That is just silly.One commissioner in particular, Justice Kennedy wrote, had crossed the line in saying that “freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust.”Justice Kennedy wrote that “this sentiment is inappropriate for a commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.”
Monday, June 4, 2018
Don't tell the truth, commissioner
From the Times report on the bigot cake maker:
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Read the opinion, if you don’t want to sound like an ignorant twit.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf
Now you have no excuse.
Just wondering: there are a significant number of Americans who believe, with a religious basis, that women should not work outside the home. Should they have the right to refuse to hire women? How does one "neutrally enforce" an anti-discrimination law with respect to such beliefs?
ReplyDeleteI realize that the baker case was decided as narrowly as the SC could possibly manage. But these are the sorts of questions it raises.
M:
ReplyDeleteGood question, to which there is no pat answer.
IMHO, there needs to be some distinction between essential and non-essential public accommodations. Wedding cakes seem very non-essential, and can be purchased from a vast number of places besides Master Baker, or whatever his corporate identity is.
Moreover, society has changed a great deal over the last 50 years. Most public accommodation law could probably just be scrapped, because those who turn away customers would be suffering self inflicted wounds.
There may be places where Blacks could no longer find a room at the inn, but aside from Harry’s hate-fevered mind, I bet they are very few and far between.
You don't neutrally enforce anti-discrimination laws. You just apply them. There have been religious carve-outs, such as exempting Amish kids from school attendance but those were because of serious social disorder where it was judged the kids would be harmed. No possible excuse for such a carve-out in arms-length business.
ReplyDeleteM.,
ReplyDelete"Should they have the right to refuse to hire women?"
If it is his business, why not?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHarry,
ReplyDeleteI find the SCOTUS decision ludicrous - not because I don't agree with the end result (for I agree, I don't think the baker ought to create products he doesn't want to) - but because the reason given makes no sense: had the comissioner not written those lines, and showed no bad animus towards religion, then the baker would be found in the wrong and ought to bake the cake?
The point is not if the baker was a bigot, the point is that he is free to be a bigot if so he wishes. Society ought to make sure he can't act on his prejudices in order to create damages to anybody else (like persecuting gay couples), but this is surely not the case here.
The baker's justification is exactly what Southerners used to resist desegregation efforts. Public accommodation is a huge deal and becomes meaningless if individuals can opt put. If you think baking cakes is sometimes sinful, stay out of the cake business.
ReplyDeleteNo, Harry, the gay couple was not forbidden to enter his store or buy any product in display.
ReplyDeleteBack then, the problem never was that Southeners wanted the right to not back cakes with black figures over its top.
A difference without a distinction. Recall how Bertrand Russell described the religious beliefs of the Pythagoreans:
ReplyDelete'. . . the sinfulness of eating beans."
It turns out there may have been a real world reason for them not to eat fava beans, but there can never be a real world reason for a Christian to deny a cake.
The law in the US is secular and should not care about the arbitrary beliefs of anyone. Let them eat cake!
Harry,
ReplyDeleteSo you are slaves of the state in the US? Gee, and I thought it was the Land of the Free...
The state should not compel anyone to labor, which is to what boils down the matter. The baker had not the desired product in his portfolio, why should he be obliged to create it? It doesn't matter what are his beliefs at all.
“You don't neutrally enforce anti-discrimination laws. You just apply them.”
ReplyDeleteRight. So it is okay to discriminate against those who want a cake baked with messages of which the state of CO disagrees?
That is also the decision.
He said his beliefs mattered, more than running his business. As I say, that was exactly the ruse used by Southern racists to evade equal accommodation laws with regard to skin color. It is not on the customer to decide what appropriate career paths are. If you believe selling sex is sinful, don't open a whorehouse. Same with baking cakes.
ReplyDeleteOnce you've chosen your career-- which is a completely free choice here -- then you are privileged to treat protected classes the same as everybody else.
We could argue which classes ought to be protected but as a matter of historical fact -- a concept that does not appeal to the justices -- every protected class under American law had a record of endless Christian-inspired oppression.
