If I go to a Kosher Deli and order a ham sandwich will I get to sue if they don’t deliver?...................
Never ever predict how the Supremes will go...recall John Roberts and the Obamacare fiasco.
Very interesting read.
Baking a cake for their wedding amounts to “participation”. The government should not be forcing people to “participate” in anyone’s wedding. No reason needed.
We went down the wrong path decades ago when the Supremes upheld legislation requiring private owners to serve people they did not wish to serve.
It destroyed freedom of association.
Freedom of association is as basic as freedom of speech.
Maybe we can restore that right.
Phillips has the right to stand for his principals for the Lords sake!
Justice Kagan is an idiot. A restaurant meal and a wedding cake may both be food but they are not familiar in regards to artistic expression. A wedding cake is chosen not only on the basis of taste but for its artistry. That artistry is expressed by the baker individually for each couple. The couple participates in the design and presentation of the cake. The same cannot be said of the majority of restaurant meals. Not only that the wedding cake provider is usually required to enter the reception venue implying that he is quite comfortable with supplying the cake even if outright enthusiastic approval is not part of it.
As for makeup artists that line of questioning should be answered clearly. No a Christian make up artist should not be compelled to supply her talents to a drag queen.
But religious liberty need not enter the argument or even the free speech issue. The most basic argument is that the government shall not force anyone to enter into a contract. The government has no business asking the why of that decision. It should just respect the freedom of the parties involved.
Dear Justice Kennedy,
And why should there not be an ability to boycott gay marriages? Actually who says that such an ability does not only exist but does have Constitutional protection?
"Rather, the court concludes that Colorado’s commission acted with hostility toward Phillips’ religious beliefs, as demonstrated by the commissioners’ anti-religion comments and refusal to sanction bakers who refused to sell cakes celebrating the traditional meaning of marriage."
The problem with this argument is that the bakers who were not sanctioned can't be said to have discriminated against gays or any other minority class. Therefore the different treatment is rational.
The court may still go this way, it's not always rational. But it would make no sense.
The real issue here is the free speech one, not the religious one. No person should be compelled to make speech they disagree with. A craftsman literally baking a message into a cake certainly applies. A makeup artist, although an "artist", is not making specific speech by their work. Even the baker offered to make a cake that didn't contain the message. This is actually much more straightforward than perhaps the justices saw. But maybe they did and just wanted to interrogate the lawyers.
Heaven help us if the ‘tards ever get a 5th SCOTUS judge.
If it’s a weak opinion in favor of the baker, blame Justice Kennedy as the others for the baker had to water it down to get Kennedy on board. Kennedy may retire next year so let’s hope Pres. Trump will put in a strong and reliable conservative.
Seems as if there’s a business opportunity here. This issue could be solved, if a couple of nancy boys would start baking.
“Cakes for Flakes”
“Cakes ‘N Buns”
The question is, "Do I have to accept any job offer as long as they pay me?"
Do I have to do the yard work for the Church of Satan or the DNC? (Not much difference)
Must I design a dress for Hillary?
Do I have to make a "Drunk Girls Welcome" sign?
How about shine Jesse Jackson's shoes?
Where is my right to say no?
Once we have shrunk the right to say no to any service to "they have to pay you" we have become not free people but commodities.
This is a violation of the most basic of human rights.
The right to say, "I am not for sale."
I think the conservative Justices are waiting for Kennedy and/or Ginsberg to be replaced (preferably both) before trying any sort of comprehensive ruling on this area. Accordingly, they will likely rule very narrowly on this case.
Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The word respecting means having anything to do with. And if the Congress is forbidden, then because of the 14th Amendment, no government is allowed to pass any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
That means that the State law that was supposedly violated is in violation of the 1st Amendment. No citizen of the Unites States of America can violate the 1st Amendment because the amendment restricts government, not the people.
Period.
The justice’s refusal to accept the “free expression” argument is rooted in how much they have invested in the abridgment of the unalienable right to property and free association that was necessitated by the doctrine that a business was a “public accommodation.”
This also illustrates the limits of government. The civil rights theory that a private business must serve all customers comes at a high cost to liberty. It enables the current theory of “protected classes” of people, and thus enables government to enforce “gender equality” laws. This is how we were moved from the “land of the free” to #BakeTheCake.
When government can force the artist’s hand to coerce him into artistic expression on a topic that is odious to him, we have a form of enslavement. This is a “taking” of the most egregious kind, where government has grossly exceeded its enumerated and limited powers, all of which were put in place to restrain government. Now government declares that the citizen is the one being restrained.
Time for an Article V Convention to restore the proper relationship between the government and the People.
I recently saw a complaint on twitter about how difficult it is for Same Sex Marriage “couples” to find vendors willing to accept their business. I can validate this through one of my clients, who is in that exact business. She told me that her clients sometimes cry when they find that she will in fact help them with their “marriage”. This tells me that the overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to same sex marriage despite what we are being told by the post-modern media.
The solution for this is to reaffirm the inalienable right to private property and freedom of association. A business owner must have the right to politely and peacefully decline to do business with anyone. If someone feels that they are discriminated against, let them take their case to the public. Let them start their own business. Let them go somewhere else in peace.
But it is clear that the LGBT community does not want peace. They demand approval from people who cannot give approval, let alone be an enabler. When gays cannot get approval, they will grind anyone who finds their personal morality to be odious into the ground. That is not how we build a peaceful society, where out of many, one. I am afraid that this will not end well for anyone.
Folks like these and their hatred for Christ and Christian values sit on thousands of city and school boards, destroying our way of life!