SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Case

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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Windy » Fri Jun 08, 2018 4:32 am

SandTea wrote:Yeah, I'm distressed but not surprised by this. I hope these pricks stick to their "principals" and put up 'no gays allowed' signs on their windows so everyone can exercise their right to tell them to fuck off. Maybe some "straights only" water fountain/bathroom signs as well. The conservative majority in the supreme court has always been detrimental. They always make it one step forward, ten steps back. Maybe one day people will be kind to each other but I'm not holding my breath.


"pricks
fuck off
why can't people be kind to each other
stupid conservative supreme court that legalized gay marriage, why do they hate gay people???
"
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Kate » Fri Jun 08, 2018 5:56 am

Please knock off the easy quips and converse civilly. If you want to point out that you find a post to be incorrect and hypocritical, you can do so in a more respectful way, and people are more likely to listen to that.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Crimson847 » Fri Jun 08, 2018 6:41 am

If it's a problem for Windy to quote insults back at someone, perhaps the insults themselves are a problem that merits attention as well.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Learned Nand » Fri Jun 08, 2018 6:49 am

blehblah wrote:Back to religion - do whatever you want; I'm totally fine with it, so long as it doesn't infringe on what I consider more important rights. Refuse to sell cake for a gay marriage? Fill yer boots. You're not my kind of paddy-cake maker, but everyone has that one crazy uncle. Put a sign in your window saying, "Help wanted - gays need not apply," and you're pushing my buttons. Marry-off teens to elderly men? Straight to jail with ya.

This kind of analysis doesn't quite fit with American law, mostly because of the state action doctrine. There isn't a Constitutional right against private discrimination. For the most part, the Constitution only protects you from governmental discrimination. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883); United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000).

So, if Colorado's civil rights law had infringed on Phillips' free speech rights, the Court wouldn't balance that against any equal protection right on the part of the gay couple. Instead the Court would have to determine whether protecting gay couples from discrimination constituted a compelling governmental interest, and whether the civil rights law was narrowly tailored to further that interest. Thomas' concurrence suggests that he thinks discrimination protection can never justify infringements on freedom of speech, although I might be misunderstanding his point.

Can someone, based on the first amendment, refuse to express something? I'm thinking of the example of writing something on the cake (or, in any other way, expressing something in the creation of the product)? If, let's say, the couple asked for those little figurines on top of the cake, would that count? I suppose even if it does, he could sell them the generic cake, but refuse the, arguably, expressive flourish (or rainbows, following Carrie's example).

There is definitely a right to refuse to speak. The government can't, for example, force you to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school. West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).

The way I understand this case, though (and I think the way Kagan understands it as well) is that Phillips wasn't being compelled to speak. Although a baker has a right to control the content of his cakes, he doesn't have a first amendment right to sell them to certain people for certain uses and not for others. There might be expressive value in creating a wedding cake; there isn't expressive value in selling that wedding cake to be used in a gay wedding.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Kate » Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:11 am

Crimson847 wrote:If it's a problem for Windy to quote insults back at someone, perhaps the insults themselves are a problem that merits attention as well.

I should expand upon my post, as I said there are respectful ways to point out the problems with a post and respectful is the guideline that we try to live by in this subforum. Reducing someone's post down to a summary in this particular manner comes closer to mockery than to discussion in good faith. No one has gotten in trouble, no one is being asked to agree with the post in question, but we do ask that people respond respectfully. While I do not entirely disagree with your point about the original post, it was not aimed at anyone on TCS. The day we find out that Neil Gorsuch is a member of TCS is the day our umbrella of respect extends to him.

But RBG can take a hike, even if she does join TCS. She knows what she did.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby RatElemental » Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:29 am

I can't say I agree with this decision, but then I'm a weird anti-theist who thinks justifying breaking a law or discriminating against someone because god said so shouldn't be a thing you can do.

As for the discriminating against people thing, so long as we're talking about inherent attributes, I don't think there's any justifiable reason to discriminate when it comes to a public service.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Crimson847 » Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:16 pm

Kate wrote:
Crimson847 wrote:If it's a problem for Windy to quote insults back at someone, perhaps the insults themselves are a problem that merits attention as well.

I should expand upon my post, as I said there are respectful ways to point out the problems with a post and respectful is the guideline that we try to live by in this subforum. Reducing someone's post down to a summary in this particular manner comes closer to mockery than to discussion in good faith. No one has gotten in trouble, no one is being asked to agree with the post in question, but we do ask that people respond respectfully. While I do not entirely disagree with your point about the original post, it was not aimed at anyone on TCS.


Are you sure about that? My reading is that most of the insults Windy quoted (about the "pricks" who should put up signs identifying themselves so everyone can tell them to "fuck off") were directed at conservative Christians like the defendant who refuse to participate in gay marriages. While it does seem entirely plausible that nobody on TCS disagrees with gay marriage given the site's demographics, I don't think we can be nearly as sure of that as we can be that nobody here is Neil Gorsuch.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby IamNotCreepy » Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:50 pm

Let's try to keep the discussion in this thread on the topic at hand. If you have questions regarding the rules or want to discuss how the mods handle things, feel free to make a post in Ask a Mod or PM us for clarification.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Tesseracts » Fri Jun 08, 2018 2:39 pm

It's sad but unsurprising how many people have interpreted this as legal sanction of discrimination. All the ruling means is the baker was not given a fair trial by the state of Colorado because they were hostile rather than neutral about his religious concerns. The ruling did not determine if bakers can refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Absentia » Fri Jun 08, 2018 3:32 pm

Tesseracts wrote:It's sad but unsurprising how many people have interpreted this as legal sanction of discrimination. All the ruling means is the baker was not given a fair trial by the state of Colorado because they were hostile rather than neutral about his religious concerns. The ruling did not determine if bakers can refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding.