... also in the decision.
ReplyDeleteHarry,
ReplyDelete"He said his beliefs mattered". Well, his beliefs matter to him, yours matters to you, and this is trivial. I meant, of course, that his beliefs are none of our business, much less the State business.
Neither the State, or you and me, should care for his reasons to not create a product. I don't think any of us should be in the business of forcing any person to work.
If you need a license to sell cake, it is fair for the State to ask you to sell it to anyone who can pay. It doesn't mean you need to create new sort of cake to anyone who ask for a different one than you have to offer.
To the contrary, you ought to be sued for not attending anyone who wants to hire you as a journalist, and retirement is not an excuse.
Scroll down to the Wuerker cartoon
ReplyDeletehttp://juanitajean.com/friday-toons-282/
Scroll down to the Wuerker cartoon
ReplyDeletehttp://juanitajean.com/friday-toons-282/
[Clovis:] The point is not if the baker was a bigot, the point is that he is free to be a bigot if so he wishes. Society ought to make sure he can't act on his prejudices in order to create damages to anybody else (like persecuting gay couples), but this is surely not the case here.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
Although I think the term "bigot", which Harry throws around with his usual incontinence, serves only as a smear. Disapproving of gay marriage, to the extent of not wanting to actively be involved in a ceremony is not bigotry, and it is an assault on both word meaning and reason to insist otherwise.
Corollary: let's say someone comes to this baker asking for a custom cake to celebrate an abortion. If this baker refuses, on religious grounds, does that make him a bigot against women? Does the Colorado get to put its boot on his neck? If not, why not?
[Harry:] Public accommodation is a huge deal and becomes meaningless if individuals can opt put. If you think baking cakes is sometimes sinful, stay out of the cake business.
Here is the totalitarian streak that runs through all progressivism. Public accommodation is, indeed, a huge deal. But this is the exact opposite of a huge deal. The plaintiffs, bona fide assholes, deliberately targeted this baker with the goal of using that heinous CO law to force him into submission, or if he proved to stiff-necked, to destroy his livelihood. No matter there were any number of other places where they could get their cake, their progressive totalitarianism demanded he genuflect, or else.
Of course, as Clovis noted, this isn't merely about baking cakes for someone. Your characterization is so far from the mark as to render your veracity, knowledge, or both, suspect.
And it isn't a distinction without difference. In your totalitarian paradise, compelled expression is just fine. There is no limiting principle. Public accommodation law is the perfect tool to render freedom of expression, speech, and association void.
As proven by your equating creating a custom wedding cake to black's not being able to find a room at the inn.
This bakery doesn't serve Trump voters.
ReplyDeleteExactly. At least the cartoon gets it right, although without any understanding of the dripping irony.
Personally, I think the baker threaded the needle. He claimed that a gay couple was perfectly free to buy one of his cakes. His issue was with the custom decoration/message he was asked to place on it. I tend to agree that this falls under the heading of "speech," and that the baker cannot be compelled to produce a message with which he so fundamentally disapproves. In terms of "public accommodation," this really only becomes a problem if there is a local shortage of cake decorators/engravers/whatever willing to accommodate a gay couple; it should be easy to envision localities where this might become less a matter of "choice" and more a matter of "how far do these folks have to travel before they can get their cake?" So even the expression line isn't a solid line, to me. But the SC decision was intentionally narrow and unlikely to form much of a precedent. It's more likely that the justices - just like everyone else - are waiting for the more intolerant generation to die away, rendering the problem an anachronism with no urgent need for redress.
ReplyDeleteThe state should not be able to force a decorator to make a cake praising Hitler but not because of free speech but because nazis are not -- yet, but wait for it -- a protected class.
ReplyDeleteHomosexuals are because they have been persecuted by Christians forever.
The victim here is not the Christian. It was not a matter of anti-Christian bias but mere truth what the commissioner said.
I guess you do not really want a secular State after all, Harry.
ReplyDelete[M:] I tend to agree that this falls under the heading of "speech," and that the baker cannot be compelled to produce a message with which he so fundamentally disapproves. In terms of "public accommodation," this really only becomes a problem if ... So even the expression line isn't a solid line, to me.
