The Supreme Court rules for a designer who doesn’t want to make wedding websites for gay couples

And so there we are....

 

Do you still not get that?

 

From what quotes I've now seen from the decision, it seems what is of most importance, in this ruling (which I hadn't previously understood to be the case), is the person's position, what kind of work they are doing. The decision seems to focus on "free-lancers," or business owners, whose work deals specifically with expression. Yet if it is taken to apply to all business owners (which it is not meant to), then it seems this decision would suggest they can decide who they didn't want to sell to, which would be clearly prejudicial, so very problematic.


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Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority, in a decision joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. He explained that Colorado cannot “force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.” And he indicated that the court’s decision would provide similar protection to other business owners whose services involve speech, such as artists, speechwriters, and movie directors.

The court’s decision came just over five years after its ruling in the case of another Colorado resident, Jack Phillips, a baker who refused to make a custom cake for a same-sex couple because he believed that doing so would violate his religious beliefs. By a vote of 7-2, the court gave Phillips a narrow victory, holding that the Colorado administrative agency that had ruled against him had treated him unfairly by being too hostile to his sincere religious beliefs. But the justices did not determine whether or to what extent a service provider’s sincere religious beliefs might have to yield to the state’s interest in protecting the rights of same-sex couples, nor did they decide whether compelling Phillips to bake a cake for a same-sex couple would violate his right to freedom of speech.

In the five years since the court’s decision in Phillips’ case, the composition of the court has changed significantly. Kennedy, who wrote for the majority in 2018... was succeeded by the more conservative Brett Kavanaugh... Ruth Bader Ginsburg, died at the age of 87, allowing then-President Donald Trump to appoint another conservative jurist, Amy Coney Barrett, to replace her.

It was therefore a more conservative court that this term considered the case of Lorie Smith, a devout Christian who owns a website- and graphic-design business in Littleton, Colorado. Smith wanted to expand her business to include wedding websites – but only for heterosexual couples, and she wanted to post a message on her own website to make that clear. But such a statement would run afoul of Colorado’s public-accommodations law, which bars businesses that are open to the public from discriminating against (among others) LGBTQ people or announcing their intent to do so. Roughly half of U.S. states have similar laws.

And Gorsuch warned that Colorado’s position could lead to “dangerous” consequences. As Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich noted in his dissent from the 10th Circuit’s decision, Gorsuch wrote, “governments could force ‘an unwilling Muslim movie director to make a film with a Zionist message,’ they could compel ‘an atheist muralist to accept a commission celebrating Evangelical zeal,’ and they could require a gay website designer to create websites for a group advocating against same-sex marriage, so long as these speakers would accept commissions from the public with different messages.”
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The first, glaring flaw in the decision, is that it does just as you do: confuse the message, with the customer. IOW, certainly a web designer can decide what kind of messages they are willing, or not willing, to include in their designs. But if they do choose to design, as in this case, wedding websites, then there is no essential difference in "speech," between the designs, only in who is using the site, for their wedding.

Secondly, I now see that this case was not even about the website designer turning down a gay couple, for exactly the same type of site, she would design, for a heterosexual couple. Smith brought her case, because she wants to advertise, that she only does the work for heterosexuals, not for gays.


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Sotomayor’s 38-page dissent argued that the Constitution “contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.” Colorado’s public accommodations law, she contended, only bars business owners from discriminating against members of the public based on (among other things) their sexual orientation. It does not regulate or compel speech at all. If a business owner like Smith “offers [her] goods or services to the public,” Sotomayor suggested, she “remains free under state law to decide what messages to include or not to include.” But what Smith can’t do, Sotomayor stressed, is “offer wedding websites to the public yet refuse those same websites to gay and lesbian couples.”

Sotomayor lamented that Friday’s decision “declares that a particular kind of business, though open to the public, has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.” More broadly, she continued, “the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status.”
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I don't see where it makes any difference. She wanted to start a business but didn't want to be sued by woke leftists. You know darned well that some gay people would eventually sue her. It's a no brainer.

 

She just wanted to preemptively have the courts rule to protect her from the gays. That way she didn't have to risk interaction with the gays. I guess it is the best move for a homophobe. By the time one of the gays walked into her store, it could be too late since she would have already been exposed to them. Exposure is the first step of grooming, so it was a smart move to hide behind the constitution before any of the gays even noticed her.

 

You can underline and bold **** and change fonts and colors. It doesn't make Sotomayor 1) correct or 2) the majority holding.

You cannot compel political speech. Full stop. This accommodations law directly requires that, ergo it is unconstitutional.

That doesn't allow one to, for example, not serve a gay person any service at all. Simply that your political speech may not be compelled, so if you don't want to do the X message because you really believe Y which is the opposite of X, you cannot be compelled to do the X message.
She doesn't have a 1A objection to straight marriages, only gay marriages. What Gorsuch warns as consequences of Sotomayor's position are true. If you find this way, than I can find a gay web designer who is a black person who traces their ancestry to known slaves, and compel them to engage in political speech extoling the virtues of 1) race based chattel slavery 2) eugenics programs 3) anti miscegenation laws 4) segregation 5) and call for a return to all of those things; along with 6) sodomy must be made illegal again 7) and conversion therapy should be mandatory for anyone who has ever claimed to be gay or an ally.
Then I can put their ****ing face on the website and say "thanks to our designer".

