us, we saw where it got your culture OP.
You're conviniently missing two of my four arguments - HDI and Gini coefficient. Yes, democracy and free press are very nice to have, but you can't argue with low HDI.
> Rape and sexual harassment are much much more prevalent in the decadent sexually immoral West that's a fact.
That's just absolute bullshit. Yes, women are forced to be married to their rapists, and do get punished getting raped. Not everywhere, but it happens. Sexual assault and the like are underreported in the West, let alone countries like Pakistan and India where femicides and brutality against women are close to being normal and usually go without any consequences ( point in case, a brutal case in Pakistan made the international news because the perpetrator got punished after sustained media and public outcry).
And I don't suppose HDI and Gini have anything to do with the history of continuous colonialism and occupation by the West that continues to this day, do they? Just look at how the US is stealing $7Billion of Afghanistan's money today under Biden, so don't tell me about some wealth inequality when the West continues to siphon the wealth of countries it occupied in West and South Eastern Asia.
> Yes, women are forced to be married to their rapists
Maybe in some fringe cases or countries like India which already have a huge problem due to many factors, including a religion that does not seem to prohibit such actions.
Now compare to when we had actual enforcement of Shariah and the evil doers were punished, before the West occupied us and forced their "tolerant and liberal" policies under the guise of "human rights", suspending the death penalty for criminals like murderers and those who spread corruption in the land, and it's no wonder these things are happening.
Of course colonialism and neocolonialism contribute a lot to the explanation behind HDI and Gini results, but the vast disparity between different ex-colonies shows it isn't that simple.
Oh. I bid you good day sir ( i highly doubt a woman would speak the bullshit you've said about sexual assault and champion Sharia law), because the mere notion that laws based on a religion, especially one of those that treats half of the people as second class, and forbids conversions/atheism/agnosticism is anything but literally one of the worst possible ways to govern a country, is ludicrous and doesn't deserve engaging. There's nothing good to be said about a religious legal system. You can have tough punishments if the people so want based on actual legal principles, not because an old book people consider sacred said so.
What did I say about sexual assault? That the rapist should be punished? I assure you that many women would love that.
We also have countless Muslim women, who by definition support Shariah (actually, the belief of any Muslim who does not accept Shariah is suspect - by definition, a Muslim supports Shariah [i.e. the Law (of God)]). But if you take your news from far leftist and far rightist sources, I wouldn't be surprised you'd be making such claims.
Islam does not treat women as second class, and in fact, has elevated her status and guaranteed her rights. Islam allows freedom of religion and belief. If you took some time to actually read how things were, you wouldn't be saying such things. Even Jewish historians admit that Jews had it best under Islam.
It's trivial to disprove your false claims, that honestly show ignorance with all due respect.
> Islam does not treat women as second class, and in fact, has elevated her status and guaranteed her rights. Islam allows freedom of religion and belief
Now i know you're lying. Right to need to ask for permission to go out/drive/get married, or right to dress exactly as required? Or right to be married off at 14? Or maybe right of divorce ( because of course it's different for men and women). And how does freedom of religion work when the law is religious itself?
> Even Jewish historians admit that Jews had it best under Islam.
That is such bullshit. Had it best? Compared to Israel or compared to Jews who emigrated to the New World? Or maybe you're making some very narrow comparison with Spain under the Inquisition to fit your crazy narrative?
Your worldview is completely incompatible with a free country. You're, of course, free to espouse it and practice it, in any country compatible with it (just don't try anything different there or you might get in prison/killed).
> Right to need to ask for permission to go out/drive/get married, or right to dress exactly as required?
Men have restrictions as well. It's not a free for all you know. Just because the secular West has decided that humans should behave like animals, we are not going to blindly follow. We protect our women so that they don't end up being raped and harassed like they are in the West. God created us, and he knows how we behave in a world where anything goes. We're seeing the results in front of our own eyes. You wouldn't walk into a bear cave then come crying when you get mauled would you? Or walk in a sketchy alley knowing you might get mugged. Same here.
> Or right to be married off at 14?
Islam does not specify a particular number for marriage. What's required is both physical and mental maturity for both sexes. Permission from the girl is also required, and she cannot be married off by force.
Each sex has their rights and responsibilities when it comes to marriage. Marriage is a contract, where both have roles and responsibilities. Divorce is also permitted, unlike Christianity where marriage is forever.
> And how does freedom of religion work when the law is religious itself?
Islam guarantees and protects the rights of non-Muslims, this is in many Hadiths. So much so that if a Muslim wrongs or diminishes the rights of a non-Muslim living on Muslim lands, or forces him to work beyond his capacity, or takes anything from him without his consent, then Muhammad Peace be upon him will plead for the non-Muslim on the Day of Judgment [1].
> That is such bullshit. Had it best?
You might want to check with an actual Jewish historian Shelomo Dov Goitien who made these claims and tell him they're bs. Anyone honest with himself will also come to the same conclusion [2]. Israel is a false state formed on the blood of innocents who were killed, kicked out, and displaced.
> just don't try anything different there or you might get in prison/killed
Because democracy and press freedom are the be all end all right?
That being said, we're proud of our "barbaric" laws that punish the evil doers like thieves and rapists and murderers and fornicators. We saw what "enlightenment" has done to your culture. You can also stop making lies like forcing women to marry their rapists. What a straw man.
Nope, but they are important for the functioning of a society. Not every country can just become a democracy ( there need to be significant civic and educational basics otherwise it probably won't work), but even the flawed ones are better to live in. At the very least because there you could criticise the people in power if you dislike their policies or want change, which are useful things to be able to do.
There's nothing wrong with punishing murderers or rapists, but if the punishments are very severe ( chopping up heads or hands) the downsides for a wrong court decision become enormous. I'm not sure what the crime of fornication is supposed to be though.
I never said they are everywhere, but they tend to be more present in religious countries that put importance on the "purity" and "virginity" of a woman. Like with "honour killings", which are also a thing only in that type of country.
And for the "the woman had sex outside of marriage because she was raped", there were a few recent cases in countries as supposedly developed as Qatar and UAE of foreign women being convicted of it.
> Nope, but they are important for the functioning of a society.
> but even the flawed ones are better to live in
Easily disproven by contradiction, specifically if by democracy you mean today's Western definition of it where anything is up for voting by any fool from the street. The Islamic Golden Age is a shining example of a prosperous nation that did not abide by today's Western definition of democracy. We have something called "Shurah" in Islam, which is a restricted form of opinion seeking and consultation of experts on the subject matter, a much more superior approach.
What's ironic is that today the West doesn't even follow its fabled democracy and freedom of expression. We've literally just witnessed the double standards in what happened in Canada in the past few weeks. Rules for thee but not for me as they say.
> the downsides for a wrong court decision become enormous
That is why in Islamic Law, punishments are fended off with any ounce of doubt. Today, the West threw out the baby with the bath water, where even in clear cut cases like the Boston Marathon bomber, or the countless other cases where confessions were had not under duress, the killers and serial rapists are left to live.
Fornication is having sex outside of marriage. Normalizing this behavior, as we see in the West today, leads to many casualties like the spread of STD's, teen pregnancies, destruction of families, call for so called "abortion rights", mixing of lineages, even siblings who don't know they're siblings grow up separate from each other and get attracted to each other, and countless other messes that are causing a decline in morality and dragging down society with it. It's known that sexual immorality produces new diseases that did not exist in previous nations, HIV being one clear example.
We don't have marry your rapist laws in Islam, so it's a non issue for us. As a matter of fact, a rapist is severely punished, and can be executed depending on the situation.
Yes, we value purity and virginity, not just for women, but for men as well. Honor killings are not part of Islam, and in fact, the punishment for and honor killing is to execute the killer.
> there were a few recent cases in countries as supposedly developed as Qatar and UAE of foreign women being convicted of it.
I heard about some of those cases, and they were not clear cut. e.g. the woman was drunk (another thing that should be prohibited and punished), so the testimony is difficult to prove. Ideally in such a scenario, both parties involved are to be punished.
>Look at the theocracies of the world - they are not good places to live for most people.
I say this as an Atheist - it goes both ways. Countries where a lack of religion is forced can be pretty abhorrent too. Think of North Korea or Stalin's USSR.
Perhaps the problem doesn't lie in the fact that the state-enforced ideology is religious, but instead that there is a state-enforced ideology at all.
The problem is not in enforcing any arbitrary ideology (there needs to be one at the end of the day, there's no getting away from it), but that whether or not said ideology is moral and is able to lead the nation to prosperity. I would argue that it is possible: turn to Islam. It prohibits immorality and deviancy and corruption which are at the root of almost everything we are seeing today, while allowing citizens and residents (even non-Muslims) flexibility into deciding certain things that do not violate the Law. For example, we have even Jewish historians admitting that the Jews had it better than anywhere else in the world when they lived under Muslim rule.
The short answer is "The Civil Rights Act curtails the right to freedom of association." It declared protected classes and then made illegal telling those classes "We don't serve your kind here." Subsequent court precedent upheld Congress's right to do this without a Constitutional amendment to adjust the First Amendment (IANAL so I unfortunately cannot direct you to that precedent quickly; the thumbnail sketch as I understand it is that the right to association is derived from the right to assembly, and that right is for political purposes, i.e. the government can't tell people "you can't get together and complain that government sucks," but refusing to serve people of a particular race or hire people of a particular gender is not political association and not protected by 1A).
The reason this case is even in question (as opposed to the Courts just saying "We already settled this") is that the precedent for whether the Civil Rights Act burdens freedom of expression (i.e. speech) is much thinner on the ground. They're both First Amendment rights, but they're rights with different sets of precedent (and different understanding of magnitude; the right to association is derived from protection of "peaceable assembly," but expression is synonymous with speech and directly and clearly protected by 1A).
Many things are written in many bibles that are recognized as uncivilized, unethical, immoral, and ultimately illegal.
Whatever tennets of a religion that say to harm a other, fall outside of any freedom of religion protection, and are just as illegal for the practitioners as for anyone else.
The case will merely decide if this sort of discrimination constitutes harming another.
Think the store mysteriously always being out of flour for the black family.
I think if you want to be selective in who you work for, you have the right not to operate a business. You can bake cakes for your friends all you like.
But if you want to operate a business then you have no right to discriminate. A customer only needs to bring legal tender and not cause problems in any way that the law recognizes as a problem, applying equally to anyone anywhere. If the law of the land does not recognize gayness as illegal or harmful, then neither do any businesses.
Although this case sounds like they are trying to make a finer point that they don't want to produce a message they don't agree with. IE, they claim they would service a gay customer if the work didn't happen to promote a gay message.
That will probably be a bit messier. I'm no lawyer or judge so maybe this distinction is no great "gotcha" for a professional. But it seems to me like that idea opens up a lot of hard to argue grey areas, like how they are trying to invoke both violence and homosexuality in the same complaint.
I can think of lots of examples of things that are not illegal that I would not like to participate in. I can think of lot's of legal businesses that I would not like to help with their IT or web site. I just happen to be revolted by other things than gay people.
If you're selling identical things, then you need to sell them to everyone equally regardless of anything.
If you're a public servant or god forbid a doctor or pharmacist then its you're sworn duty to serve the greatest good. If you don't want to dispense birth control or perform emergency abortions, then you picked the wrong profession.
I would argue however, that if you're an artist, an actual artist than you should probably be able to turn down a commission for any reason. It still makes you an asshole though. And to be clear, I'm talking about the case where you are asked create something entirely new, not "eh, I'll take cake #37."
The thing cuts both ways--I have a side business doing CNC/engraving/3d printing, really just a hobby... and I live in a conservative area. Lots of people want me to design something like a "Lets go Brandon" leather patch-- or horse tack (which I hand paint) with MAGA slogans on it.
I don't want to be associated with stuff like that. I think its well within my rights to turn work like that down.
I've turned down t-shirt orders that were beyond vulgar.
> I don't want to be associated with stuff like that. I think its well within my rights to turn work like that down.
Worth noting: under federal law that's your right regardless of the outcome of this case.
At the federal level[1], political affiliation is not a protected class. This makes sense considering the issues that formed the Civil Rights Act (primarily race discrimination); it wouldn't make sense to grant the same rights and restrictions of assembly around serving a person of a particular race and serving a person who's political belief was people of that race are inferior. So a Klansman, for example, has a right to representation, advocate representation in the justice system, and freedom of speech but no particular right to be served in a bar (and bars can and do kick people out for wearing obvious signification of political affiliation, see https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-k...). Backing an anarchist or communist party can (and famously did) get you fired from a job, also.
[1] Some states grant additional rights in state law... IIRC, California does put political affiliation in the protected class in its state law
Any business that can call their product/service “speech” would have federal protection letting their business to discriminate against anyone, even in the 19 states that have anti-LGBT discrimination laws on the books (the state laws would be overruled by the supremacy clause). So even though the court is ignoring the religious aspect of the case, the outcome will very much matter to religious business owners.
