https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinion...6-111_j4el.pdf

I agree with the logic of the ruling, but I think Christians are going to go overboard and interpret this overly broadly.

Here is a paragraph from SCOTUSblog (possibly to be updated later):

http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/op...e/#more-270956

It would have been interesting to see how the argument would have proceeded if there were not examples of other forms of free speech being impinged upon in the opposite direction. The decision-making process seems to have been tainted towards a form of government-approved speech.

But that's not part of reality, so unless there's more to the argument (which there could be, as there's plenty of time for future analysis), it still seems to leave out any significant declaration of what is and what is not allowed. It simply seems to say that the religious perspective was not treated fairly relative to other perspectives.

One distinction that I think will ultimately end up mattering is whether the refusal for service is the content of the design and not the person ordering it. For example, if the cake designer had "generic" cakes that could be purchased, then a gay couple would have every right to purchase them. But as soon as they are asking for a custom work (in essence, commissioning an individual or organization for a specific work), then the baker could not legally be compelled to do it. And it may not even fall into a religious protection per se, as I don't think cake designers are required by law to write things on cakes that they deem inappropriate (curse words, sexually explicit statements, hate speech) -- though I'm not sure how much such exemptions are codified in law and/or tested in the court system.

But in my mind, the distinction between person-hood and content of the design seems to be the most logical place to draw the line.

The thing that I hope is not the case is that conservative Christians start trying to lean on this and end up misinterpreting the conclusion and trying to apply it in other ways that it doesn't apply. It's a very narrow ruling, and that should be kept in mind.

Ya it's mainly a punt on anything of substance. Politically I'm sure the right will run with it as a great victory, but if they actually read the ruling it is pretty decent at affirming equal access principles. This disaster area would be a pre-civil rights era situation where gays could be generally denied access to public goods and services by homophobic christians. And this ruling did nothing to move in that direction. Heck, even if this case ruled differently on substance - that while gay customers were absolutely entitled to equal purchase of generic cakes off the shelf, that expressive designs were considered free expression and thus could be denied - it would STILL be a very narrow ruling. So I'm content enough.

Laws are supposed to be about what you can't do, not what you have to do (with few exceptions that are debatable such as the draft). That's where the line has historically be drawn and should remain. Laws shouldn't compel actions or speech, period.

The interesting part of this whole thing is that the couple in question seems to have deliberately targeted the Christian bakery, since apparently Portland is filled with bakeries that bake homosexual wedding cakes. If that's the case, it's one of the most despicable things I've ever read about.

This doesn't seem to be true. The force of law can compel you to show up to court on a certain date or suffer consequences, for example. Laws can also tell you that you need to pay the government a certain amount of money.

It's not actually that interesting, at least not to me. These sorts of cases are brought up all the time through activist activities, both for better and worse. Individuals and institutions are both targeted for various reasons. Some people are looking for a fight to set legal precedent and so forth. Some are for causes you support, and others are against. I think it's more of a feature of the system more than it is a bug.

Here's a report about Abigail Fisher (who sued the University of Texas over affirmative action policies):

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/51375491/t.../#.WxXEl-4vyUk

No, this is very false. The majority, concurring and dissent all concur on basic principles that governments CAN compel equal access to public goods and services in pretty broad terms. For instance, there is no question that a gas station can't refuse gay customers just as they can't black customers. In a cleaner version of this messy case, it isn't even clear that this current conservative court would affirm the right to refuse purchase of a generic wedding cake. The issue is that when someone is doing a larger, customized, artistic expression full of interviews etc etc then it transitions from providing a commodity to a form of protected expression. Maybe so. But they absolutely are required to provide equal access to public commodities!

You should read the case. The reason it got thrown out, in part, was in comparison to how the CRCC compared other cases. In particular, there was a christian activist who went around requesting other bakeries make bible cakes with homophobic bible cakes on them, and sued them after they declined. So spread your wrath out a bit.

So would/should the results and the legal justifications of the justices have been the same if the circumstances had been identical except that the baker was objecting to a heterosexual couple who were white and black?

Only if the baker was forced to put Oreo cookies on the cake.

Notice I used the word exceptions. That vast majority of laws are about what you can't do. Also we could get into the constitutionality of being forced to pay taxes but that's for another discussion.

Please explain to us how someone could even refuse service to someone because they're homosexual, or how such a thing could be proven in court. Do they fill out a sexual orientation form before they fill up their tank?

