Posted on 06/07/2018 12:12:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to soon decide the next step in another high-profile religious liberty case, days after affirming that Colorado discriminated against a Christian small business owner.
On Monday, the court ruled 7-2 that Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips was denied a fair hearing by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which the court found to have displayed anti-religious animus. Many are hailing the decision for its vindication of religious liberty in Phillips’ case, and others fear it may allow other regulators to coerce participation in same-sex “marriages,” as long as they don’t make hostile public statements while doing so.
One of the first tests of what the ruling means for future cases will most likely be Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington.
Washington Attorney General General Bob Ferguson sued florist Barronelle Stutzman for refusing to provide flowers for a customer’s same-sex ceremony. Stutzman had previously served the customer’s every other request for years, and has employed homosexual workers, but her Christian faith compelled her to draw a distinction between serving all individuals and lending her artistic endorsement to celebrations of homosexual union.
The Washington Supreme Court ruled last year that the government may force Christians to serve same-sex “weddings,” and in July 2017, the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.
“The Court is scheduled to discuss her case this Thursday,” Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of ADF’s U.S. legal division, revealed Tuesday in an email. ADF believes the case’s similar facts will yield a similar outcome.
“In the legal briefs that the attorney general has filed in Barronelle’s case, (Ferguson) has repeatedly and overtly demeaned her faith. He has compared her religious beliefs about marriage — which the Supreme Court said are ‘decent and honorable’ — to racial discrimination,” Waggoner noted. “This conflicts with the Supreme Court’s recognition in Masterpiece Cakeshop that it was ‘inappropriate’ for the government to draw parallels between those religious beliefs and ‘defenses of slavery.’”
Ferguson, meanwhile, claimed that the Masterpiece ruling would do little more than “add some procedural steps” to the case, and that he was confident the Supreme Court would side with him.
“It’s important to understand that the high court’s ruling specifically relies on several items that are not present in our case,” he added. “We are confident Washington courts showed no such hostility” toward Stutzman’s faith, though he did not address the quotes ADF produced.
There are further differences between the two cases, including that Washington recognized same-sex “marriage” when Stutzman’s case began while Colorado did not at the start of Phillips’, though it’s unclear what bearing, if any, those details would have on the outcome.
Additionally, ADF senior counsel Jim Campbell noted that Ferguson took the “unprecedented” step of bypassing the normal administrative process in such cases to sue her, and that the attorney general displayed his bias by pursuing her while declining to take action against a gay businessman who kicked several Christian pro-lifers out of his coffee shop on the grounds that "I'm gay, you have to leave."
“We believe that the record in the case that was decided yesterday, just like the record in the case of Barronelle Stutzman, shows evidence of that sort of anti-religious hostility,” Campbell said. “And we believe for that reason that the decision the court issued yesterday should help Barronelle ultimately prevail in her case.”
The Supreme Court could decide to agree to review the case, decline the case (allowing Washington’s ruling against Stutzman to stand), or it could “grant, vacate, and reverse,” which would order the Washington Supreme Court to re-hear the case while factoring the Masterpiece ruling into its decision.
Americans lost freedom of association when anti-discrimination laws that applied to private businesses were put into effect. Only government must be free of discrimination. Private entities should be allowed to discriminate on any grounds, including race, age, disability, or anything else. Anti-discrimination laws enable government control.
Not until Kennedy retires, or Ginsburg dies, please.
This will fall under the “We don’t sell to no Amish people” type of case. /sarc
I'm using conscientious objector as the basic principle which goes back to our country's beginnings.
I'm a pervert and it's my way or nothing just doesn't make sense.
We better pray that Kennedy is gone before the Court does this.
They need four justices to take the case on.
The Civil Rights Act was rejected by many conservatives at the time. Not to promote racism, but to keep the “right of association”. Racism could have been beaten without losing the right of association, and it is hard to see how anyone can be free if they MUST compromise their beliefs and serve X under penalty of law.
Bingo, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), was wrongly decided and should be overturned.
Anyone, at any point, and at any time, for any reason should be free to associate or NOT associate with anyone else. I think this should apply across the board.
Yes, that means if your local KKK member wants to start “Aryan Coffee Shop” and put up a “No Coloreds” sign, so be it. It also means that if your local Black Panther wants to put up a “No Crackers” sign, that they should be allowed to do so.
I don’t care if your local Atheist wants to exclude Christians either. Government has no business, of any kind, forcing people to do business with others. If someone wants to make the business decision to exclude a certain piece of the market, that’s fine.
People like to invoke “Jim Crow laws” but such comparisons are misplaced. “Jim Crow” was GOVERNMENT enforced segregation. That’s just as wrong as government enforced integration.
Whenever the government dictates to others who they must or must not associate with, we have a problem.
That will help the Christian florists bigtime.
Justice Kennedy wrote the Colorado state commission disallowed claims against 3 other
bakers who refused to create products with pro-Christian messages.....using that to defend the Christian baker.
Ford must sell Chevy’s.
Chevrolet dealers must sell vacuum cleaners.
Oreck vacuum cleaner shops must install shingles on the houses of homeowners.
Roofers must bake cakes.
I would agree with that so long as the signs were required and prominently displayed.
Ah, a golden (and timely) opportunity for Kennedy to discern a profound constitutional distinction between decorating a cake and arranging flowers.
Sue some Leftist entertainers into performing at NRA conventions...where they must perform or be driven out of business..its wrong, but it illustrates the point.
Forced labor is slavery.
Gun owners are not a protected class in any state. Homosexuals are a protected class in most states.
Based on Masterpiece ruling, she will lose.
“signs were required and prominently displayed.”
The right to refuse service to anyone
That should do it. No need for further details.
Or else you would be folding-up into Identity Politics.
I do not understand any of this. If I attempted to patronize an establishment and they did not want my business, I would go elsewhere. I would never feel the need to force them to take my business. It’s ridiculous.
Having read through the oral arguments, and the decision(s) on the case, I believe that is exactly the intent of the ruling. It is a warning to the statist anti-Christian bigots to not be stupid enough to go on the record with their bigotry, and they'll be able to do whatever they want. It was obvious from reading through the oral arguments that Kennedy was looking for this as a lifeline to basically undermine the effectiveness of any decision.
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