This is very interesting to me: On one side, I agree with the principle of free speech and my first thought was Why cant she decide who does she want to do business with? (Having to work on force on something you dont want to seems like slavery).
On the other hand, this reminds me of the old signs that said "we dont serve Mexicans and black people. Dogs are welcomed " which were pretty bad. Should someone be forced to work on something he doesn't want to due to her (wrong) beliefs?
I think the difference in a legal sense is huge. It is about compelling service vs compelling speech.
If the gay couple wanted a website to showcase pictures of their dog and the web designer didn't take the job because the clients were gay - the supreme court never would have taken that case. It's just discrimination.
If a straight couple wanted to build a pro-lgbt website and the web designer refused, the case would fundamentally be the same. It's an issue about compelling speech.
I mentioned this in another comment, but I don’t think the designer should be compelled to make a website. I think she should be disallowed from making wedding websites if her policy for that category is “don’t work for gays”. Discrimination prevented, no speech compelled.
> I think she should be disallowed from making wedding websites if her policy for that category is “don’t work for gays”.
The issue is that she (reportedly) will happily work for gays, just not in order to produce pro-gay content. So it's not a question of "are you willing to work for <protected class>", it's "are you willing to create whatever content someone might want?"
This isn’t “whatever content someone might want”, though. It’s a specific service she provides (to some people). From the petition:
> Artist Lorie Smith is a website designer who creates original, online content consistent with her faith. She plans to (1) design wedding websites promoting her understanding of marriage, and (2) post a statement explaining that she can only speak messages consistent with her faith.
If I am gay and I’m in the market for a wedding website, there is zero difference to me whether your policy is “don’t make wedding websites for gay people” or “don’t make websites for gay people”. You might be willing to make a website for my business or my portfolio, but that doesn’t matter because I don’t need that. Whatever your reasoning, the impact is exactly the same: your policy, as designed, excludes me as a customer.
The article also says that the issue will be limited to the “Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment”, so in a legal sense I think the fact that someone might make such a policy because of their religion is irrelevant in this case.
The customer’s viewpoint isn’t the only one that matters. If you’re a Muslim who believes what the Prophet—the one who exemplifies the perfect man—said to be true, then what you’re being asked to create makes a big difference.
While the Supreme Court will address this on First Amendment grounds, that doesn’t mean religion is irrelevant. Speech is deeply intertwined with religion. There is a long history of forcing people to engage in speech contrary to their religious beliefs as a way to attack and destroy the religion.
There is also a history way of using religion as a pretext to discriminate against people. I know plenty of Muslims who don’t harbor any negative views of homosexuality, for instance; it’s certainly not a required tenet. And if we’re discussing this in moral rather than legal terms, I actually do think the customer’s viewpoint is the only one that matters.
It’s not for the government to decide what’s a “requires tenet” of a religion. Moreover, Islam isn’t Protestant Christianity. You don’t read the book and make up your own mind about what it means. Islam has baked into it a principle that lay people defer to religious scholars on major doctrinal questions.
American Muslims (I’m an immigrant from a Muslim country) have a very nuanced view on same-sex marriage. Most support it’s legality because they view white Americans as belonging to a distinct culture that isn’t subject to Islamic law. But in their own community it’s completely unacceptable: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres....
Thus there is a big difference for most Muslims between equal rights, non-discrimination protections, etc., and anything that would require their personal involvement.
The distinction is that she'll "work for gays as long as they're not getting married". Still a shitty thing to do, so the parent commenter's point still stands.
This brings up an interesting thought I had while reading this.
Let's hypothetically take this to an extreme, take off the veneer. Let's say John hates some group of people. Let's disregard whether that group is defined by mutable or immutable characteristics. Does John have a right to hate those people? Does he have a right to express that hatred in a non violent, non coercive way? And if so, what does that entail? Is it about speech? Is making a painting speech? A website? What about making a cocktail? And why is it limited to speech, just because of the letter of the law? Does one have the right to associate with whom they please, and do business with whom they please?
So by that logic—everyone benefits from tax funded military and police services, so the government can compel people to do whatever the government wants.
Your example suggests a fairly obvious line to draw; that a person should not be compelled to speech that they do not agree with, but that they may still be compelled to action that does not reasonably count as speech. As a less emotional example, a person may be compelled pay taxes, but may not be compelled to say that they endorse taxes.
That is an elegant solution which feels impossible to implement. How do you draw a line around what is "speech" and what is not? It could be argued that paying your taxes is speech - it is an action expressing support of your government.
It'll hardly be the fuzziest line that the courts have to draw. They'll come up with a set of general principles to help decide which side of the line cases lie on, and then mediate the ambiguous cases. Some examples might be, is is the action communicative?, is this a specific expression of the author's beliefs or just a specific sale of that expression to a disfavoured party?, is there a specific conflict between the providers' action and that providers' beliefs?
Laws are not programs and you should not expect them to be written precisely over the full generality of possible inputs. A good suggestion can be one that merely makes the right outcomes clearer, not just one that makes law a matter of rote. Pretty much every law ever written can be dismissed if you count there being some ambiguity as a reason for dismissal.
There is an important distinction that you are blurring. On the one hand, we don’t (any more) tolerate places of public accommodation from excluding people based on certain categories, such as race. Because permitting that exclusion leads to injustice and makes life difficult for the excluded groups. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean we automatically want to force people to do lengthy, bespoke work that offends their beliefs, even if we might not agree with those beliefs.
I'm no legal scholar, but I'm not sure if the public accommodation part is true. Can a web designer refuse to accept black clients today? I assumed this was more or less a settled issue on the race side.
> On the other hand, that doesn’t mean we automatically want to force people to do lengthy, bespoke work that offends their beliefs, even if we might not agree with those beliefs.
I think their comment still applies. Do you still think the web developer should have the right to deny service based on the race or sex of the client, if that's what they were claiming offended their beliefs?
If every wedding photographer denied a couple service because they are two men, doesn't that "make life difficult for the excluded group"?
The signs nailed to Tucker Carlson’s door aside, the line should be clear: private citizens should be able to refuse service for any stated reason (and they get to accept the social consequences as well if other people don’t like their refusal); government officials cannot refuse service. This should not be difficult.
The case in question may be more nuanced than this — TFA is paywalled.
False. Even if for the sake of argument people didn't have a choice over their sexuality, they do definitely have a choice in not engaging in same sex relationships. Just like someone with violent tendencies chooses not to go killing others and take anger management lessons.
Besides the fact that what Christianity says is irrelevant in the realms of US law and morality, religious figures have long been the biggest opponents of interracial marriage. Plenty of Christians point to Genesis 11 and Acts 17:26 to support arguments against interracial marriage. The KKK burns crosses to "symbolize faith in Christ". If the zeitgeist of Christianity can change its stance on people of color, it's simply bigotry to argue that LGBT folks are different. Keep your revisionist nonsense to yourself.
If you can't decide what's right from wrong, why ask? It means that you have no way of telling whether anything is right or wrong. Is murder wrong? Is stealing wrong? Is interest wrong? We don't know I suppose eh?
You're already assuming a conclusion with that question. Does everything have to be about apparent or obvious harm to be prohibited? Secondly, if we were to prove harm, would it deter you?
The secular West has adopted the philosophy of "everything goes as long as it doesn't harm me", which falls apart at scrutiny. This philosophy has also invaded their Christian population, which is why you see they caved to pressure.
Define "opposition". In any case, God forbids homosexual relationships. Whether the harms of such relationships are apparent to us or not is secondary.
Humans evolved a sense of morality so that we could live and work together in groups, which helps us survive. Morality is effective at doing this, regardless of any notion of absoluteness or not.
I still have moral views despite not believing in any god.
The moral views you have are remnants from both (1) fitrah (natural disposition, which is not free from corruption by the way, and (2) a Judeo-Christian view of the world. While both of those religions have been corrupted, their still exists remnants of Truth that people cling to, whether they are aware of that or not.
Of course my moral views are affected by my culture. That is a big part of how morality works.
I encourage you to learn more about evolution. The evidence and coherency is overwhelming. “The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins is a very good brief overview of the evidence. It’s quite stunning.
It actually did come from God: first of all, He created us and put in us "fitrah" (natural disposition). Secondly, a lot of the moral code especially in the West today is based on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Even though those religions have been corrupted, there are still remnants of truths from the original Message.
Is there any specific reason why you don't currently accept evolution?
If you study evolution with an open mind, you will see that it is true. There is a reason that the percentage of people who don't accept evolution has steadily decreased over the decades. It is by far the most compelling explanation for the origin of all the life we see around us, including ourselves. You can then see how the capacity for morality is an evolved trait, like all innate human behaviors.
Specific moral systems, such as the Judeo-Christian tradition you mention, are the product of cultural "evolution". They are built on top of our innate moral capacities.
Those aren't really comparable. This lady isn't against working with a certain class of people, just creating a certain type of content. That's drastically different than denying all service based on the client (and in your example, displaying a terrible sign to insult them).
Change the sign to "No interracial couples" and their point still stands. People, including business owners and judges[1], would cite their religious belief that races were not meant to mix and would refuse service to interracial couples.
It looks like this is the same law that the SC visited with the wedding cake case a few years back, and they punted then on the actual decision of whether it was discrimination or not. If the court is now further to the right than it was, I'm not sure it matters how obvious a case of discrimination this is. The ramifications of allowing discrimination based on any religious belief would be drastic. I hope they're considering what other religions besides Christianity might do given the chance to legally enforce their morals on others. I'm sure The Satanic Temple would come up with some interesting interpretations of this.
TFA was clear that the court was not considering the religious aspect and was focusing only on the speech issue. Can a customer compell speech from a person?
This really is not that anyway and it is disingenuous that it keeps being argued that way. It is ridiculous that the person is claiming their 1st Amendment rights as an artist are being impinged on. This person is representing themselves as a business. As a business, you cannot discriminate against certain classes. What you do in your own home is your business; what you do when trying to make money off it, is another. Attempting to make these the same is an attack on civil rights.
See: Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), Rolon v. Kulwitzky, 200 Cal. Rptr. 217.
If it was such a cut and dry, disingenuous case then the supreme court would not have agreed to hear it. It wouldn't have even made it to the supreme court if it was plainly rehashing old cases.
There may be nuance here that you're not letting yourself see.
> If it was such a cut and dry, disingenuous case then the supreme court would not have agreed to hear it.
I don't understand this comment? Nothing in the law is fixed. I just find this current angle of attack really disheartening and insincere, but the law is about making a persuasive case to the appropriate audience, at the appropriate time. The Court hears lots of things that I'd argue it has no business in hearing, but that is its prerogative and what it chooses to hear depends on the the makeup of the Court at the time the case is presented.
This case is a vehicle for the Alliance Defending Freedom to use to further their goals because they believe the Court will rule in a way that is sympathetic to their cause. This is not an opinion. This is a fact. I'm not judging them for doing that, it's the nature of the game. The legal argument they're making for it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
> It wouldn't have even made it to the supreme court if it was plainly rehashing old cases.
The SCOTUS is 9 people in a conference room deciding what cases to hear. Of course, it's not _that_ simplistic, but there isn't some state machine here that determines ripeness, mootness, etc. Everyone in the court ascribes to a different jurisprudence (e.g. not everyone in the Court believes in stare decisis, not everyone cares for originalism, etc) and everyone has different motivations. Cases are selected in the pursuit of those goals by whatever happens to be the majority.
I personally dislike the increasing use of the Court to answer what are ultimately political questions. It erodes the legitimacy of the Court and causes it to inherently appear more partisan as it takes on divisive cases.
Yes. It really is that. It is a question presented in the petition. It is the question on which certiorari was granted. It is the question that will be briefed. It is the question that will be decided by the court. And it is one of the most important questions facing society right now. You, personally, may be uninterested in that question, as it seems you are. But that is indisputably the question, and it's inappropriate to suggest others are being disingenuous. "Assume good faith."
And, for the record, the question of compelled speech is a vital one. Can you be forced to answer detailed questions about race and ethnicity and family structure on the census (I'll note that there hasn't been a prosecution for failure to answer the census since before compelled speech became a hot topic in constitutional law)? Can you be forced to say "one nation under God" or the Pledge of Allegiance at all? Can the government force you to stand and sing along with the national anthem? Can the government force you to write a back door into your software? Can the government force you to denounce a political view you hold, or force you to promote a political view you oppose? Can it force you to talk to a counselor who "isn't an investigator" but will turn over your conversation to law enforcement?
