- WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who had refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple. The court’s decision was narrow, and it left open the larger question of whether a business can discriminate against gay men and lesbians based on rights protected by the First Amendment.
You, a decent atheist, find the union unconscionable and do not want to be associated with it in any way. You would not sell this guy a bagel, you do not even want him in your store. Are you still on the fence over whether SCOTUS should justify coercing you with threats of fines, arrest, or imprisonment if you choose to decline this man’s business?You’re the baker. A customer, age 60+, comes in and tells you he wants a wedding cake. His bride is age 14, legal age to marry in your jurisdiction.
I've read and re-read this post. It's causing me a certain amount of cognitive dissonance.
This is... interesting. On the one hand, the role/religion inversion is useful in freeing up the observer from tribal-line identities (liberals automatically siding with the gay couple, conservatives with the baker). On the other, a union between two consenting adults is in utterly unlike socially-sanctioned pedophilia. I'm not sure how I feel. But there is a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion, whether I like it or not.
Religion does not confer immunity; human sacrifice is still frowned upon. In my view, questions of religious expression or freedom of speech are distractions. The only amendment relevant to the discussion is the 13th. Party A wishes to have Party B perform an act that Party B is not willing to perform. That is the definition of coercion. There are reasons for which coercion is justified; to settle this case we have to decide if to get a wedding cake is one of those reasons. (Or, more grandly: to induce people to perform gestures consistent with mainstream values when they do not hold them, or else fabricate socially acceptable excuses, where concerns of reputation and future profits are not sufficient inducement.)
It doesn't say he refuses to serve gay customers, just that he refuses to make wedding cakes for them. I think that's a necessary nuance, would you call it discrimination if a Muslim owned restaurant refused to prepare pork but would still serve you otherwise?
The decision to abstain from pork preparation is not customer-discriminatory in the way a baker refusing to decorate a cake for a same-sex couple is.
That's a good point, I don't see what bringing the government into it is supposed to accomplish though. Outside of turning "I won't make the wedding cake because you're a same sex couple" into "I won't make the wedding cake because I'm fully booked". In the first scenario the business can be boycotted and can be put out of business for not treating their customers fairly, in the second no one still gets any cake.
The opinion of the Court, and the many concurring opinions, are inscrutable. The Court doesn't seem to resolve anything, but goes out of its way to rule in favor of the discriminating baker, all the while qualifying its decision by saying "we think gay people deserve to be treated well" and "no new rights to discriminate on the basis of religion are created with today's decision". What the fuck? Why was this case selected? Why are the justices falling over themselves to acknowledge religious freedoms to discriminate via scripture? Why is Gorsuch name dropping law review articles? I am sleepy.
Because religion and politics ride in the same cart in the US. The Mormon Church just came out against Marijuana legalization and they are spending BIG in support of that effort. Not coincidentally, the Mormons own big shares of many pharmaceutical companies.
there is a good discussion in the r/slatestarcodex culture war thread this week, including a couple of comments that directly address your first sentence. it was an interesting case for law enthusiasts i can't figure out how to link the subthread because reddit apparently destroyed its UI recently
FTFY Call me naive but I think one way or another this kind of discrimination will be outlawed. I'm not one of those dick head atheists who can quote (many) fucked up biblical verses that can be used to justify abhorrent things. I think anti miscegination laws were based on the Bible. I'm not super enthused about this ruling either. Seems like an attempt to tread lightly and effectively provide no answer in order not to offend either side too much. I think the justices were trying to serve two masters, but I think it will end up being mostly irrelevant due to its narrow scope. I could totally be wrong though. The supreme court can be like a black box of legal interpretation. https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/imperfect-plaintiff If you're into podcasts I think that's the one that deals with the case that struck down sodomy laws. The plaintiffs were pretty sketchy but the laws were so obviously unconstitutional that it didn't matter. I feel like this case was not so clear cut that the judges felt comfortable setting broad precedent with it and are either deferring to later legislation or waiting for a tighter case. Or are just assholes like Clarence Thomas and probably a couple others.Why is Gorsuch a justice at all?
I agree that the Court seems more aware of reputational damage than in previous Chief-Justiceships. Roberts feels like he's presiding over a Court that is pissing off the people more and more... and yet, they went out of their way here to select a case destined to piss lots of people off, and then rule in such a way so as to not actually give any one side a victory. It's the worst of both worlds. Torpedo it's reputation (during Pride month no less) but not actually give religious practitioners any substantive victory. Know what opinion the Court issues when it realizes that, after granting cert., it doesn't want to issue an opinion? It is so ordered.The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.