Posted on 06/29/2015 8:15:13 PM PDT by GregoTX
(CNSNews.com) – Former Solicitor General Ted Olson told “Fox News Sunday” that it is “not illegal” for a bakery for instance to refuse to participate in a gay wedding under last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
“It's not illegal under this ruling,” Olson said in response to Fox News host Chris Wallace’s question about how the ruling will affect religious freedom.
“There's the question – and it became hot this spring – of religious freedom. Can the proverbial baker or photographer who is selling his services openly, can he refuse to participate in a same-sex marriage because he or she believes that it violates their religious freedom or is that now illegal under this rule?” Wallace asked.
“There may be laws, statutes that cover it, but a bakery, if you walk into a bakery on the street and want to buy a pie or a doughnut or something like that, the bakery under federal law can't discriminate against you on the basis of your race or your religion. So, if there are laws that cover that kind of discrimination that might be illegal,” said Olson.
“It's different than someone being asked to participate in a wedding, to perform a wedding, to sing in a wedding, to participate and be a wedding planner, something like that. People have the right to refuse personal services with respect to things like that on a religious basis,” he said.
“I think some of that dispute is overblown and the courts have been dealing with that kind of an issue for many, many years with respect to religious rights and racial discrimination and discrimination on the basis of gender for a long time,” Olson added.
Olson successfully represented George W. Bush in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore that ended the recount of the 2000 presidential election and eventually served as Bush’s solicitor general. He is also a same-sex marriage advocate.
Olson compared Friday’s Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges to the Loving. V. Virginia, the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in 1967.
“Fourteen times the Supreme Court of the United States held that marriage is a fundamental right, including the right to interracial marriage in 1967,” said Olson. “They didn't call it the right to interracial marriage. They called it the right to marriage. They described it as a right to liberty, privacy, association, of being a part of this country, being a part of the relationship that matters most to most people in this country and to be a part of our community.
“So, it's a right to marriage. This is not something that the Supreme Court made up. It's the right to decide who you would get to be married, which the Supreme Court repeatedly said is a fundamental right. So, there's nothing new about this decision. It takes it one step further, because it haven't been recognized before, but it's the right of two individuals to marry to the person that they're most devoted to,” he said.
“The second criticism is that the political process was working, that states were changing laws, public opinion was shifting, and that the court in effect short-circuited that process. Here is a quote from the dissent of Justice Scalia. He called the ruling a threat to American democracy. Is Scalia wrong?” Wallace asked.
“Yes, with respect to Justice Scalia, who I do have great respect for, he is wrong. When we talk about civil rights, we don't wait for a plebiscite, we don't wait to put civil rights to a vote. The Supreme Court didn't put separate but equal schools to a vote. The Supreme Court didn't put the right to marry someone of a different race to a vote. We don't wait,” said Olson.
“And Justice Kennedy in the majority opinion talks about that. What is happening to the children while the Supreme Court would wait if it was to wait another few years? At the same time the Supreme Court decided the interracial marriage case there were still 16 states that made it a crime to marry someone of a different race. The Supreme Court did not wait then, and it was right not to wait now,” he added.
We will see, not much faith in the courts.
Yes, it is.
As the jackass Roberts pointed out, the way the ever most holy and gracious justice Kennedy worded it when he continued to grant us a small semblance of religious freedom...
we still have the right to “advocate” and to “teach” our religion.
The most high justice deliberately did not use the word “exercise,” which is the term used in the USC.
So, even in patronizingly granting us the privilege of continuing our religious practices, these progressive em effers have set up a future law suit to strip away the 1st Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.
Why just 2? Why not 7?
Oh, I hadn’t heard that all the businesses that were previously sued and lost will now have those verdicts overturned. No?
Good old Teddy back tracking a bit? He was huge in the same sex marriage movement, what a good Republican. Maybe he is already seeing what letting the genie out of the bottle is going to amount to. Spitting on a Priest is just the begining.
This man is going to hell, too bad he will not see his murdered wife in the next world.
Don’t do it, and when the butplugs complain, just tell them that Ted Olson said its OK.
What a joke! You don't have to be "devoted" to someone in order to marry them - you could be roommates, or best friends, or an entire frat house (pretty soon once polygamy relies on the same so-called "logic" of this decision). What's the basis for denying brothers from marrying now (believe it or not, this is actually a "thing")? That it's "icky"? I mean, hey, they "love" each other, and all that. Grrr!
Olson doesn’t make sense to me as he seems to be discussing apples, and mangoes.
What in the ‘H’ does interracial marriage have to do with same sex marriage? NOTHING. It’s the same ol’ crap about homo’s as a racial issue we so often hear from the Left.
Because his current wife...is a GAYS RIGHTS ADVISER???? or some such thing...
believe he is on wife #4
Shut-up you sell-out Ted Olson.
You traitored out to the other side some time ago.
Not interested in what a Benedict Arnold has to say.
It’s never a nice day for a gay wedding.
The state, not individuals. It also says::
1) The fundamental liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices defining personal identity and beliefs.
And, in their words, finally:
Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine pre- cepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.
Is there any other way to see it?
This permits us to redefine the latest leftist Cause of the Month as a "right," and use the Supreme Court to force it down the throats of all Americans.
Really Ted, you freak?
Wait for the next case, and ask Ginsberg, Kagan, Sotomayor, Kennedy and Breyer
I have no doubt they will be happy to declare it all illegal.
Everytime I see him on TV I ask myself what would Barbara (Olson) think?
Interesting...
States such as Oregon have STATE LAWS that will destroy and sue companies that don’t bend over for the gaystapo. YET!!! Now, gay marriage is a federal SCOTUS dictat.
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