I appreciate that you appear to be a strong advocate for people like me. But you can't protect civil rights by trampling on them. Once we start down the path of denigrating individual freedom based on the majority's moral judgment, it's only a matter of time before minorities like us are trampled upon. Widespread acceptance of gay marriage is great, but ensuring individual freedom - like my freedom to date, fall in love, and marry - remains the bedrock of our nation is far far more important.
> The ramifications of allowing discrimination based on any religious belief would be drastic.
Fortunately, this is not the case, either in this situation, or in the previous bakery case.
In both this and the other case, the "allowed" discrimination only applies to highly specific situations of creative work of those individuals, and does not extend much outside of it.
For example, there is no way that the courts would allow a grocery store to prevent certain sexual orientations from buying food. The cases really only apply in very limited circumstances.
That's too bad google searches for her name or business will now forever be a long list of articles and comments about her supposed right to discriminate based on religious beliefs.
> With the new case, “we are witness yet again to the unrelenting anti-LGBTQ
> crusade being waged by self-described Christian fundamentalist legal groups
> aiming to chip away at the hard-won gains of LGBTQ people by carving out swaths
> of territory where discrimination can flourish,” said Jennifer C. Pizer, a
> senior counsel at Lambda.
It's hard for me to understand how someone doesn't see conservative Christians are on the defensive in these cases.
LGBT groups are getting massive support from governments, NGOs, corporations, etc. Acceptance is being promoted in virtually every media and you are generally considered an evil person for holding views about homosexuality that would have been normal 30 years ago.
Conservative Christians on the other hand are just praying their livelihood won't be the target of activists today.
Mississippi’s 15-week ban, for example, would make the timing there somewhat more liberal than France or Denmark. It would also be consistent with the 70% of the public that thinks abortion should be legal, but only in the first trimester.
Conservatives are very much in a defensive crouch on Roe.
Yes? Look at the various anti-trans laws or rules being passed, that's very much a fundamental defensive fight for LGBT. Some big companies making nice statements doesn't buy you very much if your healthcare gets killed.
I love the mythical status liberals have elevated FedSoc to in their minds. FedSoc has about $20 million in revenue. SPLC alone had $130 million. The ACLU had $300 million. We’re outgunned 20:1 in numbers and in financing compared to liberal causes. 90% of people at any major law firm are significantly to the left of your average American, and lawyers are active donors.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. FedSoc and ACLU have entirely different missions. FedSoc's liberal competitor is, as you know, the ACS. You didn't cite them because they're smaller than FedSoc, and you wanted the comparison more convenient to your argument.
I'm also not alarmed by FedSoc (or ALEC or any of this stuff), but come on, make serious arguments.
Yes and no. ACS is similar to FedSoc in that it just does thought leadership and not impact litigation. But you can’t discount that organizations like ACLU also do thought leadership in addition to impact litigation. ACS is so small in part because people who champion e.g. liberal views of immigration law can go into immigration specific organizations. In practice the entity opposite FedSoc on particular issues isn’t ACS, but those other organizations. If you go to a typical law school campus, there will be student chapters of dozens of liberal (or de facto liberal) organizations, while on the other side there will be Fed Soc, CLS, and maybe the St. Thomas Moore Society. There will also be numerous legal clinics, which are de facto liberal impact litigation shops.
But there are dozens of conservative public interest law non-profits, too, many with tens of millions of dollars in funding. We pay attention to FedSoc not because of its advocacy, but because it's a pipeline for conservative judges, like the ACS is for liberal judges. You've narrowed one side of the field but kept the other broad to set up a bogus comparison.
Again: I think the hyperventilation over FedSoc is silly, and FedSoc is doing a thing that "should" be done (I'm not a conservative).
I think Christians have the right to hold whatever judgements they like about people, as we all do. However, that doesn't mean that they should be able to discriminate in the professional services they provide. In fact, these same laws protect the Christians who wish to deny services to gay people from having services denied to them.
I'm not sure I agree that LGBT folks are getting "massive support" from governments more than other groups do (for instance, churches have a very effective tax carve out which I support), but there certainly has been a push for LGBT people to be recognized as humans who have the right to exist like anyone else. Again, we can all view homosexuality (and other queer identities) in whatever way we want - but this case and the questions before civic society in general are about the provision of services. The standard we should all follow is that people are free to believe what they want (and suffer the social consequences of being known to hold those beliefs) but still be free to access the commercial services that are available to the general public without fear of being exiled for their beliefs or identity.
Edit: FWIW, I generally support the finding of Masterpiece Cakeshop, which is that the work of people doing 'creative' work is speech-y and they cannot be compelled to do creative work for a cause they oppose. However, it says that you cannot refuse service to protected classes if your creativity is not called on (i.e. Masterpiece Cakeshop does not have to design a cake, but does have to bake a cake if the design is provided). I would support a similar standard here and I expect Smith to lose unless she can argue that a commercial website for gay people requires some kind of creative act specifically about the sexuality of her clients.
> However, that doesn't mean that they should be able to discriminate in the professional services they provide.
Why not? It's a genuine question I'd like to get to the bottom of. I have no interest in discriminating against people professionally and wouldn't even be able to be friends with those who do, but that's personal. Why shouldn't someone be able to if that's what they want to do?
Simply, denying someone a service because you dislike them is a harm. It's less stark than some harms, but it's clearly along a line that ends in direct violence. If someone is starving and has money to pay for your food, but you refuse to sell to him, you share some responsibility for his death.
Obviously, we allow people to cause harms under certain circumstances. Self defense is one, situations where we have competing rights is another. The standard we've come to is that, in order to be allowed to offer services and goods in the US, you also need to agree to obey our laws, which includes the protection of certain 'protected classes' - which are generally seen as qualities a human has that are not entirely voluntary (sex, sexual orientation [in some places], race, national origin, disability, age, citizenship status and religion). Other qualities are not protected. You are allowed, for instance, to deny service to anyone who doesn't like Seinfeld, or to ugly people, or any other non-protected class.
At the end of the day, I don't think its in our interest to allow commercial activity with no rules. Everyone benefits from having some elements of their identity that cannot lead to them being denied services. It's true that sometimes you have to suck it up - but that's a drawback we all share as well.
I can see how systematically denying someone services is harm, but refusal to engage with someone as an individual? I'm not convinced. At the end of the day you're compelling someone to perform work they don't want to do.
And I understand the "rules of our society" stuff, but I'm trying to get at it on principle. And I am not saying commerce should happen with no rules, that's a different discussion, I'm talking about this specific set of rules.
This case like many others isn't about private individuals - it's about a business (even a business of one) - whereby someone receives all manner of structure supported by the institutions around them in return for abiding by the laws that bind such entities.
Declaring oneself a business comes with protections for the individual in exchange for agreeing to serve society at large. Refusing to do so is failing to uphold the obligations one agreed to.
Every human being is a business. You don't declare yourself a business, you trade with your peers to survive and thrive. To talk about doing business like it is some privilege bestowed upon you by the state is really just rationalizing the level of control they've taken in recent years.
Are you wilfully ignoring that there is a legal definition of what a business is, that the issue at hand is spoken about in a legal context? Your personal semantics are irrelevant in that context.
Yes, I am, because I'm trying to avoid the discussion being taken to a place where we argue past each other about what the law says and keep it on track, discussing the fundamentals of why things should or shouldn't be this way.
To extend your use of "compelling," in my opinion, the end goal of these arguments is to give the State the power to force you to perform work (State-sanctioned slavery) regardless of your personal beliefs. The specifics of who is demanding the work be done and who is doing the work are honestly irrelevant.
Again, we've settled on rules that allow you to deny a particular person because you don't like them. The scenario where you won't sell food to someone who is starving to death - totally legal, as long as you refuse based on personal dislike. The thing we won't allow is, again, discrimination based on the protected classes I listed. The logic is that, while we have some control over if people like us, we have no control over our membership in a protected class (and all people are members of some part of each class).
In other words: Why is discrimination in the private sector bad?
Look at 1950s segregation. No one wants that again. It creates an imbalance that’s unnecessary, unfair, unkind and hard to recover from for those being discriminated against.
If all necessary goods and services were provided by the State (a horrible idea BTW), then discrimination in the private sector would have a much smaller impact.
But in the US, the vast majority of jobs and goods are in the private sector. To legalize discrimination there is to essentially legalize discrimination for the majority of all daily interactions.
If you’re familiar with the power of compound interest, now imagine everything in your day is 1% harder than your non-discriminated peers. Doesn’t seem like that big a deal to go to the next diner to eat or the next web designer to get a website, but if the discrimination is rampant, that 1% friction compounds and becomes a major detriment over time, especially when compounded over generations.
Do you consider "selling to" to be a type of association? I don't, it's purely a business transaction, nobody is talking about going on vacation or to watch a game together.
> But is it morally right to tell individuals who they can and cannot associate with
No law is saying that you can or cannot associate with someone. You have always been free to pick your friends.
Anti-discrimination laws are saying you can’t refuse service based on someone’s status as a protected class (age > 65, gender, race, religion, etc.).
Laws basically are morals. So there’s no right or wrong, just costs and benefits.
We know the cost of allowing discrimination by looking at history: segregation, generational decline, hate crimes, genocide, etc. When you allow one group permission to treat another group differently based on something that group can’t change or shouldn’t have to change about themselves then bad things typically happen.
What’s the benefit of allowing discrimination? Not much I can think of.
Maybe try a little experiment: pick a letter of the alphabet like ‘A’. Now, go about your day, but pretend anyone who’s name contains an ‘A’ doesn’t want to do business with you. Ask everyone their name (because in this society pretend that names are super important to people’s belief systems) and you have to go to a different gas station, coffee shop, restaurant, get a different Uber, etc. if the person doing business with you has an A in their name. Pretend that these folks don’t want to do business with you and you don’t want to force them to.
These are good questions you’re asking, but the history I’m aware of is pretty clear cut about the dangers of discrimination.
Basically every law that’s ever been passed had to go through this scrutiny:
Should we allow murder? What’s the benefit of allowing murder? What’s the cost of telling people “who they can and cannot” murder?
We like to think of the US as a bastion of freedom, but you don’t have the freedom to buy drugs, pay for sex, stone adulterers, own a wife, conduct honor killings or discriminate, unlike some other countries where you are free to do those things.
The question of freedom is not how much you can do as an individual. The question is how much you can do as an individual before you start harming others. That will always be a moving target, but for discrimination I personally think it does more harm to the group than the benefit it could potentially give to an individual.
Go back 100 years, replace ‘LGBT groups’ with ‘civil rights activists’ (who had much less support) and ‘homosexuality’ with ‘African Americans’ and you will (hopefully) realize how barbaric that thought process is. The same argument was also made about the suffrage movement. You are, in fact, an evil person if you think someone is inferior and should be denied services or rights because of their sexuality (or race, or gender). We should not slow the march of progress towards equality because the same damn people can’t figure this stuff out century after century.
>She is “willing to work with all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” her lawyers told the court. “But she cannot create websites that promote messages contrary to her faith, such as messages that condone violence or promote sexual immorality, abortion, or same-sex marriage.”
Seems like an open-and-shut case. She’s willing to work with gays, just not for this particular cause. Is this any different than turning away a white for wanting a KKK website? I think not.
Interesting tangential link: my understanding is that device / encryption security is also rooted in the 1st Amendment?
In that, by compelling the creation of a backdoor (by writing or modifying code, that did not exist before the demand) the government violates an individual's right to free speech, by which they cannot be compelled to speak in a certain manner.
But at the same time, that "freedom" already appears to give way to the social good of equality for protected classes (i.e. personal characteristics). Thorny set of issues to balance.
I am not sure, but I know the 5th amendment is relevant: you cannot be forced to incriminate yourself by decrypting encrypted materials. Strong cryptography was also classified as weaponry at one point, and probably hence also subject to the 2nd amendment; whether this is still true, I don't know.
Yes. This is a key insight. The gravamen of this case is compelled speech. Put simply: the government has the power to make a business involved in commerce not discriminate against people, but does it have the power to compel speech?
Fundamental Constitutional principles and existing case law seem to say no. Over the past thirty years, this has been an evolving issue, starting with things like forcing people to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I wouldn't be shocked if we see challenges to mandatory expanded census questions in 2030 or 2040. And certainly compelling encryption backdoors is an issue that's been in the news the past few years.
It's disconcerting to me, as a gay man, that this issue has been pushed this far. In my adult life, it has been a crime for me to have a sexual relationship. In my adult life it has been unlawful for me to get married. Historically, excessive government control over people has not worked out well for minorities, and it's a bit Uncle Tom-ish to try to use government to force people into conduct that aligns with your personal values.
Structures and powers analyses are important. When looking at a question of the scope of government power, ask yourself: would you feel comfortable giving this power to your political adversaries? If the Religious Right had a majority in Congress or a state legislature, would the gay litigants in this case support the government's right to, say, make all wedding-related speech include praise of one-man-one-woman as the ideal form of marriage?
