Fake Gay Marriage Website and SCOTUS Ruling

[jab]

In fact, in a lot of places people will choose a designer or a vendor or say, a wedding planner who has already demonstrated that they do an especially good job with the type of work the client wishes to have. Most Jewish couples (or Muslim couples) will choose someone who has helped with the same sort of event, with their traditions and done so well. There is a lot of self selection going on when people look for photographers, wedding planners, caterers, jewelry designers, etc. Most creators do have lanes, or areas of their expertise. Some are more willing and able to step outside those boundaries more than others.

And now, they have to. The number of choices available to gay couples has been decreased (Constitutionally approved). Gay couples will have fewer options (possibly very limited to no options). Sure, big city gays will be fine, but rural gays... well, that is God's country now. Honestly, I can't see how gays have a fundamental right to marriage, but not marriage services? #butwhataboutthehomophobes?!

Do you think a web designer should be compelled by law to create a website that is dedicated to anti-gay propaganda?

If they create anti-gay propaganda websites for one group of people, they need to make it for other groups of people as well. If a web designer makes websites for weddings, they should be compelled to do so for all weddings, presuming they have templates and designs for such weddings (ie Xian, Jewish, Muslim, etc..). This whole, we as a species are incapable of telling profanity or bigotry from common state fare is willfully ignorant.

Also, you have yet to address how this "Principles" issue doesn't apply to race, religion, etc...

That’s a big presumption there: provided they have the appropriate templates.

No one *must* sell their services or products to anyone else. The reason of refusal just cannot be minority status.

No one is compelled to adapt their services or products to meet the needs or wants of prospective clients. Is it wise to have as broad and deep a portfolio of skills and requisite equipment and expertise? Of course it is! But I cannot compel the painter who painted my neighbor’s ranch style home to paint my 3 story Victorian house, even if I am a black, Jewish lesbian.

What if a black Jewish lesbian's home was also a ranch house, and she wanted only the house painted, should the painter have the right to refuse the commission because of who she was?
BTW: "even if I am a black, Jewish lesbian"--yer not, thanks for this revealing bit of snark

 

[jab]

If the law can compel a bigot to create content contrary to their bigoted and ignorant opinions,

That bigot isn't being compelled to do anything. She doesn't have a constitutional right to be a wedding website designer. She can find a new line of work.

And what if the shoe is on the other foot. Should she be compelled to design a website for the wedding of the grand dragon of the KKK?

is the KKK a protected class in America?

 

[jab]

Creating a website is one thing. Running a business that provides a service to the public is another thing entirely. No one is arguing that she can't create a hate website.

Two sides of the same coin. If she can be compelled to create a gay website she can be compelled to create a hate website.

What America state or federal laws make haters of any sort a legally protected group. Or should gays and lesbians be a legally protected group, in your opinion?

 

[bilby]

Compelling someone to create/express something which they find repugnant is a violation of free speech.

Telling someone that they are not permitted to operate a business, because they refuse to comply with the laws relating to that business, is not a violation of free speech.

Nobody can be compelled to create a website; But anybody can be required to choose between creating websites for a living, or being bigoted in their choice of for whom they create websites.

If you want to exercise your freedom to create wedding websites only for people whose marriages you endorse, then you need to do it free of charge.

You can make lemonade and only give it to white people. But you can't open a lemonade stand selling lemonade, and put up a sign that says "No Blacks".

You can create beautiful websites for your heterosexual friends as a gift to them. But you can't open a web design business and put up a sign that says "No gays".

If you want to do it as a business, you forfeit the right to discriminate; But, of course, you don't forfeit your right to freedom of expression, just your "right" to be paid for that expression - a "right" that doesn't exist in law. Too bad, so sad.

The government has the duty to regulate commerce, and to prohibit discrimination against protected groups in the course of such commerce. This in no way effects the rights of citizens to freely express bigoted and discriminatory views outside a commercial context; Freedom of speech and expression remains a fundamental right.