Ehhh it seems rather they can't deny access to publicly offered goods based on discrimination. They are offering their wares for sale to the general public. No one is refusing to sell gay people cakes, they're simply refusing to make a specialized gay wedding cake. Nor should they be forced to. This is a free country, and that means freedom of religious expression as well as sexual expression. It will be interesting to see how this inherent conflict develops in our society. I hope and pray that the courts continue to hold up all citizens rights.

First they would have to have gay wedding cakes for sale, and then they would have to refuse to allow them to buy them... for being gay.....or something?

As a simple point of fact, "some exceptions" when you're saying that laws should only do one thing basically proves that laws don't only do one thing. And it's not as narrow as compulsory military service because... well... that's not even a thing anymore. Laws can compel citizens to do lots of things.

But mostly, it's a terrible understanding of laws. They don't work in reality the way you seem to think they do. You may have philosophical problems with that, but reality doesn't seem to care.

Good luck with that argument. It's borderline "sovereign citizen" stuff to go that route.

I didn't claim they only did one thing, nor did I claim that saying that they should do one thing proves they do one thing.

Nor did I claim that, I just gave one example.

But they don't. There are very few laws actually compelling you to do things. Most are restrictions on behaviors in both criminal and contract law. A court can force you to obey the terms of a contract, but that's just forcing you to do what you legally agreed to do.



Mostly you don't read posts and pick apart words one at a time and think it's an argument. I suppose when that doesn't make you think you've won anymore that you'll require definitions of the letters within them?

You're wrong. They do work that way for the better part.

Don't read the news then because far more despicable things happen every single day.

Many LGBT present cultural signals. My mothers-in-law pull up with their short hair on motorcycles with rainbow stickers and everyone correctly assumes they are lesbians. So of course it is quite possible for homophobes to discriminate. And the law is, in general, not in their favor, as states have the right to write laws about equal protection to public goods and services. An example in multiple countries has been hotel owners who have to provide hotel rooms to gay couples.

Sure. Which is equivalent to saying they are compelled by law to offer the good. Rephrasing it with a double negative doesn't accomplish anything.

This exact point was in contention in this actual case (you really should read it). But it seems you agree at least that homophobic baker should be legally mandate to sell wedding cakes to gay couples provided they are "off the shelf" and not "specialized"?

You are not comparing the appropriate freedoms. Yes, it is a tension between two laudable values. But it isn't freedom of sexual expression. States have the constitutionally validated right to pass laws that ensure a range of nondiscrimination rules. You can't fire a black person for being black. You can't refuse a black person gas at the gas station. The tension is that of a religious expression discriminating against LGBT people in a public space with public goods. Now you can think one way or the other about how that tension should resolve in various situations, but you at least need to identify the correct tension.



Why so incredulous about homophobia? That's exactly right. Huge numbers of people in this country are homophobes. Like 40% or whatever still believe the government should ban gay people from being married! Despicable! And like most discrimination, while most of it is "soft" discrimination like being less likely to hire black people or visibly presenting gay people, the "hard" discrimination of refusing a public good or service also happens. A crucial leap forward in the US was laws so that you couldn't refuse black people in your golf club etc. The same is true for LGBT. It is absolutely crucial that equal access to public goods and services be maintained. Thankfully this ruling didn't move against that position.

So basically, you've shifted from a philosophical position of what laws are "supposed to be" to now just saying what "laws actually are."

So it doesn't seem at all that laws are supposed to be what you can't do (with a few exceptions). You've presented no positive argument for this philosophical position. You seem to only be affirming the reality, that laws simply aren't what you claim they ought to be, and you seem quite willing to accept that there are plenty of laws that compel people to do things. And you don't actually seem to have raised meaningful objections to such laws.

Ya, because they can't discriminate over a publicly offered good.

No it is not equivalent. They are not compelled by law to do anything. They are not allowed to discriminate in who they sell the good to is not equivalent to saying they must provide the good to everyone. Because they musn't do anything. They can stop selling the goods tomorrow. It might be correct to say 'either they must sell indiscriminately or they can't sell at all.'

Why do you call the baker homophobic? It appears this baker was sticking to the values of her faith when she refused to make a cake for something she didn't believe in. I mean I don't think you'd call a Jew supremophobic for not wanting to bake a Nazi cake or a muslim porcinophobic for not baking a bacon flavored cake with a picture of a pig on it. Or perhaps you would call a Hindu bovinophobic for refusing to make a beef tourtiere? It's not easy to find out why a person would even approach these bakers for that service unless they were trying to do something ulterior. As to your other question I think a storeowner would be ******ed to not sell their wares to certain people for any reason. The whole point of being in business is to make money, and you can't make money by trimming down your customer base. At the same time, I'm sympathetic to business owners rights and believe discrimination laws have gotten way out of hand. But ya, there's no reason to not sell publicly offered goods to anyone.