A government without protections for individual rights of freedom and conscience isn't a republic, it's a mob. Mobs never turn out well for the little guy in the long run.
I don't think the business owner should be able to turn away clients because of the clients' sexual orientation. However, I do not think the business owner should be forced to make content they find immoral, either.
If we generalize this problem, it basically distills down to: If you are a web designer and a <protected class> commissions you to make a website glorifying <something you personally find to be immoral>, are you allowed to refuse the job on grounds that you don't want to use your skills to promote something you personally find immoral (though you would be happy to make them other content you don't object to)? Or should you be forced by law to make the website in order to not discriminate against <protected class>?
A third solution: if, in doing a thing, you feel you absolutely must discriminate against a protected class, then don’t do that thing for anyone. Discrimination prevented and speech not compelled.
The problem is, how many jobs can you name that couldn't be used to discriminate against a protected class? I think the previous commenter's point is correct.
This is a First Amendment case, which means it’s specifically about jobs that count as “speech”. It’s very unambiguously illegal for a plumber or an accountant to have a “no gay clients” policy.
That said — even within this case, that argument falls flat. The crux of the defense is “it’s not that I wouldn’t take on gay clients, I just won't make a wedding website for them.” Cool, so just don’t make wedding websites. There are plenty of other kinds of websites people will pay you to make. Leave the wedding sites to designers who won’t discriminate against gay people.
I think the legal system ought to prioritize principles over practicality.
We could replace the first amendment with "just don't say anything controversial". We could replace the right to privacy with "just don't have anything you want to hide".
It's important to define our rights and freedoms. The question of whether we want customers to be able to compell speech is an important one.
Another important question is whether we want businesses to be able to discriminate against people.
Again, my suggestion — wherein she can’t make wedding websites for anyone — doesn’t compel speech. But if I had to abandon practicality, I would say she should be forced to make the website.
Let's say I make a Christian dating website. In its sign-up terms it asks one to certify that one is indeed a Christian before joining. According to you, I should not even be allowed to create this website because it discriminates Christians from non-Christians. If I don't discriminate, then the website has no reason to exist as its entire purpose was to bring Christian singles together. Congratulations, you have successfully disenfranchised an entire group of religious people that simply want to meet others like them.
Now change things around and pretend the dating website was for LGBTQ+ people. Do you see how you cannot possibly implement your proposal in a non-discriminatory way? Freedom of association is a thing because humans want to associate with like humans. This has been the case for all of human history. That doesn't automatically ascribe evil intent to anyone--whether a Christian on my hypothetical Christian dating website or an LGBTQ+ person on an LGBTQ+ dating website. Each group simply wants to associate with one another.
The beautiful thing about the United States is that people have fifty states from which to choose. If you favor one type of association move to states that generally believe those things. If you favor another, move to those states. Having the federal government dictate that all states will favor associations only between certain approved groups is a recipe for discord.
There are dating sites like you describe — eHarmony, BlackPeopleMeet, JDate, Grindr, etc — and even though they don’t require you to belong to that group, it turns out that most people voluntarily associate that way anyway! Even though there’s nothing mandating it, people just don’t seem to want to sign up for dating sites made for other groups.
We’ve also tried allowing these sorts of de jure discriminatory policies. The end result was businesses with signs that said things like “No Negroes” and “Jews Not Allowed”. The solution isn’t to tell people to move to a place where businesses can’t discriminate like that; it’s to make that discrimination illegal everywhere.
No mater what kind of website (forum, web app, social network, wedding, etc..) she probably doesn't want to make a certain type of content.
It is the same for any person. There is a topic for each of us that we want no part of 'supporting' even if we have no problem serving people who do support it.
Making a website collecting donations for Trump. Making a website supporting Israel. Making a website for a pride parade. Making a website supporting/condemning Hong Kong/BLM/OWS movements.
Doesn't mater what you put for X, everyone has limits on what they are comfortable supporting. That is a separate issue from who you provide service to.
If I just make Nazi websites for black people, and refuse to make a Nazi website for some people, it isn't the Nazi website - it is the person that I disagree with.
This still isn't the same though. It would be more like if I own a pancake shop and I make pancakes in the shape of a man and a woman kissing. Then a gay couple walks in and orders pancakes in the shape of two men kissing and I refuse on the grounds that it is not on the menu because I object to the content. I tell them they are free to buy pancakes of a man and a woman kissing if they so choose. How is that discrimination? They aren't being asked to leave, and they are free to buy the heterosexual kissing pancakes if they want to, just like everyone else. I am not refusing the client, just their particular bespoke request.
This is a highly contrived example, but it could be about anything, not just sexual orientation. A black guy walks into a white guy's barber shop and asks for a bespoke African haircut. The white barber refuses on the grounds that he doesn't think he would do a good job since he has never done one before and doesn't intend to learn how to do those types of haircuts. The barber doesn't tell the black guy to leave, but he tells him to pick a different haircut. Is this discrimination? Should the barber be compelled to perform the haircut he doesn't want to do against his will? What if he then does a bad job? Is that a hate crime?
The issue with these analogies is that while the creation of the wedding website is indeed a bespoke request, "wedding website" in general is a pretty well-defined category. And the thing about weddings is that you're usually in the market for your own. It's not like a gay couple would be fine to get a website for a straight wedding instead — if you won't design a website for a gay wedding, you are excluding those clients.
Is the barber analogy apt? Not really. White and Black haircuts are generally considered different "categories", and offering one does not generally confer an expectation to offer the other.
Is the pancake analogy apt? Not really. A pancake of "people kissing" is substitutable. It might not be the first choice for a gay couple, but there's no intrinsic reason they couldn't get a pancake with a flower on it instead. Now, if you were offering portraits of couples kissing, and you refused to do gay couples, that would be analogous — they're not going to get a portrait of a different couple, so this policy essentially means you don't accept gay customers.
In my opinion, the lesser of two evils in this case is not compelling business owners to perform services they object to. The US has a capitalist economy - if there is money to be made building gay wedding websites, then someone will almost certainly fill that niche and out-compete those who don't.
Going the compulsory route is going to lead to decreased religious freedoms and increased social discord between the secular and religious demographics of the country, IMO.
We've been down that road before. The Jim Crow south is a perfect example of what happens if you don't compel business owners to not discriminate. It doesn't prevent social discord, it just hides it — in the words of MLK, "a negative peace which is the absence of tension" rather than "a positive peace
which is the presence of justice".
Anyway, in my original reply to you I mentioned a solution that prevents discrimination without compelling speech. If you feel you must discriminate in providing a service, then you can't provide that service.
I disagree this is the same road as Jim Crow. Jim Crow was refusing service based on color of skin. This is refusing service based on type of service.
> Anyway, in my original reply to you I mentioned a solution that prevents discrimination without compelling speech. If you feel you must discriminate in providing a service, then you can't provide that service.
In my opinion, that solution is a slippery slope that will quickly infringe on religious freedom. Soon: "Pastors/priests/bishops/etc. are no longer allowed to perform weddings unless they also perform gay weddings (against their beliefs). After all, if you feel you must discriminate in providing a service, then you can't provide that service."
So then you'd have lots of pastors refusing to perform any marriages to avoid doing something against their beliefs, which, in turn, would vindicate all the people opposed to gay marriage who were worried gay marriage would "infringe on the religious sanctity of marriage". Religious freedom down, social discord up.
No, this is absolutely refusing service based on a protected characteristic. The service is "designing a wedding website", and the policy is "we won't do that for gay couples".
There's an alternate scenario, of course. Soon: "web designers across the nation refuse to make wedding websites for same-sex couples". Religious freedom up, social discord also up. I'm not sure why you think it's only a one-way street; allowing religion to be used as a pretext to discriminate against marginalized groups is also surefire way to divide people.
It seems like we're rapidly approaching a point at which further debate is fruitless, so let me clearly state my position here: where religious freedom and equal protection clash, I am staunchly in favor of subordinating the former to the latter.
Your position is quite clear, I'm just saying I (and others) disagree with that position. For me, where religious freedom and equal protection clash, I tend to err on the side of religious freedom. If some jewish web designer is only interested in making websites for jewish weddings, I think they should have that right, even if it means turning away christian couples, gay couples, and other couples of protected status who want a non-jewish wedding website created. If some gay web designer is only interested in making gay wedding websites, they should similarly have that right without being compelled to create religious wedding websites.
I'm pretty sure the issue is that they won't make a wedding website for a gay couple. In your example they would still serve them, just not the exact product that you want.
Making a website for a gay couple and a straight couple requires the same sets of skills...
In both of your examples, the set of skills is different.
Baking a cake for a gay couple and a straight couple... same skills...
If a business owner discriminates on the basis of sex, ethnicity, race, or religion, Americans consider it a big deal if not a constitutional problem.
But a gay business owner cannot discriminate against the very religious groups who seek to exclude gay people from their institutions or services. Gay people do not even galvanize around such political positions as, say, banning Christian marriage or Christian adoption, or supporting the firing of Christian employees.
So you are saying a gay web designer should not be able to refuse a job from a fundamentalist Christian wanting a fundamentalist Christian website (the content of which the gay web designer objects to)?
The protection of rights as per sexual orientation and the protection of rights as per religious affiliation are siblings in the Civil Rights Act; they're two of the (equal) protected classes.
Any conclusions drawn by the Court in this case will be readily extrapolable to religious affiliation. Web designers don't have to do a "We're gay and we love it" site because it offends their religious beliefs? Then other web designers don't have to do a "This is our Catholic church" site because Catholicism offends their Protestant beliefs.
(IANAL, but this would, perhaps, be a good argument for the defendants to bring).
> But a gay business owner cannot discriminate against the very religious groups who seek to exclude gay people from their institutions or services
It's illegal to refuse service to a Christian on the grounds of his religion but it's not illegal for a painter to refuse to paint a mural if he finds its message (which may be religious) revolting.
I think the specific action is relevant here. It's overly reductive to call it "glorifying something you personally find to be immoral." The question is closer to, "Is it discrimination to refuse to make a work that portrays a protected class positively?"
Compared to "normal" industries, this and the cake designer suit [1] really are a different ball-game, because of the speech implications as well as discrimination.
On the one-hand, this is very close, if not exactly the same as active discrimination against a protected group. But since being a web designer is a creative role, we also have to take into account the creative aspect: does the couple "forcing" the designer to work constitute a violation in speech?
If this were a medical clinic or even a large advertising agency--which is also a creative firm-- it would clearly be discrimination, but the simple fact that this is an individual makes it an interesting case.
Am I the only one who feels like we have really stretched the definition of "speech"? I don't even think written word counts as speech in the literal sense, which is why the first amendment specifically mentions freedom of the press as well. If "speech" meant "literally anything produced by a human" then they would not have added the bit about press freedom.
I feel a similar way about the contractor vs employee debate around Uber. Uber drivers are so clearly neither, but we get so focused on fitting new problems into the existing legal framework instead of growing the legal framework.
> She is “willing to work with all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” her lawyers told the court. “But she cannot create websites that promote messages contrary to her faith, such as messages that condone violence or promote sexual immorality, abortion, or same-sex marriage.”
It sounds like "willing to work with all people" is a lie then. If you are making a wedding website for a same-sex couple, what kind of message do you think it will contain?
Also fairly disgusting of her to put "messages like violence or same-sex marriage" in the same sentence, as if they are remotely comparable things.
If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business. "Oh, yes, I'm more than willing to work with handicapped people, but I can't promote ramps or accessible doorways, I just don't believe in them," would not fly to get out of an ADA lawsuit. The law says you must serve these groups equally, and you can't weasel your way out of it with "oh I just hate the sin, not the sinner!"
Also have to love the ridiculous pearl-clutching here:
> If left in place, the 10th Circuit’s decision will allow officials to compel Democratic speechwriters to plug Republican candidates and Muslim artists to create cartoon parodies of Allah.”
No, this decision would not compel a general-purpose artist to paint a work that they don't want to create. This person is lost in the sauce. They keep thinking it's about the content of the work, ("I don't create gay websites"), and not their behavior of refusing to work with the gay couple. Of course an artist or speechwriter would get in trouble today if they turned down people based just on them being part of a protected class. By the way, political party is not a protected class, so that argument fails twice.
These are the same type of people who feel their rights are being violated when they get kicked off Twitter because of their non-protected violent posts, and want to be able to simultaneously deny their own business services to actual protected classes. So square that how you will.
> It sounds like "willing to work with all people" is a lie then. If you are making a wedding website for a same-sex couple, what kind of message do you think it will contain?
Substitute "same-sex couple" with "conservatives" and you have Facebook right now.
> If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business.
So, just to be clear: You're saying that businesses should effectively operate like public accommodations? Does that apply to everybody, including people you personally dislike?
