Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Colorado Baker

[LadyForCamus]

I keep asking you to correct me....don;t I?  Well..........?  What does the christian right want with these cases, if not the right to discriminate against gays?

Yes, but you also keep repeating the same things you where told where not correct. 

They are fighting for the right to not have to produce material which is specifically for or against their conscience.   Personally I'm on the fence concerning a baker making a cake.


If we classify it as a political disagreement, is it then OK?

Why would something two consenting adult humans do with each other behind closed doors bother another person’s conscience?

[Mister Agenda]

They are fighting for the right to not have to produce material which is specifically for or against their conscience.

Like having to bake a wedding cake for an interracial couple if the baker believes miscegenation is a sin.

[Silver]

Will Supreme Court Cake Ruling Actually Help Christian Businesses?

The case of a Christian baker refusing to design a cake for a same-sex wedding became, in the eyes of many, the most-anticipated Supreme Court decision of the year because justices had a chance to finally resolve America’s ongoing struggle to balance sincerely held faith convictions and LGBT protections.

But in Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court’s 7–2 ruling did not establish a new precedent outright allowing or barring Christian business owners from serving customers based on their faith convictions. Instead, the narrow decision favored baker Jack Phillips over a state agency that the high court ruled had demonstrated an unconstitutional hostility toward his Christian beliefs.

CT asked religious liberty experts to weigh in on what the complicated ruling actually means for conservative Christian business owners in the wedding industry:

Thomas Berg, professor of law and public policy at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota):

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This is the court’s first tangle with the issue of religious vendor refusals and LGBT rights, and the justices obviously wanted to proceed slowly. But there are other cases coming, including the Washington florist currently before the court. The justices will have to accept another one for review if they want any control over what this opinion means.

The court indicates that the interests of both LGBT people and religious objectors must be taken seriously—a central theme of the amicus brief that [University of Virginia professor Douglas Laycock] and I filed for the LDS Church and other groups. But the court doesn’t say exactly what that means. Does it just mean no outright hostility to a religious belief? Or might it mean that the interests of traditionalist Christians in following their faith while in business must be weighed significantly in the balance?

The latter would give more protection. And note that the court does say that one piece of evidence of state hostility is if the decision-makers tell you to leave your beliefs behind when you “do business in this state.” However, Masterpiece makes it clear that protections from antidiscrimination law in the commercial sphere will be narrow—limited to objections tied to a specific event like a wedding—because LGBT people have a strong interest in receiving full service in the market.

At a very general level, the decision indicates that the Court will take a flexible view toward whether a law is “neutral and generally applicable toward religion” under the free exercise clause test that has been used since 1990. The state clearly cannot win just by showing that the text of a law does not single out religion. The court will look at the background of the law—including both lawmakers’ explicit statements and the nature of their reasoning—to find even “subtle departures” from neutrality. That could strengthen the free exercise clause across the board, not just in cases involving LGBT rights.

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Michael W. McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution:

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Justice Kennedy's opinion in favor of the Christian baker, for a 7-2 majority, was scrupulously cautious in refusing to comment on possible future cases or broader implications. But no one should mistake the principle.

If a state recognizes the right of shopkeepers to refuse service on the basis of secular principles, it cannot punish others who refuse service on the basis of religious principles. The case might be different if all bakers were required to bake all cakes expressing all ideas—but Colorado did not have such a rule.

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Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission:

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The decision was right and good, regardless of whether it was as broad and sweeping as it could possibly be. The court here decided that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission treated the religious beliefs of Jack Phillips with impermissible hostility and animus. Along the way, the majority opinion asserted strongly that courts must treat people of faith neutrally and that any kind of animus or hostility is itself a violation of religious liberty.

Over the last few years, we have seen serious questioning by some of the value of religious liberty and even open contempt expressed in the Senate toward the religious beliefs of nominated judges and other administration officials. This makes Justice Kennedy’s comments on the value of religious liberty on behalf of himself and 6 other justices all the more welcome. The concurring opinions of Justices Gorsuch and Thomas were even more insistent and provided a robust defense of religious liberty and the government’s duty to protect, not police, the free exercise of religious belief.

So while it’s unclear what this decision will mean for similar cases and others in the wedding industry, Jack Phillips was still victorious today. And further, we should be thankful for the court’s demand that the cases of others who work in the wedding industry must be considered and decided neutrally, fairly, and without hostility or animus.”

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Michael V. Hernandez, dean and professor of the Regent University School of Law:

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This was a typical Roberts court opinion, decided on the most narrow grounds possible to obtain a consensus. Although it is encouraging that seven justices voted to overturn Phillips’ fine, the opinion leaves the most pressing issues (broad protection of religious liberty and freedom of speech) unresolved. It upholds only the principle that the application of antidiscrimination laws must be neutral, generally applicable, and not grounded in animus to religious belief.

State actors are now on notice that they may not target traditional religious belief and expression explicitly in word or in deed. If state officials cloak their opposition to traditional religious belief in neutral terms and actions, the next battle will be over whether free speech protection extends to traditional Christian beliefs on these issues. Only Justices Thomas and Gorsuch explicitly indicated that they would extend that protection to conservative Christian wedding cake bakers.

It is shocking, but not surprising, that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor asserted in dissent that the overt animus of members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was irrelevant because a state statute protecting gay rights trumps the constitutional protection of religious liberty. The implications of their extreme view are truly staggering and frightening.

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Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at religious liberty firm Becket:

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Becket urged the court to decide the case on the basis of the free exercise clause, and that is what the court did. And because of that, this case has broad implications for other religious liberty conflicts, involving not just wedding vendors, but many other religious people too.