It's not as if homophobes are known for their informed, reasoned opinions to begin with. I think asking them to understand and synthesize a nuanced legal opinion might be a bit optimistic.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Kate » Fri Jun 08, 2018 4:37 pm

Absentia wrote:
Tesseracts wrote:It's sad but unsurprising how many people have interpreted this as legal sanction of discrimination. All the ruling means is the baker was not given a fair trial by the state of Colorado because they were hostile rather than neutral about his religious concerns. The ruling did not determine if bakers can refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding.


It's not as if homophobes are known for their informed, reasoned opinions to begin with. I think asking them to understand and synthesize a nuanced legal opinion might be a bit optimistic.
Most of the misunderstanding I have seen, and this is possibly from the fact that I know literally three people who do not support gay marriage and they're all fairly intelligent(and I wouldn't call any of then homophobes), is not from homophobes but from people saying things such as...well, in this thread. On the first page someone talked about separate drinking fountains and "no gays allowed" signs when this ruling does not in any way condone such things and barely even touched on the issue that everyone was interested in here; essentially, that can was kicked down the road. I'm sure it is largely hyperbole but it is still misplaced given what the actual ruling was, in my opinion.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Crimson847 » Sun Jun 10, 2018 7:14 pm

Tesseracts wrote:It's sad but unsurprising how many people have interpreted this as legal sanction of discrimination. All the ruling means is the baker was not given a fair trial by the state of Colorado because they were hostile rather than neutral about his religious concerns. The ruling did not determine if bakers can refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding.


I wouldn't call it sad that people think this ruling allows bakers to refuse to make cakes for gay weddings, because there's at least one plausible argument that they're correct. David French (a former litigator for religious liberty causes) has been outlining it quite well since the decision came out:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/ ... y-victory/
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/m ... -killjoys/
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/m ... s-liberty/

In brief, the argument goes like this: the court's opinion holds that Colorado was impermissibly biased against Phillips' religion in part because the state civil rights commission displayed a double standard by allowing other bakers to refuse to make cakes inscribed with a Bible passage that condemns homosexuality, for which they were accused of anti-Christian discrimination by the rebuffed customers. Why so many people in Colorado wanted cakes with Leviticus 18:22 on them will probably remain one of history's great mysteries (the cases apparently occurred before this one, so it wasn't people trying to "gotcha" the civil rights commission in response to Phillips' case), but that's what makes life interesting.

So now, if a jurisdiction wants to keep Christian bakers from refusing to bake custom cakes for gay marriages, they will also have to bar gay bakers from refusing to bake Leviticus cakes, prevent Jewish bakers from refusing to bake swastika cakes, force black bakers to make cakes for the KKK, and so forth. Obviously, most folks would rather eat broken glass dipped in Tabasco sauce than do any of that, particularly the kind of folks who run civil rights commissions. So in practice what the Court has done is tell policymakers "we're not going to say you can't make Christian bakers bake cakes for gay marriages, but if you want to do that, first you have to climb over this fifty-foot wall made of razor blades and rabid lions."
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Learned Nand » Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:50 am

The majority didn't say that cakes with Leviticus 18:22 quotes had to treated the same as cakes for gay weddings. Only Gorsuch's opinion (joined by Thomas) said that. The majority only said that, if the civil rights commission wants to treat them differently, it has to provide a better reason than that it found the Levicitus quote offensive. Four of the justices even agreed on the specific better reason expressed in Kagan's concurrence. (Three more justices expressed no opinion on that justification).

Additionally, the majority opinion made itself very clear that it was not a license for discrimination. For example, Kennedy explained:

Masterpiece Cake Shop, at 9 wrote:[W]hile ... religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law.


And if that quote wasn't specific enough to make it clear that the opinion should not be read authorizing religiously motivated discrimination, Kennedy clarified:

Id. at 12 wrote:[A]ny decision in favor of the baker would have to be sufficiently constrained, lest all purveyors of goods and services who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons in effect be allowed to put up signs saying "no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages," something that would impose a serious stigma on gay persons.


I don't think there's a way to read that opinion and think that it authorizes discrimination against gay people. Certainly, it doesn't require states to treat cakes for gay weddings and cakes with hateful messages on them the same way. It just requires the states to provide a good reason for distinguishing those cakes, and such a reason is readily available.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Windy » Mon Jun 11, 2018 3:09 am

I also look forward to seeing how we all convince ourselves that that we're winning after the SCOTUS sides with Trump on the travel ban.
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Re: SCOTUS Narrowly Rules in Favor of Baker in Gay Cakes Cas

Postby Absentia » Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:21 am

Friendly mod-voice reminder: Again, let's please keep this thread on topic. We already have a thread for the travel ban, if anyone wants to discuss it.
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