Mind you, I actually favor that position, but I'd just like to get someone to actually admit to it publicly that all men are created equal and endowed with the same rights, not just those groups that happen to be politically favored during the current news cycle. I'm one of those weird people from the early days of the Internet that actually means it when he says he's for civil rights.
> These are the same type of people who feel their rights are being violated when they get kicked off Twitter because of their non-protected violent posts
And there it is. Anyone who thinks different than you is violent and should be deplatformed. QED.
Sorry, sir, but the law applies to everyone or no one. You don't get to play favorites. This isn't Apartheid Zuid Afrika... or Israel for that matter.
> Substitute "same-sex couple" with "conservatives" and you have Facebook right now.
One is a protected class, and the other isn't. It really is that simple.
> So, just to be clear: You're saying that businesses should effectively operate like public accommodations?
To be clear: denying service on the basis of your potential customer being a protected class is illegal. Denying service because you don't like their political opinion is not illegal.
> Sorry, sir, but the law applies to everyone or no one
Thanks. I just wanted to have you on record stating your naked bigotry for all to see. It's nice to know that if slavery were still legal today you'd be all in favor of that because black people wouldn't be a protected class.
> If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business
Thats an interesting opinion, but it is not supported by court precedent.
The previous court precedent, was related to the bakery/gay wedding case, and it was ruled in favor of the bakery in a 7-2 decision. (So no, it was not just the conservative judges who voted in favor of it)
So on a factual ground, you are wrong, and religious protections are an established precedent that was discussed even specifically related to gay weddings.
I don't think precedent has been established here by the cake shop case.
The Supreme Court has already turned away cases that it thought were similar to it:
> Another predominate case involving anti-discrimination laws and religious freedom that was in the court system during Masterpiece was the Arlene's Flowers lawsuit in Washington, with the issue over flower arrangements being provided for a same-sex wedding. Prior to the decision in Masterpiece, a petition for writ of certiorari had been issued to the Supreme Court. Following the decision of Masterpiece, the flower shop owner used that decision to assert that they were shown similar religious hostility, and requested their case to be reheard. On June 25, 2018, the Supreme Court dismissed the pending petition, and ordered that lower courts review the flower shop's case in a similar light as Masterpiece. [0]
> Instances of institutions and individuals claiming a right to discriminate in the name of religion aren’t new. In the 1960s, we saw institutions object to laws requiring integration in restaurants because of sincerely held beliefs that God wanted the races to be separate. We saw religiously affiliated universities refuse to admit students who engaged in interracial dating. In those cases, we recognized that requiring integration was not about violating religious liberty; it was about ensuring fairness. It is no different today.
> Religious freedom in America means that we all have a right to our religious beliefs, but this does not give us the right to use our religion to discriminate against and impose those beliefs on others who do not share them.
This article[2] published in the Fordham Law Review journal also investigates the similarities between the use of religion to discriminate against interracial couples and the use of religion to discriminate against gay couples. It's a good read.
Here's a quote from the beginning, from a judge:
> In his 1965 opinion refusing to vacate the convictions of Richard and Mildred Loving, Judge Leon M. Bazile of Caroline County Circuit Court in Virginia included the following passage:
> "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix"
1. People aren't born conservative. If you want people to do business with you, you can just stop talking about your political views. Gay people can't decide to stop being gay.
2. Twitter doesn't drop conservative writers just for being conservative. There are still literally millions of conservative people on Twitter. Twitter has a line that a conservative or liberal person could cross.
Some people can choose to be gay (or straight). Even if you don't agree, given that hypothetical, you should see it doesn't matter if it's a choice or not.
This is a tough one for me. On the one hand, I don’t feel like you should be able to compel a private business owner or any other person to participate in something they are unwilling, except in certain things outlined by law. Paying taxes is one of those things the state compels you to do even if you don’t want. But they have never shown that they have the authority to make people speak a certain way. Instead of a gay couple getting married, can I (hypothetically) force a designer to make a website for a very creepy and grossly sexualized fursona? If they don’t, they are discriminating against my sexual orientation… Even if they are paid a fair wage, an artist’s reputation can be damaged by the work they take on, and I think they should be allowed to be selective, even if I don’t agree with the person in this case.
On the other hand, we could wind up with troubling situations in some parts of the country if “speech” is able to dodge anti-discrimination laws. There are towns where nearly every business would refuse gay people if they knew who they were. Imagine being effectively banned from a town like that if businesses figure out how to call their business a form of “speech.”
So this leaves me on the fence. I wish that artists have freedom to choose their clients but am a little worried about where that leads us. Hopefully the justices can craft a decision that avoids major issues in the future.
Honestly, I don't see how a ruling against the web designer would work. If she really doesn't want to do it, couldn't she just make a really crappy website that nobody would want to use? If so, then the ruling is pointless. If not, how could you prove in court, beyond a reasonable doubt that she was doing it intentionally and she wasn't just bad at her job?
They might well rule that web design counts as speech, and so she doesn't have to make speech she disagrees with by designing a website for a gay wedding. If this is how it goes, then logically, the ruling would apply to a narrower set of services than the article suggests. Things like selling flowers and catering don't have any significant creative component and so don't qualify as "speech" that needs to be free. Even the wedding cake case that made it to the supreme court wouldn't qualify, since the couple was refused before they said anything about the cake's design; they hadn't asked the baker to "say" anything at all.
The existence of a solution like that isn’t stopping these people from going to court. The gay couples could easily find someone else to do the work for them. The designer and baker could easily just do a crappy job whenever they find out the order is for a gay couple. But they are going to court because both sides have a point they want to prove.
> If ADF prevails, businesses may secure a right to discriminate against anyone as long as their work involves speech. A racist photographer could refuse to shoot an interracial wedding. An antisemitic florist could refuse to provide flowers to a Bat Mitzvah. A hairdresser could refuse to serve Black people. A chef could refuse to cater a quinceañera. The list goes on; every commercial transaction involves expression, and every civil rights law is enforced through compelled speech. If a business’ First Amendment rights outweigh the government’s interest in ending discrimination, few non-discrimination laws will be safe from constitutional attack.
Abstracting away the specifics of the case (religion, sexual orientation), the true debate at hand is whether a human being should have the right to get an exemption from a law based on beliefs (perhaps provided that these beliefs are strongly held, and commonly found within a particular community).
Accepting that exemptions to laws are OK based on beliefs leads to an asymmetry between individuals, whereby those with beliefs gain an advantage that is not readily available to all. Here, playing the free speech card makes no sense, since the purpose of that card is to eliminate power asymmetries, not create them.
In my view, the only way to conciliate laws and exemptions is to make exemptions sufficiently costly to eliminate built in advantages to selected groups, whichever they may be. I don't know what a fair way to do so would be.
Perhaps an alternative exit that doesn't require an exemption is an even better solution.
In the specifics of this case, couldn't the web designer hire a third party to take care of the job, providing the service as requested, but not executing it themselves?
The question isn't whether to give people "exemptions" to a law. The question is whether that law infringes on US citizens' constitutional right to free speech.
I have never understood these cases. Even if you are able to force someone to work for you, which I don't agree with, you can't force them to do good work. Is the next step to sue someone because "they didn't do work up to their typical standard"?
What if I don't want to work with Facebook because I think they're evil? Is that discrimination against evil corporations? Can they sue me and force me to work there?
In America, all states except 1 are "right to work", which really means "right to fire". So anyone has the right to fire me, but I don't get to choose who I work for?
Who wants to work with someone when you know they don't want to work with you?
The Civil Rights Act was passed because in the United States, we had a real problem with entire sections of the country being functionally unlivable for minorities because of the general right to refuse service. So if you live in a town where nobody will serve you at a restaurant, nobody will sell to you, nobody will allow you to open a bank account, and nobody will even sell you gas for your car, it doesn't matter if the government isn't discriminating against you... You can't live there.
But the Civil Rights Act didn't impinge directly on freedom of expression enshrined in the First Amendment (although it did impinge on freedom of association). The businesses the people had in mind when they passed the law were things like hotels, restaurants, and stores, where the provided service is commodity. When the provided service includes some aspect of artistic expression, people believe there's still an open question of whether the Civil Rights Act includes an aspect of compelled speech in using one's artistic talents to propagate a message one disagrees with.
It's a legitimately complicated question of where one person's rights end and another person's rights begin (although, to be clear, so was the original Civil Rights Act when it clarified that the right to refuse service was not universal).
> What if I don't want to work with Facebook because I think they're evil? Is that discrimination against evil corporations?
The Civil Rights Act doesn't provide being an evil corporation as a protected class. So the answer would be "yes, refusing to work with evil corporations is legal discrimination."
Why banks can choose not do to business with due to one belief and yet freelancing business or bakers can't? Is there a double application of law doctrine that we need to know about?
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 243 ms ] thread>A decision in favor of the web designer could have a significant impact in California and 19 other states that forbid businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ customers. It could give business owners an exemption based on their religion to refuse to provide flowers, photography or other products or services for a same-sex marriage.
The two paragraphs seem to contradict. The court is supposed to be ignoring religion, and focusing squarely on free speech. So the question isn't whether someone can be compeled to speech counter to their religion, but rather whether an artist can be compeled to make any art at all. The latter seems to have much broader implications, applying to any political or aesthetic position, not just one prefered by a major religion. The very fact that this is being taken up by the supreme court seems to suggest a reasonable chance of winning as well.
Sorry, why is court supposed to be ignoring religion?
Further, I think creative speech is also irrelevant. I don't think it is a speech issue at all, even though compelled speech can be used as a reasoning for defending the creator's right. But what if I am just a waiter for a party, do I have to serve a gay wedding party, where lots of gay couples kissing and hugging each other? So a photographer has a reason to not be forced to serve a gay wedding party, but a waiter can not? I don't think it is fair.
I wish a society based on good faith and people are tolerate with each other.
The fact that this isn't an issue (nobody is refusing to do so) actually speaks against your point, not for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_homosexuality...
As was every transliteration, translation and revised version of their religious texts over time. As was the new testament to the old. Likely very little that is practiced today reflects the "original" version of the religions, whatever that may be.
What the people behind these lawsuit really seem to believe in is dominionism/Christian Reconstructionism - the political belief that the United States should be a Christian theocracy. The idea that you need to shun people for not following Christian religious laws is neither in the Bible, a tenant of mainstream Christianity, nor a political belief compatible with a free society.
Instead it suggests you kill them on sight.
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" Leviticus 20:13
The New Testament compares homosexuality to greed and says that you won’t “inherit the kingdom of heaven.” If this woman wants to have a consistent world view, she should also check to make sure the websites she builds won’t be used for any greedy purposes such as usury. In fact, if she accepts payments by credit card…
So it says they will not enter heaven, why would you want to force her to go against what her religion tells her?
It’s also plain offensive to call having a family an “ideology.” It’s just a thing people do, they’re living their lives.
That is not accurate. The old testament is something like 80% of the bible. It contains the ten commandments, the story of creation and many other things that are still in use today. Like any other religion, different sects have different interpretations of the Bible, but I'm not aware of anyone who throws the old testament out entirely (it also wouldn't make much sense, Jesus is fulfilling a prophecy from the old testament, without that he's just some guy). Further, you will often hear about a "personal relationship with Christ" that the faithful have, that is to say everyone interpets the Bible differently.
> nor a political belief compatible with a free society
So in a free society, one cannot point out contradictions or hypocrisy?
You can't have it both ways if you claim absolute freedom. This is one major place where liberalism falls apart.
Cutting arms for thievery, or jailing converts/gays/whatever or forcing raped women to marry their rapists or go to jail/get lashed for having sex outside of marriage are "normal" things in many theocracies. Are those things not extremist, abhorrent and abnormal for your average Westerner?
We're proud of our "barbaric" laws that punish the thieves and rapists and murderers and fornicators. Don't force your "enlightenment" on us, we saw where it got your culture OP.
> Rape and sexual harassment are much much more prevalent in the decadent sexually immoral West that's a fact.
That's just absolute bullshit. Yes, women are forced to be married to their rapists, and do get punished getting raped. Not everywhere, but it happens. Sexual assault and the like are underreported in the West, let alone countries like Pakistan and India where femicides and brutality against women are close to being normal and usually go without any consequences ( point in case, a brutal case in Pakistan made the international news because the perpetrator got punished after sustained media and public outcry).
> Yes, women are forced to be married to their rapists
Maybe in some fringe cases or countries like India which already have a huge problem due to many factors, including a religion that does not seem to prohibit such actions.
Now compare to when we had actual enforcement of Shariah and the evil doers were punished, before the West occupied us and forced their "tolerant and liberal" policies under the guise of "human rights", suspending the death penalty for criminals like murderers and those who spread corruption in the land, and it's no wonder these things are happening.