Until science proves otherwise it is precisely about this. There is no known genetic link (certainly not a visible one such as race) that determines sexual 'orientation.' I don't buy your cultural example either. For example I could claim to be gay right now, go into a Christian baker shop and ask for a gay wedding cake to be made, and I would probably get shot down. It is NOT the same as being black. I could not claim to be black. People would think I was nuts if I did. Discriminating against someone for their uncontrolled genetic makeup is REAL discrimination. There is no genetic evidence of homosexuality. There might be one in the future, at which point said discrimination would cross the line into the same ballpark. Right now it's discrimination against desire and behavior. Unless of course you're willing to claim pedophiles or zoophiles who have an uncontrolled sexual attraction to children or animals are widely discriminated against in society as well?

It's hilarious you think that homosexuals are oppressed in precisely the same way as black people when it's clearly two entirely different forms of 'oppression.'

I'm pointing out the inherent contradiction in your thinking. Christian bakeshops providing public goods would have to provide gay wedding cakes and then discriminate against gay people from buying them in order to be guilty of breaking the law of discrimination. They don't do this though. They don't believe gay marriage is a thing due to their religious beliefs and so they don't bake gay wedding cakes in the first place. No publicly offered good=no discrimination. I dunno why that bothers you. Certainly you would be opposed to muslims being forced to bake Sikh wedding cakes or bacon flavored wedding cakes (or gay wedding cakes). It's probably just you're looking for a fight against Christianity in some way and this is your way to rally behind the cause.

Tell me, what percentage chance do you give to the goal of eliminating all forms of discrimination from people everywhere? Are there any negatives in your mind to the attempt to enforce zero tolerance for discrimination? In the meantime, what do you think of the suggestion that people should have a limited space to express their disgust and hatred towards things and not push any ideas into corners where they can pressure cook into violence?

They are not the same, and there are a lot of civil rights activists who take offense when you compare the two equivalently.

The baker spilled the beans about his prejudgments which led to his behavior. The court is is wrong to try to protect religion from confrontation and scrutiny under the guise of neutrality when prejudice is present and discrimination is the charge. If open court can't handle apt nazi metaphors, pertaining to behaviors associated with religion, they can at least try to avoid being passive aggressive about it.

What a disgusting mess. I'm going to drop many of the threads to focus on the more homophobic parts in your post.

This is an extremely homophobic view. Deciding that "REAL" discrimination are things that are genetic is ridiculous. Discrimination against people of different religions, or different cultures isn't "REAL" because religion and culture isn't genetic? Discrimination against disabled people (from nongenetic ailments) isn't "REAL" discrimination? Of course not. To suggest that discrimination against LGBT people is not "REAL" discrimination because being LGBT is putatively not genetic is a disgusting, homophobic claim.

This has nothing to do with the point it quotes. Read it again. But there is a bigger problem. Homophobes tend to bring up - seemingly randomly - some nature vs nuture discussion. Who cares? The resolution to that question is entirely irrelevant. The way homophobes have historically used this is to discredit gay people because it isn't "genetic", and that the kinds of protections we afford black people should not be for gay people. While genetic factors likely DO play a role - contrary to your claims - it is entirely irrelevant.

Disgusting. Reducing being gay to desire and behaviour is minimizing, and homophobic. Doubly so in the context of trying to downplay discrimination against them because it isn't - in your disgusting words - "REAL discrimination.

Another disgusting argument. There is a long, sick, and homophobic history of gay people being compared to pedophiles. You may not be aware that you are contributing to that history, but you are. But you go further than most homophobes who just vaguely compare the two. You are painting some sort of equivalence between discriminating against gay people and discriminating against pedophiles.

This is a bizarre (and pretty offensive) comment. Trivializing homophobia to comparison of comical comical "porinophobic" was silly enough, but you really had to add Jew/Nazi comparisons in as well?

Why is this relevant? Why is discrimination against LGBT related to whether you can pretend to be gay, but not pretend to be black? Everything you say seems to minimize discrimination against gay people for entirely irrelevant reasons. See the pattern?

They wanted a wedding cake? Gay people interact with people in society all the time. They don't know ahead of time who the homophobes are.

I'd cut this bit for irrelevancy, but please don't use the word ******ed. It is offensive.