The decision breaks new doctrinal ground in a couple of places … For example, Justice Kennedy adopts the two-Justice part of Lukumi and turns it into newly binding precedent in this passage: “Factors relevant to the assessment of governmental neutrality include ‘the historical background of the decision under challenge, the specific series of events leading to the enactment or official policy in question, and the legislative or administrative history, including contemporaneous statements made by members of the decisionmaking body.”

What this means as a practical matter is that in a variety of situations it will matter much more what the legislators, adjudicators, and government officials say about the religious beliefs and practices in question, and much less what those same officials think about whether those religious beliefs and practices offend someone. The court used a fairly broad definition of what constitutes hostility toward religion, so referring to “hateful beliefs” could get an anti-discrimination law invalidated. And saying that someone was offended will be no justification for a law.

The main takeaway from today’s decision is that both the Constitution and the Supreme Court are saying that we should all try and get along in this fractious country of ours. We at Becket strongly believe it’s worth a try.

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https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2...dings.html

[The Grand Nudger]

Ultimately, the worst possible outcome for christians would be the courts deciding that a person could refuse service based on this sort of "conscience".....it would be a decision they would become desperate to overturn in just a few generations...but, you know, plenty of them think it;s the endtimes so I don;t know whether or not theyre looking to the future in any of this, lol. As I was joking about in another thread, 40 years from now there could be 126 "me", and in the same span, under normal rep rates...3 of "them". Gonna be hard to find a baker in Khemtown yall.......

More broadly and immediately..if we only have civil rights when the person behind the counters religion affords them...then we dont have civil rights.

[LadyForCamus]

More broadly and immediately..if we only have civil rights when the person behind the counters religion affords them...then we dont have civil rights.

This.

[The Grand Nudger]

The disconnect that religious bigots suffer, regarding the above..is that they don;t realize that the "we" includes them.  They think to themselves... "yes we do, we're trying to get the courts to -affirm- our civil right to deny -them- their civil rights"

...not realizing that everyone is a them to someone.

Inevitably, the first people to deny others civil rights will be christians..denying other christians. The arc of history bends back into a full circle.

[RoadRunner79]

Oh, so...in order to satisfy their "conscience".,...they -don't- need to be granted the right to discriminate against gays?  How are they going to accomplish it, then...and why do they keep filing suits?

I believe you are an electrician right?    If so, then you should understand the concept here.   When troubleshooting, and I reason to what I think the issue is, I try to isolate it, and test it to see if I'm correct.  You see what the issue follows.  As I had said previously (and also what I have heard from most others) is that when you isolate the person and the event, I don't agree, that you can discriminate based on the person's sexual preference.  I don't think that a restaurant owner and turn away a diner, because they are homosexual.  There is also the matter of consistency.  I don't think that the restaurant owner can turn someone away because of they are republican or democrat, or support Trump or Clinton.  The same reasoning follows.  I don't think that they can turn away Trump or Hillary.

Now as I said, in the matter of a cake I'm on the fence.  I certainly think that there are intricacies to be discussed, and to be hammered out as to what should be public policies.   And this does extend beyond just this particular group, and even to groups that you or I may not like what they stand for.   However, you cannot get into those details if you continue to misrepresent others positions.

When you just throw around accusations that are inaccurate and try to make a fake narrative, much like those who mis-use the term racist, your accusations lose power; even when they are true.  So you can keep crying wolf, but eventually you just get ignored.

[The Grand Nudger]

No, not an electrician...but I appreciated the colorful analogy, lol.  

You;ve been conned.  You and I both disagree with the christian right because they absolutely do insist that they be given the right to discriminate.  You and I disagree, however, in that I don;t think that the government should protect every little thing that flits through a persons mind.

Personally, I welcome the urge nonetheless, you'd like to see even broader civil rights protection..and while I may disagree with you there since I;m not too keen on state overreach.....I would appreciate the help in beating these bigoted christians nitwits back under the rocks they crawled out of. They want -less- civil rights protection..not more. In point of fact, they think that some people...should have none.

If that;s allowed to happen, you can kiss your hypothetical future civil rights protection for trumpsterism goodbye....because I;ll just refer to my "strongly held beliefs" and "conscience" and deny you service. In this way, the apparatus of equality is transformed into a tool for discrimination, and by carrying water for that...you make yourself complicit.

By all means, though, lie to me, and to yourself..again. What could possibly go wrong?

[RoadRunner79]

No, not an electrician...but I appreciated the colorful analogy, lol.  

You;ve been conned.  You and I both disagree with the christian right because they absolutely do insist that they be given the right to discriminate.  You and I disagree, however, in that I don;t think that the government should protect every little thing that flits through a persons mind.

Personally, I welcome the urge nonetheless, you'd like to see even broader civil rights protection..and while I may disagree with you there since I;m not too keen on state overreach.....I would appreciate the help in beating these bigoted christians nitwits back under the rocks they crawled out of.  They want -less- civil rights protection..not more.  In point of fact, they think that some people...should have none.

If that;s allowed to happen, you can kiss your hypothetical future civil rights protection for trumpsterism goodbye....because I;ll just refer to my "strongly held beliefs" and "conscience" and deny you service.

As I said, that's not what I hear from most commentators.  And I think that you have shown, that you cannot set aside your own prejudice in making that judgement.  Even when corrected you still try to pass off the same dishonest commentary.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why would I have to set aside my prejudice if the courts can be trolled into legalizing it? Frankly, I;d consider it my patriotic duty to the goddess of irony to use hate laws thinly veiled as "civil rights" to fuck with hateful people by denying them their civil rights.

Like I said before, it;s gonna be hard to find a baker in Khemtown....even though there are three bakeries for every five people. We like cookies.