Oh. I bid you good day sir ( i highly doubt a woman would speak the bullshit you've said about sexual assault and champion Sharia law), because the mere notion that laws based on a religion, especially one of those that treats half of the people as second class, and forbids conversions/atheism/agnosticism is anything but literally one of the worst possible ways to govern a country, is ludicrous and doesn't deserve engaging. There's nothing good to be said about a religious legal system. You can have tough punishments if the people so want based on actual legal principles, not because an old book people consider sacred said so.
We also have countless Muslim women, who by definition support Shariah (actually, the belief of any Muslim who does not accept Shariah is suspect - by definition, a Muslim supports Shariah [i.e. the Law (of God)]). But if you take your news from far leftist and far rightist sources, I wouldn't be surprised you'd be making such claims.
Islam does not treat women as second class, and in fact, has elevated her status and guaranteed her rights. Islam allows freedom of religion and belief. If you took some time to actually read how things were, you wouldn't be saying such things. Even Jewish historians admit that Jews had it best under Islam.
It's trivial to disprove your false claims, that honestly show ignorance with all due respect.
Now i know you're lying. Right to need to ask for permission to go out/drive/get married, or right to dress exactly as required? Or right to be married off at 14? Or maybe right of divorce ( because of course it's different for men and women). And how does freedom of religion work when the law is religious itself?
> Even Jewish historians admit that Jews had it best under Islam.
That is such bullshit. Had it best? Compared to Israel or compared to Jews who emigrated to the New World? Or maybe you're making some very narrow comparison with Spain under the Inquisition to fit your crazy narrative?
Your worldview is completely incompatible with a free country. You're, of course, free to espouse it and practice it, in any country compatible with it (just don't try anything different there or you might get in prison/killed).
Men have restrictions as well. It's not a free for all you know. Just because the secular West has decided that humans should behave like animals, we are not going to blindly follow. We protect our women so that they don't end up being raped and harassed like they are in the West. God created us, and he knows how we behave in a world where anything goes. We're seeing the results in front of our own eyes. You wouldn't walk into a bear cave then come crying when you get mauled would you? Or walk in a sketchy alley knowing you might get mugged. Same here.
> Or right to be married off at 14?
Islam does not specify a particular number for marriage. What's required is both physical and mental maturity for both sexes. Permission from the girl is also required, and she cannot be married off by force.
Each sex has their rights and responsibilities when it comes to marriage. Marriage is a contract, where both have roles and responsibilities. Divorce is also permitted, unlike Christianity where marriage is forever.
> And how does freedom of religion work when the law is religious itself?
Islam guarantees and protects the rights of non-Muslims, this is in many Hadiths. So much so that if a Muslim wrongs or diminishes the rights of a non-Muslim living on Muslim lands, or forces him to work beyond his capacity, or takes anything from him without his consent, then Muhammad Peace be upon him will plead for the non-Muslim on the Day of Judgment [1].
> That is such bullshit. Had it best?
You might want to check with an actual Jewish historian Shelomo Dov Goitien who made these claims and tell him they're bs. Anyone honest with himself will also come to the same conclusion [2]. Israel is a false state formed on the blood of innocents who were killed, kicked out, and displaced.
> just don't try anything different there or you might get in prison/killed
Baseless FUD.
[1] http://qaalarasulallah.com/hadithView.php?ID=23053
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc6yXYR01Vg
That being said, we're proud of our "barbaric" laws that punish the evil doers like thieves and rapists and murderers and fornicators. We saw what "enlightenment" has done to your culture. You can also stop making lies like forcing women to marry their rapists. What a straw man.
There's nothing wrong with punishing murderers or rapists, but if the punishments are very severe ( chopping up heads or hands) the downsides for a wrong court decision become enormous. I'm not sure what the crime of fornication is supposed to be though.
For mary your rapist laws:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/apr/14/m...
I never said they are everywhere, but they tend to be more present in religious countries that put importance on the "purity" and "virginity" of a woman. Like with "honour killings", which are also a thing only in that type of country. And for the "the woman had sex outside of marriage because she was raped", there were a few recent cases in countries as supposedly developed as Qatar and UAE of foreign women being convicted of it.
> but even the flawed ones are better to live in
Easily disproven by contradiction, specifically if by democracy you mean today's Western definition of it where anything is up for voting by any fool from the street. The Islamic Golden Age is a shining example of a prosperous nation that did not abide by today's Western definition of democracy. We have something called "Shurah" in Islam, which is a restricted form of opinion seeking and consultation of experts on the subject matter, a much more superior approach.
What's ironic is that today the West doesn't even follow its fabled democracy and freedom of expression. We've literally just witnessed the double standards in what happened in Canada in the past few weeks. Rules for thee but not for me as they say.
> the downsides for a wrong court decision become enormous
That is why in Islamic Law, punishments are fended off with any ounce of doubt. Today, the West threw out the baby with the bath water, where even in clear cut cases like the Boston Marathon bomber, or the countless other cases where confessions were had not under duress, the killers and serial rapists are left to live.
Fornication is having sex outside of marriage. Normalizing this behavior, as we see in the West today, leads to many casualties like the spread of STD's, teen pregnancies, destruction of families, call for so called "abortion rights", mixing of lineages, even siblings who don't know they're siblings grow up separate from each other and get attracted to each other, and countless other messes that are causing a decline in morality and dragging down society with it. It's known that sexual immorality produces new diseases that did not exist in previous nations, HIV being one clear example.
We don't have marry your rapist laws in Islam, so it's a non issue for us. As a matter of fact, a rapist is severely punished, and can be executed depending on the situation.
Yes, we value purity and virginity, not just for women, but for men as well. Honor killings are not part of Islam, and in fact, the punishment for and honor killing is to execute the killer.
> there were a few recent cases in countries as supposedly developed as Qatar and UAE of foreign women being convicted of it.
I heard about some of those cases, and they were not clear cut. e.g. the woman was drunk (another thing that should be prohibited and punished), so the testimony is difficult to prove. Ideally in such a scenario, both parties involved are to be punished.
I say this as an Atheist - it goes both ways. Countries where a lack of religion is forced can be pretty abhorrent too. Think of North Korea or Stalin's USSR.
Perhaps the problem doesn't lie in the fact that the state-enforced ideology is religious, but instead that there is a state-enforced ideology at all.
The short answer is "The Civil Rights Act curtails the right to freedom of association." It declared protected classes and then made illegal telling those classes "We don't serve your kind here." Subsequent court precedent upheld Congress's right to do this without a Constitutional amendment to adjust the First Amendment (IANAL so I unfortunately cannot direct you to that precedent quickly; the thumbnail sketch as I understand it is that the right to association is derived from the right to assembly, and that right is for political purposes, i.e. the government can't tell people "you can't get together and complain that government sucks," but refusing to serve people of a particular race or hire people of a particular gender is not political association and not protected by 1A).
The reason this case is even in question (as opposed to the Courts just saying "We already settled this") is that the precedent for whether the Civil Rights Act burdens freedom of expression (i.e. speech) is much thinner on the ground. They're both First Amendment rights, but they're rights with different sets of precedent (and different understanding of magnitude; the right to association is derived from protection of "peaceable assembly," but expression is synonymous with speech and directly and clearly protected by 1A).
Many things are written in many bibles that are recognized as uncivilized, unethical, immoral, and ultimately illegal.
Whatever tennets of a religion that say to harm a other, fall outside of any freedom of religion protection, and are just as illegal for the practitioners as for anyone else.
The case will merely decide if this sort of discrimination constitutes harming another.
Think the store mysteriously always being out of flour for the black family.
I think if you want to be selective in who you work for, you have the right not to operate a business. You can bake cakes for your friends all you like.
But if you want to operate a business then you have no right to discriminate. A customer only needs to bring legal tender and not cause problems in any way that the law recognizes as a problem, applying equally to anyone anywhere. If the law of the land does not recognize gayness as illegal or harmful, then neither do any businesses.
Although this case sounds like they are trying to make a finer point that they don't want to produce a message they don't agree with. IE, they claim they would service a gay customer if the work didn't happen to promote a gay message.
That will probably be a bit messier. I'm no lawyer or judge so maybe this distinction is no great "gotcha" for a professional. But it seems to me like that idea opens up a lot of hard to argue grey areas, like how they are trying to invoke both violence and homosexuality in the same complaint.
I can think of lots of examples of things that are not illegal that I would not like to participate in. I can think of lot's of legal businesses that I would not like to help with their IT or web site. I just happen to be revolted by other things than gay people.
If you're selling identical things, then you need to sell them to everyone equally regardless of anything.
If you're a public servant or god forbid a doctor or pharmacist then its you're sworn duty to serve the greatest good. If you don't want to dispense birth control or perform emergency abortions, then you picked the wrong profession.
I would argue however, that if you're an artist, an actual artist than you should probably be able to turn down a commission for any reason. It still makes you an asshole though. And to be clear, I'm talking about the case where you are asked create something entirely new, not "eh, I'll take cake #37."
The thing cuts both ways--I have a side business doing CNC/engraving/3d printing, really just a hobby... and I live in a conservative area. Lots of people want me to design something like a "Lets go Brandon" leather patch-- or horse tack (which I hand paint) with MAGA slogans on it.
I don't want to be associated with stuff like that. I think its well within my rights to turn work like that down.
I've turned down t-shirt orders that were beyond vulgar.
Worth noting: under federal law that's your right regardless of the outcome of this case.
At the federal level[1], political affiliation is not a protected class. This makes sense considering the issues that formed the Civil Rights Act (primarily race discrimination); it wouldn't make sense to grant the same rights and restrictions of assembly around serving a person of a particular race and serving a person who's political belief was people of that race are inferior. So a Klansman, for example, has a right to representation, advocate representation in the justice system, and freedom of speech but no particular right to be served in a bar (and bars can and do kick people out for wearing obvious signification of political affiliation, see https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-k...). Backing an anarchist or communist party can (and famously did) get you fired from a job, also.
[1] Some states grant additional rights in state law... IIRC, California does put political affiliation in the protected class in its state law
On the other hand, this reminds me of the old signs that said "we dont serve Mexicans and black people. Dogs are welcomed " which were pretty bad. Should someone be forced to work on something he doesn't want to due to her (wrong) beliefs?
It's highly illegal to refuse work on the grounds that you "don't work for gays" or similar.
That implies hatred towards a group of people.
And it's generally just a shitty thing to do.
If you don't want to do something for any reason, just be professional about your refusal and you won't get into messes like this.
This is not a case of “don’t work for gays.” You’re overlooking a distinction that is important to the case.
If the gay couple wanted a website to showcase pictures of their dog and the web designer didn't take the job because the clients were gay - the supreme court never would have taken that case. It's just discrimination.
If a straight couple wanted to build a pro-lgbt website and the web designer refused, the case would fundamentally be the same. It's an issue about compelling speech.
The issue is that she (reportedly) will happily work for gays, just not in order to produce pro-gay content. So it's not a question of "are you willing to work for <protected class>", it's "are you willing to create whatever content someone might want?"
> Artist Lorie Smith is a website designer who creates original, online content consistent with her faith. She plans to (1) design wedding websites promoting her understanding of marriage, and (2) post a statement explaining that she can only speak messages consistent with her faith.
The article also says that the issue will be limited to the “Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment”, so in a legal sense I think the fact that someone might make such a policy because of their religion is irrelevant in this case.
While the Supreme Court will address this on First Amendment grounds, that doesn’t mean religion is irrelevant. Speech is deeply intertwined with religion. There is a long history of forcing people to engage in speech contrary to their religious beliefs as a way to attack and destroy the religion.
American Muslims (I’m an immigrant from a Muslim country) have a very nuanced view on same-sex marriage. Most support it’s legality because they view white Americans as belonging to a distinct culture that isn’t subject to Islamic law. But in their own community it’s completely unacceptable: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres....
Thus there is a big difference for most Muslims between equal rights, non-discrimination protections, etc., and anything that would require their personal involvement.
Let's hypothetically take this to an extreme, take off the veneer. Let's say John hates some group of people. Let's disregard whether that group is defined by mutable or immutable characteristics. Does John have a right to hate those people? Does he have a right to express that hatred in a non violent, non coercive way? And if so, what does that entail? Is it about speech? Is making a painting speech? A website? What about making a cocktail? And why is it limited to speech, just because of the letter of the law? Does one have the right to associate with whom they please, and do business with whom they please?
Laws are not programs and you should not expect them to be written precisely over the full generality of possible inputs. A good suggestion can be one that merely makes the right outcomes clearer, not just one that makes law a matter of rote. Pretty much every law ever written can be dismissed if you count there being some ambiguity as a reason for dismissal.