ReplyDeleteThat is one way of looking at it. Public accommodation applies to anything publicly available, and so long as there are viable options, then there is no need for compulsion; otherwise, providers must submit.
I think the line should be drawn differently. As an entering argument, public accommodation law must never trump enumerated rights. Using this case as an example, even if there were no other bakers to be had, the baker's right not to engage in compelled speech is paramount. Otherwise, the seeming bulwark of the 1A becomes hostage to whichever happens to be the loudest "aggrieved" group.
Now, there may well be cases where this just doesn't work, but I can't think of any offhand. The true PA cases don't involve enumerated rights.
[Harry:] The state should not be able to force a decorator to make a cake praising Hitler but not because of free speech but because nazis are not -- yet, but wait for it -- a protected class.
Homosexuals are because they have been persecuted by Christians forever.
This is the problem, right here. Protected classes. Why are homosexuals a protected class? Are they really so besieged in the US, in the here and now? (And I am always amazed at the hatred Harry spews at Christians, without a word to be said about Muslims, who actually throw gays off buildings when they aren't hanging them.)
Harry's position is totalitarian: the government gets to decide what is acceptable speech, and what speech can be compelled. The victim here is indeed the Christian; he had a clear policy on creating cakes. The plaintiffs knew it, and decided his morality could not stand. So they enlisted the state to put its boot in his neck.
Really no different from James Damore.
[Clovis:] I guess you do not really want a secular State after all, Harry.
Harry is fine with a religious state, so far as it is his religion.
"Why are homosexuals a protected class? Are they really so besieged in the US, in the here and now?"
DeleteYes, they are. Perhaps they are not besieged enough for you, but they are. Talk to a few and you might find out.
How so, Clovis? The Colorado action was neutral as regards belief.
ReplyDeleteIt did not matter to the state why the baker refused to serve some but not others, although as part of the review it was noticed that the baker was cnforming to an everlasting form of persecution.
[Harry:] The Colorado action was neutral as regards belief.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, Harry, you need to avail yourself of the decision. Colorado was quite biased with regard to belief. Look it up.
If anyone is interested in the real world, as opposed to the fantasy within the walls of the Supreme Court, this is why homosexuals are a protected class:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.advocate.com/crime/2018/6/06/lone-man-fights-antigay-mob-utah-pride
Christians are not because mobs of homosexuals have not been observed murdering Christians.
Harry,
ReplyDelete---
How so, Clovis? The Colorado action was neutral as regards belief.
---
Was it? Had the baker refused service alleging the High Spirits of Gaya told him to not bake this particular cake, how much trouble would beset him?
Same, as if he had just said he disliked homosexuals. He introduced religion and no]o one else.
ReplyDelete[Harry:] Christians are not [a protected class] because mobs of homosexuals have not been observed murdering Christians.
ReplyDeleteStanding by for examples of mobs of Christians murdering homosexuals.
[Clovis:] Was it? Had the baker refused service alleging the High Spirits of Gaya told him to not bake this particular cake, how much trouble would beset him?
Harry didn't notice, or won't acknowledge, that other bakers exercised content-based refusal of bespoke service. But since the Colorado commission agreed with the bakers in those cases, the plaintiffs were told to pound sand.
Pro-tip: government may not engage in viewpoint preference. Which means that if non-religious refusal of bespoke service is OK, then religious refusal must be, also.
Except for budding totalitarians, of course.
There is an old saying - and I unfortunately forget its origin - that the only real difference between a cult and a religion is that the latter is big enough and established enough to keep the government from bullying it.
DeleteThere are any number of cults and sects out there with strange beliefs. I believe I already mentioned the still-extant and largely religious objections some have to women working outside of the home. Many other cults hold interesting views on chosen races, or the "elect," or what-have-you. There is a line that must be drawn, at some point, or we will get into territory that is so obvious that even anti-gay religious bigots will recognize that they're in trouble. Whatever sympathy I may have for the Masterpiece baker argument, it isn't clear to me that this line is correctly drawn here. Equating "content-based refusal" with refusal to recognize an identity is at best too simple, and at worst a disguise for illegal discrimination.
