Posted on 12/09/2017 6:36:00 AM PST by Kaslin
A few days' passing and thorough reading of the oral argument transcript for Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission leave me less optimistic than commentators such as Amy Howe at Scotusblog and David French at National Review. While it was heartening that Justice Kennedy called out one of the Colorado civil rights commissioners for a statement apparently expressing animus toward religion, with the chief justice going so far as to suggest that this necessarily tainted the court's earlier ruling against Jack Phillips, and Justice Alito cynically pointing out that none of the other commissioners disavowed the commissioner's unseemly statement then or has since, still, the line-drawing the conservative justices seemed to be searching for remained fuzzy.
Would a ruling in favor of Phillips gut civil rights protections, as opponents relentlessly and hyperbolically argue? It wouldn't. The conservative justices seemed to know that it wouldn't. Yet no one could really say how the ruling could be fashioned to prevent it.
If the court is going to hang Phillips's protection on free speech, that potentially sweeps with a broad brush. It lays Phillips's position open to the repeat attack that bigots can use religion as a pretext to discriminate against protected groups. It also opens the door to run-of-the-mill craftspeople who wish to avoid compliance with anti-discrimination laws by hiding behind claims of communicative conduct. But as the Justice Department's General Francisco pointed out, the solution is not to shun new adaptations in the law; it is to figure out how to make "the cut" that all First Amendment cases must initially make.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
If it comes down to Kennedy we’re gonna get hosed again.
They could call it the "You should put some icing on that" Fund.
Some of the questions they asked aren’t the same, a cake maker has to write things on the cake a photographer doesn’t have to.
The government telling a business they must do something is telling someone they must be in business. The government has no right to tell someone they must be in business.
What would prevent the person from just going out of business and then resume business a day later?
The fear in this issue is that if a business can select what they will do then they can also select their customer and that invalidates the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The liberals fear private property rights, both of the people and of businesses.
The fact is ONLY the government must be agnostic. It must serve all people equally.
People can choose. We have the God given right of free association which includes not associating. Businesses are run by people, so they, too, can choose.
Liberals don’t want that. Forced desegregation was their idea. Affirmative action is their idea. They just don’t like it when it is used on them.
Imagine those liberal restaurants claiming they will not serve Trump supporters being told they can be sued. Liberals hate that.
I see what you did there.
We just have to wait and see. He didn’t always vote with the left.
I don't think that ruling for the baker will invalidate the 1964 Civil Rights Act since that was directed at government. But it would likely make all the state anti-discrimination laws unconstitutional. So that's the choice the court has to make. Do you trample the baker's First Amendment rights pertaining to religion? Or do you do away with the anti-discrimination laws? I think it's going to be a 5-4 decision one way or the other. And I can't guess which way it'll go.
Protected groups, the wedge that will forever divide America. We are supposed to have equal rights under the Constitution. The problem is that some groups are more equal than others.
I highly doubt it would invalidate the anti-discrimination laws.
There’s a difference between a business refusing service to a class of person and a business refusing to make an item it finds offensive.
“I don’t think that ruling for the baker will invalidate the 1964 Civil Rights Act since that was directed at government. “
You should read things before commenting on them.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly has sections such as: “TITLE II—INJUNCTIVE RELIEF AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN PLACES OF PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION”.
If the court finds for the Christians, muzzies will use the decision to allow themselves to refuse dogs and alcohol in taxicabs. They will claim they have the right to screech loud subhuman sounds at 5 AM to call fellow savages to bowing down and kissing the carpet. They will claim it gives them the right to kill their daughters for talking to males. In short, they will ask for, and get, the whole Meghilla.
It sounds un-Constitutional. The First Amendment addresses "Freedom of Association". Where does the federal government get off telling businesses what they have to do?
Supreme Court:
>> in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston (1995), the Court ruled that a group may exclude people from membership if their presence would affect the group's ability to advocate a particular point of view.] Likewise, in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), the Court ruled that a New Jersey law, which forced the Boy Scouts of America to admit an openly gay member, to be an unconstitutional abridgment of the Boy Scouts' right to free association.<<
I figure the court will wiggle out of the religious aspect and go with the “artistic” side...Flowers,cakes etc means creating something and no one should be forced to create ....
Exactly...The court will find for the “ artistic” baker not the religious baker
If a favorable ruling nullifies the 1964 Civil Rights Act along with state anti-discrimination laws then so be it. Let the states and the government go back to the drawing board and try re-writing legislation that doesn’t trample on our 1st amendment rights.
That being said I think there’s a difference between denying someone services simply because of race for example, and forcing someone to perform an action that goes contrary to their religious beliefs, and forcing them to be penalized because of that inaction.
Of course with Roberts on the court that may make us a bit nervous, he may simply call the penalty the baker pays a tax.
Don’t count on Roberts. He’s hosed us more than once.
Then, they will have to face free-market forces. Nobody needs to use a rag-head cab. Neighborhoods need to establish their own noise ordinances or bans.
Islam needs to be declared a subversive form of government and political movement, bent on violent revolution, and not a recognized religion...its practice should be banned outright, practitioners arrested.
Yeah....he didn’t help us on the homo marriage ruling did he?
forcing a baker to bake a cake that he doesn’t want to bake is slavery
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