I think their comment still applies. Do you still think the web developer should have the right to deny service based on the race or sex of the client, if that's what they were claiming offended their beliefs?
If every wedding photographer denied a couple service because they are two men, doesn't that "make life difficult for the excluded group"?
The case in question may be more nuanced than this — TFA is paywalled.
The secular West has adopted the philosophy of "everything goes as long as it doesn't harm me", which falls apart at scrutiny. This philosophy has also invaded their Christian population, which is why you see they caved to pressure.
I still have moral views despite not believing in any god.
I encourage you to learn more about evolution. The evidence and coherency is overwhelming. “The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins is a very good brief overview of the evidence. It’s quite stunning.
Also, Dawkins is a suspect figure to say the least, he's all over the place and clearly has an agenda.
If you study evolution with an open mind, you will see that it is true. There is a reason that the percentage of people who don't accept evolution has steadily decreased over the decades. It is by far the most compelling explanation for the origin of all the life we see around us, including ourselves. You can then see how the capacity for morality is an evolved trait, like all innate human behaviors.
Specific moral systems, such as the Judeo-Christian tradition you mention, are the product of cultural "evolution". They are built on top of our innate moral capacities.
If that's the case, then many, if not most, workers in the US are slaves, too.
[1] https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=55...
See: Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), Rolon v. Kulwitzky, 200 Cal. Rptr. 217.
There may be nuance here that you're not letting yourself see.
I don't understand this comment? Nothing in the law is fixed. I just find this current angle of attack really disheartening and insincere, but the law is about making a persuasive case to the appropriate audience, at the appropriate time. The Court hears lots of things that I'd argue it has no business in hearing, but that is its prerogative and what it chooses to hear depends on the the makeup of the Court at the time the case is presented.
This case is a vehicle for the Alliance Defending Freedom to use to further their goals because they believe the Court will rule in a way that is sympathetic to their cause. This is not an opinion. This is a fact. I'm not judging them for doing that, it's the nature of the game. The legal argument they're making for it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
> It wouldn't have even made it to the supreme court if it was plainly rehashing old cases.
The SCOTUS is 9 people in a conference room deciding what cases to hear. Of course, it's not _that_ simplistic, but there isn't some state machine here that determines ripeness, mootness, etc. Everyone in the court ascribes to a different jurisprudence (e.g. not everyone in the Court believes in stare decisis, not everyone cares for originalism, etc) and everyone has different motivations. Cases are selected in the pursuit of those goals by whatever happens to be the majority.
I personally dislike the increasing use of the Court to answer what are ultimately political questions. It erodes the legitimacy of the Court and causes it to inherently appear more partisan as it takes on divisive cases.
And, for the record, the question of compelled speech is a vital one. Can you be forced to answer detailed questions about race and ethnicity and family structure on the census (I'll note that there hasn't been a prosecution for failure to answer the census since before compelled speech became a hot topic in constitutional law)? Can you be forced to say "one nation under God" or the Pledge of Allegiance at all? Can the government force you to stand and sing along with the national anthem? Can the government force you to write a back door into your software? Can the government force you to denounce a political view you hold, or force you to promote a political view you oppose? Can it force you to talk to a counselor who "isn't an investigator" but will turn over your conversation to law enforcement?
I appreciate that you appear to be a strong advocate for people like me. But you can't protect civil rights by trampling on them. Once we start down the path of denigrating individual freedom based on the majority's moral judgment, it's only a matter of time before minorities like us are trampled upon. Widespread acceptance of gay marriage is great, but ensuring individual freedom - like my freedom to date, fall in love, and marry - remains the bedrock of our nation is far far more important.
Fortunately, this is not the case, either in this situation, or in the previous bakery case.
In both this and the other case, the "allowed" discrimination only applies to highly specific situations of creative work of those individuals, and does not extend much outside of it.
For example, there is no way that the courts would allow a grocery store to prevent certain sexual orientations from buying food. The cases really only apply in very limited circumstances.
LGBT groups are getting massive support from governments, NGOs, corporations, etc. Acceptance is being promoted in virtually every media and you are generally considered an evil person for holding views about homosexuality that would have been normal 30 years ago.
Conservative Christians on the other hand are just praying their livelihood won't be the target of activists today.
Who's funding the federalist? Who's funding FedSoc?
They're just not as public about it.
I'm not American so i might be mistaken, but can the recent changes in abortion laws across a section of US states be explained in any other way?
Mississippi’s 15-week ban, for example, would make the timing there somewhat more liberal than France or Denmark. It would also be consistent with the 70% of the public that thinks abortion should be legal, but only in the first trimester.
Conservatives are very much in a defensive crouch on Roe.
I'm also not alarmed by FedSoc (or ALEC or any of this stuff), but come on, make serious arguments.
Again: I think the hyperventilation over FedSoc is silly, and FedSoc is doing a thing that "should" be done (I'm not a conservative).
I'm not sure I agree that LGBT folks are getting "massive support" from governments more than other groups do (for instance, churches have a very effective tax carve out which I support), but there certainly has been a push for LGBT people to be recognized as humans who have the right to exist like anyone else. Again, we can all view homosexuality (and other queer identities) in whatever way we want - but this case and the questions before civic society in general are about the provision of services. The standard we should all follow is that people are free to believe what they want (and suffer the social consequences of being known to hold those beliefs) but still be free to access the commercial services that are available to the general public without fear of being exiled for their beliefs or identity.
Edit: FWIW, I generally support the finding of Masterpiece Cakeshop, which is that the work of people doing 'creative' work is speech-y and they cannot be compelled to do creative work for a cause they oppose. However, it says that you cannot refuse service to protected classes if your creativity is not called on (i.e. Masterpiece Cakeshop does not have to design a cake, but does have to bake a cake if the design is provided). I would support a similar standard here and I expect Smith to lose unless she can argue that a commercial website for gay people requires some kind of creative act specifically about the sexuality of her clients.
Why not? It's a genuine question I'd like to get to the bottom of. I have no interest in discriminating against people professionally and wouldn't even be able to be friends with those who do, but that's personal. Why shouldn't someone be able to if that's what they want to do?
Obviously, we allow people to cause harms under certain circumstances. Self defense is one, situations where we have competing rights is another. The standard we've come to is that, in order to be allowed to offer services and goods in the US, you also need to agree to obey our laws, which includes the protection of certain 'protected classes' - which are generally seen as qualities a human has that are not entirely voluntary (sex, sexual orientation [in some places], race, national origin, disability, age, citizenship status and religion). Other qualities are not protected. You are allowed, for instance, to deny service to anyone who doesn't like Seinfeld, or to ugly people, or any other non-protected class.
At the end of the day, I don't think its in our interest to allow commercial activity with no rules. Everyone benefits from having some elements of their identity that cannot lead to them being denied services. It's true that sometimes you have to suck it up - but that's a drawback we all share as well.
And I understand the "rules of our society" stuff, but I'm trying to get at it on principle. And I am not saying commerce should happen with no rules, that's a different discussion, I'm talking about this specific set of rules.
Declaring oneself a business comes with protections for the individual in exchange for agreeing to serve society at large. Refusing to do so is failing to uphold the obligations one agreed to.
Look at 1950s segregation. No one wants that again. It creates an imbalance that’s unnecessary, unfair, unkind and hard to recover from for those being discriminated against.
If all necessary goods and services were provided by the State (a horrible idea BTW), then discrimination in the private sector would have a much smaller impact.
But in the US, the vast majority of jobs and goods are in the private sector. To legalize discrimination there is to essentially legalize discrimination for the majority of all daily interactions.
If you’re familiar with the power of compound interest, now imagine everything in your day is 1% harder than your non-discriminated peers. Doesn’t seem like that big a deal to go to the next diner to eat or the next web designer to get a website, but if the discrimination is rampant, that 1% friction compounds and becomes a major detriment over time, especially when compounded over generations.
But is it morally right to tell individuals who they can and cannot associate with? I'm trying to get to the bottom of it fundamentally.
No law is saying that you can or cannot associate with someone. You have always been free to pick your friends.
Anti-discrimination laws are saying you can’t refuse service based on someone’s status as a protected class (age > 65, gender, race, religion, etc.).
Laws basically are morals. So there’s no right or wrong, just costs and benefits.
We know the cost of allowing discrimination by looking at history: segregation, generational decline, hate crimes, genocide, etc. When you allow one group permission to treat another group differently based on something that group can’t change or shouldn’t have to change about themselves then bad things typically happen.
What’s the benefit of allowing discrimination? Not much I can think of.
Maybe try a little experiment: pick a letter of the alphabet like ‘A’. Now, go about your day, but pretend anyone who’s name contains an ‘A’ doesn’t want to do business with you. Ask everyone their name (because in this society pretend that names are super important to people’s belief systems) and you have to go to a different gas station, coffee shop, restaurant, get a different Uber, etc. if the person doing business with you has an A in their name. Pretend that these folks don’t want to do business with you and you don’t want to force them to.
These are good questions you’re asking, but the history I’m aware of is pretty clear cut about the dangers of discrimination.
Basically every law that’s ever been passed had to go through this scrutiny:
Should we allow murder? What’s the benefit of allowing murder? What’s the cost of telling people “who they can and cannot” murder?
We like to think of the US as a bastion of freedom, but you don’t have the freedom to buy drugs, pay for sex, stone adulterers, own a wife, conduct honor killings or discriminate, unlike some other countries where you are free to do those things.
The question of freedom is not how much you can do as an individual. The question is how much you can do as an individual before you start harming others. That will always be a moving target, but for discrimination I personally think it does more harm to the group than the benefit it could potentially give to an individual.
Edit: grammar
Seems like an open-and-shut case. She’s willing to work with gays, just not for this particular cause. Is this any different than turning away a white for wanting a KKK website? I think not.
In that, by compelling the creation of a backdoor (by writing or modifying code, that did not exist before the demand) the government violates an individual's right to free speech, by which they cannot be compelled to speak in a certain manner.
But at the same time, that "freedom" already appears to give way to the social good of equality for protected classes (i.e. personal characteristics). Thorny set of issues to balance.
Fundamental Constitutional principles and existing case law seem to say no. Over the past thirty years, this has been an evolving issue, starting with things like forcing people to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I wouldn't be shocked if we see challenges to mandatory expanded census questions in 2030 or 2040. And certainly compelling encryption backdoors is an issue that's been in the news the past few years.
It's disconcerting to me, as a gay man, that this issue has been pushed this far. In my adult life, it has been a crime for me to have a sexual relationship. In my adult life it has been unlawful for me to get married. Historically, excessive government control over people has not worked out well for minorities, and it's a bit Uncle Tom-ish to try to use government to force people into conduct that aligns with your personal values.
Structures and powers analyses are important. When looking at a question of the scope of government power, ask yourself: would you feel comfortable giving this power to your political adversaries? If the Religious Right had a majority in Congress or a state legislature, would the gay litigants in this case support the government's right to, say, make all wedding-related speech include praise of one-man-one-woman as the ideal form of marriage?
A government without protections for individual rights of freedom and conscience isn't a republic, it's a mob. Mobs never turn out well for the little guy in the long run.
If we generalize this problem, it basically distills down to: If you are a web designer and a <protected class> commissions you to make a website glorifying <something you personally find to be immoral>, are you allowed to refuse the job on grounds that you don't want to use your skills to promote something you personally find immoral (though you would be happy to make them other content you don't object to)? Or should you be forced by law to make the website in order to not discriminate against <protected class>?
That said — even within this case, that argument falls flat. The crux of the defense is “it’s not that I wouldn’t take on gay clients, I just won't make a wedding website for them.” Cool, so just don’t make wedding websites. There are plenty of other kinds of websites people will pay you to make. Leave the wedding sites to designers who won’t discriminate against gay people.
We could replace the first amendment with "just don't say anything controversial". We could replace the right to privacy with "just don't have anything you want to hide".
It's important to define our rights and freedoms. The question of whether we want customers to be able to compell speech is an important one.
Again, my suggestion — wherein she can’t make wedding websites for anyone — doesn’t compel speech. But if I had to abandon practicality, I would say she should be forced to make the website.
Now change things around and pretend the dating website was for LGBTQ+ people. Do you see how you cannot possibly implement your proposal in a non-discriminatory way? Freedom of association is a thing because humans want to associate with like humans. This has been the case for all of human history. That doesn't automatically ascribe evil intent to anyone--whether a Christian on my hypothetical Christian dating website or an LGBTQ+ person on an LGBTQ+ dating website. Each group simply wants to associate with one another.
The beautiful thing about the United States is that people have fifty states from which to choose. If you favor one type of association move to states that generally believe those things. If you favor another, move to those states. Having the federal government dictate that all states will favor associations only between certain approved groups is a recipe for discord.