 

[jab]

Creating a website is one thing. Running a business that provides a service to the public is another thing entirely. No one is arguing that she can't create a hate website.

Two sides of the same coin. If she can be compelled to create a gay website she can be compelled to create a hate website.

Nope. Not going to happen. The only way this can happen is if supermajorities in both Houses collectively go insane in the same way at the same time and decide to make Klansman a protected class.

Protected group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Anti-discrimination law - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Equal Protection Clause - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There is a huge difference between saying that you can't eat in my diner which is open to the public and I am not going to design a custom website for you that celebrates something I find abhorrent.

Someone who finds interracial marriages abhorrent ought not be in the business of making custom wedding websites.

Right to freedom of expression gives me a right to hold racist views and express racist ideas, but not a right to have any job I want. Having the right to express my views does not also give me the right to no consequences.

Again: Suppose a web designer designs websites for various organizations and is approached by someone who wishes to make a website dedicated to anti-Asian and anti-Jewish rhetoric, which the designer fines abhorrent: Can the website designer decline if the person requesting the service is black? Is Muslim? Is disabled? Is gay? What if the person requesting the service is a disabled black Muslim gay woman?

Yes, the website designer can decline if the person requesting the service black, Muslim, disabled, or gay, or all of the above because being protected by the Equal Protection Clause does not mean you can order people to do whatever you want them to do; it only means they are required to treat you the way they treat everyone else. So if a website designer doesn't make hate websites for white people, they don't have to make hate websites for black people. But if they make, say, cooking websites for white people, they do have to make cooking websites for black people. Except not anymore, because of this SCOTUS ruling.

And if the web designer does not design gay wedding websites for straight couples, then the wedding web designer does not have to design gay wedding websites for gay couples.

This fictional web designer did not design websites for gay weddings.

actually the real-life perjurous homophobe, it turns out, was objecting to making a gay wedding website for a heterosexually married man.

 

[jab]

If the law can compel a bigot to create content contrary to their bigoted and ignorant opinions,

That bigot isn't being compelled to do anything. She doesn't have a constitutional right to be a wedding website designer. She can find a new line of work.

And what if the shoe is on the other foot. Should she be compelled to design a website for the wedding of the grand dragon of the KKK?

Is the grand dragon of the KKK in a protected class? No. So no, the designer doesn't have to create a website for such a person.

Just because someone is in a protected class, it does not mean that the web designer must design the website that client wants if it lays outside of their area of expertise

That's fine.

or if the content desired violates their principles or religious convictions.

No one is compelled to create something that violates their principles, values or religious beliefs. Because everyone has freedom of speech, equally.

We have the right to freedom of expression.
We do not have the right to have any job.
We do not have the right to never face consequences.

If someone hates the idea of marriage between a black person and a white person, they can get a job as an auto mechanic.
If someone hates cars, they can get a job as a wedding website designer.
If someone hates being around water, they should not get a job at a waterpark, public pool or beach.
If someone hates kids, they should not get a job as a kindergarten teacher.
If someone hates flying, they should not get a job as a pilot or flight attendant.

People can have any job they qualify to have. Being a bigot does not mean you cannot be a web designer. It does not mean that you have to take on any client who requests your services. Independent contractors take or turn down work for many many reasons. Only a stupid one would say that they did not want to work with a person they disliked the person. Or because of their race, religion, sexual preferences, gender identity, etc.

Discriminating against someone on the basis of their race, religion, etc. can net you a fine in some places. It can certainly get you a lot of bad publicity and can cost you clients and customers.

And in some places it can get you approbation and support and a Q-ueasy fame.

 

[bilby]

What is the difference between a minister and a web designer being compelled to celebrate the wedding of a gay couple?

The minister gets an exemption on the grounds of religion.

Which, of course, is deeply immoral. But that's the problem with religion, it corrupts everything and demands unwarranted special treatment.

