Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Round 2

[Angrboda]

I read that too and it isn't relevant. No one denies that the Masterpiece Cake shop is a place of public accommodation. No one denies that the State of Colorado considers transgendered people a protected class. That is why those are acknowledged in the Statements of Fact along with the part I quoted.

The part I quoted confirms that as far a Colorado is concerned discrimination occurs if and only if the reason for denying someone service is because they are part of a protected class. According to Colorado law it is NOT discrimination to decline making a bespoke product that expresses an objectionable message. Presumably, Philips would refuse to bake a cake for a straight customer also if the intended meaning of the cakes design was to celebrate a transitioning. If the activist lawyer had simply said he or she wanted a pink and blue cake and left it at that then it would be clear that Philips had indeed discriminated on the basis of the person's gender identity. Alternatively, if the lawyer had stayed silent and Philips baked the cake not knowing the significance of the colors, he would be in the clear, having proved that gender identity, in and of itself, was not for him a reason to deny service. Instead, the lawyer made a point of stating what the design signified, a message he or she knew Philips would find offensive.  In other words, Philips does not object to serving people simply because they are gay or trans. Philips merely would not make, what was in his estimation, an offensive decorative design regardless of the customer's gender identity.

Neo, it never got that far. The actual design of the cake was never even discussed in the first case, so your statement of fact was not even relevant to that case, other than that it perhaps can be used to establish that Jack Phillips has a pattern of discriminating against protected classes. Whether denying someone a blue and pink cake is also discrimination of a protected class is probably for the court to decide. Unless you're arguing that Jack Phillips would have refused to bake any cakes utilizing the colors pink and blue, this appears to be yet another bit of sophistry in the service of defending what is prima facie illegal. You have to go out of your way to construe baking a pink and blue cake as a "bespoke" product whose message was offensive and which he would have refused to any other customer. So your statement of fact turns out to be irrelevant in the first case, and nothing more than disingenuous bullshit in the second. Not that he can't use that as a defense, but I hope supreme court justices have sufficient intelligence to see through that ruse, even if you do not. But thank you for bringing more dishonest arguments to our attention.

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Well, thanks for the correction I suppose. Seems like the same reasoning.

But Neo’s account of the narrow ruling is correct. That is what the whole discussion of a narrow vs a broad ruling on the issue is about. They ruled not on the case, but a majority ruling on the conduct of the Colorado civil rights commission to dismiss it.

No, Roadie, it isn't. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission didn't "target" Jack Phillips, they didn't choose the case to be adjudicated. That action was taken by the plaintiffs. And you, Neo, and the ADF's continued insistence on misrepresenting that point is simply ideologically motivated bullshit. The CCRC was ruled to have exhibited hostility towards his religious beliefs in the process of arbitrating the dispute. Period. It goes no further than that. The supreme court did not rule against the CCRC because they arbitrated a case involving Jack Phillips or any person holding similar beliefs. That's simply not how it works. The CCRC doesn't go around sniffing for people to persecute, they just deal with the cases that are brought to them. So this idea that the supreme court admonished the CCRC for targeting Phillips' religious beliefs is nothing more than yet another false conservative talking point. But then, we already knew which side your bread was buttered on, didn't we?