Now tell me: Is that what you think the 1st amendment allows?

 

It was a good move. I am against discriminating against protective classes in most cases. For example, a baker shouldn't be allowed to refuse service to a gay couple who wants to buy a wedding cake. But, where creative design comes in, no one should be forced to design a cake with a theme they are against, particularly religiously and that includes both sides. As far as a website goes, since that is pretty much all design, there wouldn't be many examples where a website would not be designed.

 

if a law is unconstitutional, it is unconstitutional

 

for all the people trying to pretend otherwise-ask them this-is it appropriate for a Jewish baker to refuse to make a cake that glorifies say Hitler's birthday or Kristallnacht? Should the woke laws punish such a baker?

 

No, she wanted the courts to protect her from the State government that threatened her. That is how she received standing. You don't have to read the entire decision, but reading the first paragraph is definitely a start. It's not hard to get truthful and factual information about this case, and it's a lot better than making things up out of whole cloth.

 

If a website for a wedding is "political speech," then what isn't? Therefore, as the owner of a newspaper or television station, could I not refuse to publish/air a black person's political add, because it is my "political" belief that blacks should not be allowed to hold government office?

 

Not sure why you think I haven't already read the decision.

The court ruled in favor of the homophobe.

It will end up opening the door to discriminating against people because of their religion.

 

I really love how most of those who are pushing the false narrative of this ruling keep conveniently forgetting that the state and the courts all acknowledge that the plaintiff has no problem with serving anyone LBGT and has done so in the past. All this ruling does is allow her to reject specific content, not LBGT people.

 

If she is the one entering in the content, then that is no different than placing an opposed message on the cake. If she is only making a template and the buyer enters in the content, then that is no different than selling a blank cake and letting the buyer decorate it however the buyer wishes.

 

She rejects wedding content only for gay people.

She is a homophobe and is abusing the constitution.

It is a terrible loss for religious freedom in the US.

 

This ruling doesn't do that, so if you are arguing that this ruling will lead to another that does, then that's slippery slope fallacy.

 

I'd doubt that it would only be gay people. Dollars to doughnuts she'd reject my poly wedding site too. An LBGT designer has every right to reject an opposite sex marriage site as well. She has the right to reject anything that I, as a straight person, ask for that she objects to. Now if I put in for a SSM website and she does it but rejects a gay couple who put in for one, then you have an argument.

 

Because you're stating false information when the factual information exists in the first paragraph of the decision. If you have read any of the decision I would bet it was excerpts from liberal blogs, or you only read pieces of the dissent.

 

Your post allows me to return your earlier favor, by now correcting you. The basis of Smith's suit had nothing to do with rejecting any person, or any content. Smith was concerned with being fined/cited by the state of Colorado, if she advertised her services, by specifying that she did wedding websites only for heterosexual couples. If you read the opinion, I don't know how you'd missed that part. It's hard to see how this is not a discrimination, which falls strictly along lines of prejudice, based on sexual identity-- which is a protected class. IOW, Smith would be advertising that her services will not be available, specifically to gay couples.

While there is nothing from stopping a person from advertising that they won't do wedding websites for any redheads (since they shouldn't be reproducing), or any couples in which the groom has a goatee, it should have been deemed illegal to advertise that one does not cater to gay couples, if this ruling followed legal precedent. What difference would there be, if Smith advertised that she only did wedding websites for white couples, or only for racially homogenous couples?

 

I've seen the same information you have seen.

My conclusion is that she is a homophobe and is abusing the Constitution.

You seem to think I have said that the decision was not legally sufficient. I haven't been bashing the court or anything close to saying the decision was incorrect.

the case never should have been brought. The lady who brought it is a bad person, and has opened the door to more discrimination against everyone.

 

Agreed on that. But, that is rarely the case. In fact, most of these cases are just brought on by those wishing to stick in the face of others.

 

Personal services from a closely held company that's got a single member v a gigantic common carrier on a publicly traded company.



Gosh I just don't see ANY POSSIBLE WAY those things could be distinguishable. Good thing I've got these here:


If you print those shitty handbills hippies and conspiracy types hand out at the post offices and courthouses? Yeah I can't compel you. If you're ****ing CNN or the New York Times? You're quite a different duck.

 

Oh, so discrimination laws only apply to big companies! Silly me-- I thought they applied to all.

Any chance you could pull any supporting legal evidence to back up your theory, as well, from out of your ass?

Does the ruling specify, it only applies to single-person operations? I doubt it.

 

Understood. So you're saying it's a comprehension problem on your part. Again, she doesn't have a problem working with gay clients and believes she has. Her problem is making websites for gay weddings. And, she filed the lawsuit, not to avoid all contact with gay people, but because the state threatened her. You should actually read the decision you claim to have read. It's easier that way than making things up and having to be corrected. You're even disagreeing with the dissent... you're not making logical arguments or making sense.

 

She knows that even many conservatives would turn on her if she just outright refused to serve gays for any reason. Baby steps.

She is abusing the constitution and is the reason for a decision by SCOTUS that opens the door to discrimination.