M, I think you are facing two problems.
DeleteFirst is a too quick resort to the slippery slope argument; or, perhaps, failing to see the slippery slope going the other way.
Yes, religions and cults do make some bizarre claims. The main questions are at what point those claims pose an undue burden on non-believers, and what burden justifies compelled expression.
Without identifying that burden, that is, by giving a very expansive definition of public accommodation, then first amendment guarantees of freedom of expression and religion are completely gutted. Worse, it puts in government hands the privilege of not only identifying what constitutes acceptable speech, but even of defining art.
(NB: that is essentially what the CO commission did in giving political approval to certain expressions, but not others.)
Alternatively, strict scrutiny applies. Absent substantial burden, and in this case there is none, then the plaintiffs need to avail themselves of ample options rather than use the state to compel speech. There is a limiting principle here that is absent from your approach: it is far easier to define substantial burden in a non-political way that deciding what are, or are not, acceptable beliefs.
... anti-gay religious bigots ...
I don't think you are using that term correctly. It is entirely possible to make an argument against gay marriage without possessing any animus at all towards gays themselves. Although that shouldn't really matter. It isn't for me, or the government, to pass judgment on the argument. In a free society, people get to have, and act upon, their convictions, absent very compelling reasons otherwise.
The alternative is Harry's totalitarian world, where extremely intolerant and bigoted people -- the plaintiffs and the CO commission -- get to decide whether to destroy someone's business.
Oh, and just to make it clear, I would equally support a gay baker's refusal to make bespoke cakes for a heterosexual wedding, no matter the reasons.
DeleteYou'd feel differently if a solid majority of bakers were gay, I imagine.
DeleteExactly so. Couldn't have said it better. (Obviously didn't say it as well, as the length of this thread proves.)
ReplyDeleteHere are many, many, things which Harry refuses to understand.
ReplyDeleteThis describes the problem with progressives, and Harry, perfectly:
ReplyDeleteLook at the sign in the photo below. No doubt the person holding it is a brainwashed progressive, but despite that, I actually agree with it. Because if it were "about the cake", homosexuals can easily find other bakers to design wedding cakes for them. It's not like Christians have a lock on the bakery business. It's not about baking a cake, it's about forcing your political enemies to submit to your terms and then rubbing their faces in it. Normal people can easily imagine a country that is big enough to serve both groups, where the owners of bakery 'A' do not want to do gay weddings, but bakery 'B' down the street is happy to do gay weddings, and there needn't be any quarreling about it. Everybody can live happily side by side. But progressives don't want this. The very existence of people who think differently than they do fills them with mindless fury. Even if the country were divided between 99% progressives and 1% normal people, the progressives would be constantly whining and crying about that 1%. Because in their view, forced unanimity is better than freedom.
Back in the day, that policy was called "separate but equal." The problem, other than the fundamental unconstitutionality of the "separate" part (as was eventually held by the courts), was that the "equal" part was largely a convenient myth.
DeleteI realize you do not recognize the equivalence, but in the interest of communication, that is were the LGBTQ community is coming from.
M:
Delete"Separate but equal" -- easily bad enough -- has nothing to do with this. The LGBTQ may wish to the equivalence, but no one is under any obligation to equate that with infringements upon freedom of religion and expression.
In the interest of communication, I get their public accommodation argument. But that doesn't mean I think it is sincere; their goal isn't to obtain already abundant accommodation, but rather to humiliate and ostracize those who have the temerity to disagree.
Separate but equal was never anything but a lie. My great grandfather was the first superintendent of public instruction in South Carolina. SC spent twice as much on white children as on black ones.
ReplyDelete(It was a mark of his liberalism that anything was spent at all.)
Every word said in defense of the baker has been a falsehood. The rightwing Christians are incapable of honesty.
The rightwing Christians are incapable of honesty.
DeleteThat is rich, coming from you.