We’ve also tried allowing these sorts of de jure discriminatory policies. The end result was businesses with signs that said things like “No Negroes” and “Jews Not Allowed”. The solution isn’t to tell people to move to a place where businesses can’t discriminate like that; it’s to make that discrimination illegal everywhere.
No mater what kind of website (forum, web app, social network, wedding, etc..) she probably doesn't want to make a certain type of content.
It is the same for any person. There is a topic for each of us that we want no part of 'supporting' even if we have no problem serving people who do support it.
Making a website collecting donations for Trump. Making a website supporting Israel. Making a website for a pride parade. Making a website supporting/condemning Hong Kong/BLM/OWS movements.
Doesn't mater what you put for X, everyone has limits on what they are comfortable supporting. That is a separate issue from who you provide service to.
If I just make Nazi websites for black people, and refuse to make a Nazi website for some people, it isn't the Nazi website - it is the person that I disagree with.
This is a highly contrived example, but it could be about anything, not just sexual orientation. A black guy walks into a white guy's barber shop and asks for a bespoke African haircut. The white barber refuses on the grounds that he doesn't think he would do a good job since he has never done one before and doesn't intend to learn how to do those types of haircuts. The barber doesn't tell the black guy to leave, but he tells him to pick a different haircut. Is this discrimination? Should the barber be compelled to perform the haircut he doesn't want to do against his will? What if he then does a bad job? Is that a hate crime?
Is the barber analogy apt? Not really. White and Black haircuts are generally considered different "categories", and offering one does not generally confer an expectation to offer the other.
Is the pancake analogy apt? Not really. A pancake of "people kissing" is substitutable. It might not be the first choice for a gay couple, but there's no intrinsic reason they couldn't get a pancake with a flower on it instead. Now, if you were offering portraits of couples kissing, and you refused to do gay couples, that would be analogous — they're not going to get a portrait of a different couple, so this policy essentially means you don't accept gay customers.
Going the compulsory route is going to lead to decreased religious freedoms and increased social discord between the secular and religious demographics of the country, IMO.
Anyway, in my original reply to you I mentioned a solution that prevents discrimination without compelling speech. If you feel you must discriminate in providing a service, then you can't provide that service.
> Anyway, in my original reply to you I mentioned a solution that prevents discrimination without compelling speech. If you feel you must discriminate in providing a service, then you can't provide that service.
In my opinion, that solution is a slippery slope that will quickly infringe on religious freedom. Soon: "Pastors/priests/bishops/etc. are no longer allowed to perform weddings unless they also perform gay weddings (against their beliefs). After all, if you feel you must discriminate in providing a service, then you can't provide that service."
So then you'd have lots of pastors refusing to perform any marriages to avoid doing something against their beliefs, which, in turn, would vindicate all the people opposed to gay marriage who were worried gay marriage would "infringe on the religious sanctity of marriage". Religious freedom down, social discord up.
There's an alternate scenario, of course. Soon: "web designers across the nation refuse to make wedding websites for same-sex couples". Religious freedom up, social discord also up. I'm not sure why you think it's only a one-way street; allowing religion to be used as a pretext to discriminate against marginalized groups is also surefire way to divide people.
It seems like we're rapidly approaching a point at which further debate is fruitless, so let me clearly state my position here: where religious freedom and equal protection clash, I am staunchly in favor of subordinating the former to the latter.
Making a website for a gay couple and a straight couple requires the same sets of skills...
In both of your examples, the set of skills is different.
Baking a cake for a gay couple and a straight couple... same skills...
But a gay business owner cannot discriminate against the very religious groups who seek to exclude gay people from their institutions or services. Gay people do not even galvanize around such political positions as, say, banning Christian marriage or Christian adoption, or supporting the firing of Christian employees.
Any conclusions drawn by the Court in this case will be readily extrapolable to religious affiliation. Web designers don't have to do a "We're gay and we love it" site because it offends their religious beliefs? Then other web designers don't have to do a "This is our Catholic church" site because Catholicism offends their Protestant beliefs.
(IANAL, but this would, perhaps, be a good argument for the defendants to bring).
It's illegal to refuse service to a Christian on the grounds of his religion but it's not illegal for a painter to refuse to paint a mural if he finds its message (which may be religious) revolting.
On the one-hand, this is very close, if not exactly the same as active discrimination against a protected group. But since being a web designer is a creative role, we also have to take into account the creative aspect: does the couple "forcing" the designer to work constitute a violation in speech?
If this were a medical clinic or even a large advertising agency--which is also a creative firm-- it would clearly be discrimination, but the simple fact that this is an individual makes it an interesting case.
--- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
I feel a similar way about the contractor vs employee debate around Uber. Uber drivers are so clearly neither, but we get so focused on fitting new problems into the existing legal framework instead of growing the legal framework.
It feels like we need to do some refactoring.
It sounds like "willing to work with all people" is a lie then. If you are making a wedding website for a same-sex couple, what kind of message do you think it will contain?
Also fairly disgusting of her to put "messages like violence or same-sex marriage" in the same sentence, as if they are remotely comparable things.
If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business. "Oh, yes, I'm more than willing to work with handicapped people, but I can't promote ramps or accessible doorways, I just don't believe in them," would not fly to get out of an ADA lawsuit. The law says you must serve these groups equally, and you can't weasel your way out of it with "oh I just hate the sin, not the sinner!"
Also have to love the ridiculous pearl-clutching here:
> If left in place, the 10th Circuit’s decision will allow officials to compel Democratic speechwriters to plug Republican candidates and Muslim artists to create cartoon parodies of Allah.”
No, this decision would not compel a general-purpose artist to paint a work that they don't want to create. This person is lost in the sauce. They keep thinking it's about the content of the work, ("I don't create gay websites"), and not their behavior of refusing to work with the gay couple. Of course an artist or speechwriter would get in trouble today if they turned down people based just on them being part of a protected class. By the way, political party is not a protected class, so that argument fails twice.
These are the same type of people who feel their rights are being violated when they get kicked off Twitter because of their non-protected violent posts, and want to be able to simultaneously deny their own business services to actual protected classes. So square that how you will.
> It sounds like "willing to work with all people" is a lie then. If you are making a wedding website for a same-sex couple, what kind of message do you think it will contain?
Substitute "same-sex couple" with "conservatives" and you have Facebook right now.
> If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business.
So, just to be clear: You're saying that businesses should effectively operate like public accommodations? Does that apply to everybody, including people you personally dislike?
Mind you, I actually favor that position, but I'd just like to get someone to actually admit to it publicly that all men are created equal and endowed with the same rights, not just those groups that happen to be politically favored during the current news cycle. I'm one of those weird people from the early days of the Internet that actually means it when he says he's for civil rights.
> These are the same type of people who feel their rights are being violated when they get kicked off Twitter because of their non-protected violent posts
And there it is. Anyone who thinks different than you is violent and should be deplatformed. QED.
Sorry, sir, but the law applies to everyone or no one. You don't get to play favorites. This isn't Apartheid Zuid Afrika... or Israel for that matter.
One is a protected class, and the other isn't. It really is that simple.
> So, just to be clear: You're saying that businesses should effectively operate like public accommodations?
To be clear: denying service on the basis of your potential customer being a protected class is illegal. Denying service because you don't like their political opinion is not illegal.
> Sorry, sir, but the law applies to everyone or no one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States
Thats an interesting opinion, but it is not supported by court precedent.
The previous court precedent, was related to the bakery/gay wedding case, and it was ruled in favor of the bakery in a 7-2 decision. (So no, it was not just the conservative judges who voted in favor of it)
So on a factual ground, you are wrong, and religious protections are an established precedent that was discussed even specifically related to gay weddings.
The Supreme Court has already turned away cases that it thought were similar to it:
> Another predominate case involving anti-discrimination laws and religious freedom that was in the court system during Masterpiece was the Arlene's Flowers lawsuit in Washington, with the issue over flower arrangements being provided for a same-sex wedding. Prior to the decision in Masterpiece, a petition for writ of certiorari had been issued to the Supreme Court. Following the decision of Masterpiece, the flower shop owner used that decision to assert that they were shown similar religious hostility, and requested their case to be reheard. On June 25, 2018, the Supreme Court dismissed the pending petition, and ordered that lower courts review the flower shop's case in a similar light as Masterpiece. [0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
If this were settled "factual ground," why would they take this case up instead of similarly turning it away?
> Instances of institutions and individuals claiming a right to discriminate in the name of religion aren’t new. In the 1960s, we saw institutions object to laws requiring integration in restaurants because of sincerely held beliefs that God wanted the races to be separate. We saw religiously affiliated universities refuse to admit students who engaged in interracial dating. In those cases, we recognized that requiring integration was not about violating religious liberty; it was about ensuring fairness. It is no different today.
> Religious freedom in America means that we all have a right to our religious beliefs, but this does not give us the right to use our religion to discriminate against and impose those beliefs on others who do not share them.
This article[2] published in the Fordham Law Review journal also investigates the similarities between the use of religion to discriminate against interracial couples and the use of religion to discriminate against gay couples. It's a good read.
Here's a quote from the beginning, from a judge:
> In his 1965 opinion refusing to vacate the convictions of Richard and Mildred Loving, Judge Leon M. Bazile of Caroline County Circuit Court in Virginia included the following passage:
> "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix"
[1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/religious-liberty/using-religion...
[2] https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=55...
This is pretty much the top comment on HN from 5 years ago: "But private corporations are allowed to censor and be biased." [1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12126548#12129927
2. Twitter doesn't drop conservative writers just for being conservative. There are still literally millions of conservative people on Twitter. Twitter has a line that a conservative or liberal person could cross.
On the other hand, we could wind up with troubling situations in some parts of the country if “speech” is able to dodge anti-discrimination laws. There are towns where nearly every business would refuse gay people if they knew who they were. Imagine being effectively banned from a town like that if businesses figure out how to call their business a form of “speech.”
So this leaves me on the fence. I wish that artists have freedom to choose their clients but am a little worried about where that leads us. Hopefully the justices can craft a decision that avoids major issues in the future.
They might well rule that web design counts as speech, and so she doesn't have to make speech she disagrees with by designing a website for a gay wedding. If this is how it goes, then logically, the ruling would apply to a narrower set of services than the article suggests. Things like selling flowers and catering don't have any significant creative component and so don't qualify as "speech" that needs to be free. Even the wedding cake case that made it to the supreme court wouldn't qualify, since the couple was refused before they said anything about the cake's design; they hadn't asked the baker to "say" anything at all.
> If ADF prevails, businesses may secure a right to discriminate against anyone as long as their work involves speech. A racist photographer could refuse to shoot an interracial wedding. An antisemitic florist could refuse to provide flowers to a Bat Mitzvah. A hairdresser could refuse to serve Black people. A chef could refuse to cater a quinceañera. The list goes on; every commercial transaction involves expression, and every civil rights law is enforced through compelled speech. If a business’ First Amendment rights outweigh the government’s interest in ending discrimination, few non-discrimination laws will be safe from constitutional attack.
I fear that this SCOTUS will pull that trigger.
In my view, the only way to conciliate laws and exemptions is to make exemptions sufficiently costly to eliminate built in advantages to selected groups, whichever they may be. I don't know what a fair way to do so would be. Perhaps an alternative exit that doesn't require an exemption is an even better solution.
In the specifics of this case, couldn't the web designer hire a third party to take care of the job, providing the service as requested, but not executing it themselves?
What if I don't want to work with Facebook because I think they're evil? Is that discrimination against evil corporations? Can they sue me and force me to work there?
In America, all states except 1 are "right to work", which really means "right to fire". So anyone has the right to fire me, but I don't get to choose who I work for?
Who wants to work with someone when you know they don't want to work with you?
The Civil Rights Act was passed because in the United States, we had a real problem with entire sections of the country being functionally unlivable for minorities because of the general right to refuse service. So if you live in a town where nobody will serve you at a restaurant, nobody will sell to you, nobody will allow you to open a bank account, and nobody will even sell you gas for your car, it doesn't matter if the government isn't discriminating against you... You can't live there.
But the Civil Rights Act didn't impinge directly on freedom of expression enshrined in the First Amendment (although it did impinge on freedom of association). The businesses the people had in mind when they passed the law were things like hotels, restaurants, and stores, where the provided service is commodity. When the provided service includes some aspect of artistic expression, people believe there's still an open question of whether the Civil Rights Act includes an aspect of compelled speech in using one's artistic talents to propagate a message one disagrees with.
It's a legitimately complicated question of where one person's rights end and another person's rights begin (although, to be clear, so was the original Civil Rights Act when it clarified that the right to refuse service was not universal).
> What if I don't want to work with Facebook because I think they're evil? Is that discrimination against evil corporations?
The Civil Rights Act doesn't provide being an evil corporation as a protected class. So the answer would be "yes, refusing to work with evil corporations is legal discrimination."