Why do you believe this? For instance, lgbt youth with high levels of family rejection have 8 times the suicide rate as average. Discrimination is killing kids these days. Ok, so what's with the nefarious anti-discrimination laws? We have a few fringe examples of homophobic bakers being allowed - by the supreme court - to discriminate. What other examples do you have that make it way out of hand? Remember you supposedly SUPPORT anti-discrimination laws that require that homophobic bakers sell generic cakes to gay couples, just not "specialized cakes".

You probably wouldn't. Most Christian bakers are not so homophobic that they wouldn't sell a wedding cake to a gay couple.

By this logic, nothing is discrimination. My hotel doesn't rent rooms. It rents rooms for straight, white, married people. I'm not discriminating because I never made a publicly offered good. No. The unit of analysis is wedding cakes, in particular wedding cakes sold to gay people, not "gay wedding cakes" as if that is some entirely separate public good. Again, I suggest you read the opinion. Not a single justice suggested the issue was just trivially dismissed in this way.

And then we turn to the making up things phase:

No. Stop making things up. My feelings on a muslim wedding shop refusing to bake cakes for Sikhs are pretty similar.

No. Stop making things up.

I've never suggested such a goal. Stop just making things up.

I've never suggested this. Stop making things up.

I've never suggested discrimination against blacks and discrimination against LGBT was "precisely the same" or "equivalent". Stop making things up. A lot of the same principles do apply, however. For instance, it would be wrong for a hotel owner to deny either a black person or a gay person.

As you can see, I am quite happy directly combating homophobic ideas in a public sphere. If you feel some compulsion towards violence because I have called your obsession about "genetic" homophobic, well that is your problem.

This is my last response to you. I suggest you take some time to consider the cultural moment we are in, and the long, hateful, damaging history of comments such as those you have made here.

"This is a freedom of association issue."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41gz-lW7aHI

The government cannot say one way or another about the prejudicial attitudes of individuals. It can address behaviors, but only what falls under the law.

And the behavior that was exhibited that the ruling actually addresses were the prejudicial decisions *against* the religious perspective of the baker. The choice to treat one person inequitably on the basis of their religious beliefs (actually, a broad range of beliefs) is what is being called into question. It's akin to having lost due process. The actual "ruling" for what the individual did was not addressed because the process was broken. The Supreme Court (at this time) is not the right place for that decision because it needs to work its way up to that level following proper protocol, not broken processes.

Did you even read anything about the ruling? This isn't about "protecting religion from confrontation and scrutiny." The ruling is about the behaviors of government officials that were charged with treating citizens fairly and equitably.

It's clear that the government needs to behave differently from individuals. Individuals can express all sorts of things including prejudicial comments and opinions, and the government must still act non-prejudicially and equitably. And it didn't.

In a world of free speech, you are also free to make terrible analyses that demonstrate that you don't actually know what you're talking about.

If the behaviors of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission were equivalent, yes.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0129b529d3a12

I suspect that this statement is false. If a straight person were to be buying the exact same cake (specific to the details of the cake), I expect that the baker would not have sold it. I think it's quite a leap of logic to think that the baker would make a gay wedding cake and sell it to a straight person, but wouldn't sell it to a gay person.

I don't think so. I think at least two or three of the justices would have voted differently. And I think the reason for that would be because they consciously or subconsciously believe that being opposed to mixed racial marriages is more evil than being opposed to gay marriages.

I somewhat doubt your rationale, but I agree the vote can end up very differently. There is a huge amount of established precedent in the legal canon about denying blacks equal access of public goods and services. That changes the optics considerably. This current case they chose to punt on the substance of what would be a novel contribution to the canon because of the particulars of a weak case. If it was about denying blacks entry into a bar or whatever, it doesn't have any of that context. And supreme court justices have a tonne of latitude in terms of when they are or are not going to make a major substantive ruling. It is far from the case that they only wait until ideal test cases come up, they have ruled substantively in "bad" cases before as I understand it.

Not at all. What exactly is a "gay wedding cake"? I've been to three gay weddings. I'm sure for two but a little fuzzy on the third that there was nothing "gay" about them. They were wedding cakes. That gay people bought. What are you envisioning, rainbow layer cake icing double mars symbols and two out of style same sex figurines on the top?

I'm presuming the overwhelming majority of "gay wedding cakes" have a couple tiers of ****ty fondant with edible flowers....just like the overwhelming majority of cakes you'll find on pinterest or whatever. Now in this exact case, the plaintiff and defendant didn't agree on the characterization of exactly how unique this specific cake would be, but broadly I think you're better off not using "gay wedding cake" as if the actual cake is different from a "wedding cake". The difference, for the most part, is in who is buying it.

'You didn't read the ruling and have no idea what you are taking about' is a piss poor argument. Total whiff on your part.