Unless, of course, the minister and his church are both eschewing any form of payment for conducting weddings, in which case it's entirely their choice to whom to gift this service.

 

[jab]

Most artists and designers have a repertoire of the types of work they do. I believe web designers have a set of templates that they use. I think under this ruling, a webdesigner could be compelled to sell the template (assuming they sell the templates to customers) to any customer but cannot be compelled to write Jeff and Ted will celebrate their love in holy matrimony at 6:00 on Friday, October 19.....

Disagree--in this case the creative work was already done in creating the template, filling in the blanks is probably not creative and thus I think they can be compelled.

Normally, though, the templates are just a starting point and there's a lot more done than just filling in the blanks.

The template probably has been created. But the creator is not compelled to fill in the template with words or images that they find offensive. If they sell the template, they must sell to everybody. If they use a template to create individual content specific to the customer, that’s part of their creative product abc they cannot be forced to create words or images that they find offensive.

Keyword: "create".

What you were describing sounded a lot more like pasting customer content into the blanks. I do not consider that creative. It becomes creative when you need to do something beyond just fill in the blanks (and I think in most cases it will require more.)

It doesn’t matter what you, personally consider to be creative. Pasting a clients text into a template is an act of speech, for both the client and the web designer. The web designer cannot be forced to express sentiments that they find repugnant.

Newspapers, television stations, all sorts of media accept advertisements. They set standards for what type of content they will allow to be published in their newspaper. Newspapers accept letters to the editor from the community at large but they are not required to print any of them and will not print those that fail to meet their standards ( or if they don’t have space).

Suppose a (black) political candidate was running for an office as a member of the Revolutionary Black Panther Party. Media would not be required to accept their ads because the Revolutionary Black panther Party is considered a hate group.

could an American newspaper legally refuse to print an add from the NAACP merely because it is a black group, or from a Catholic group, merely because it was a religious group? Letters to the editor, which are used not paid for the writer, are in a different class of speach.

 

[TomC]

And in some places it can get you approbation and support and a Q-ueasy fame.

That's perhaps common in Canada.
Around here it isn't.

I live in Trumpish Jesustan, Indiana. For the vast majority of businesses a simple "No Blacks. No Gays" sign on the door would be enough to trash your clientele. Even racist or homophobic people wouldn't want to be seen patronizing your place.

It's simply not 1973 anymore.
Tom

 

[jab]

But I also understand how horrible it must be to be told no because you are ( member of group which faces a lot of discrimination) as well as I can as a straight white woman. It hasn’t happened to me, personally ( aside from the casual playground and classroom misogyny) but I’ve seen it happen to other people and it dramatically changed how I felt what I thought about someone I loved who treated another person in such a despicable manner that it has stayed with me for more than 60 years. Not in the good way.

I understand just wanting what you want and seeing no reason why anyone should deny it to you just because they don’t like something about you. I understand pushing because it unfair and unjust to discriminate against someone because if their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I’d be pretty furious, too, fir the injustice done to me and to anyone else some bigot decided they could heap at me.

I absolutely completely unequivocally despise the bigotry of someone who would refuse to create a website fir someone because they are gay. Or black, or Jewish or Muslim or are disabled or trans or ( fill in the blank),

The above flowery words are all empty rhetoric if you support legalized discrimination. And if you support this SCOTUS ruling, you support legalized discrimination.

But at the same time, the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech. Without that foundational freedom, no one has the ability to advocate for their rights or fir change ti better ensure their rights,

This is going to continue to be a red herring no matter how many times you repeat it.

We have a constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression.
We do not have a constitutionally protected right to have any job.
We do not have a constitutionally protected right to live consequence free.

Anti-discrimination laws do not stop bigots from holding bigoted views, and they do not prevent bigots from expressing those views. They merely require that people who have jobs that require interface with the public have to treat minorities the same way they treat everyone else.

By supporting this ruling, you are basically saying that in your view, a bigot's NON-EXISTENT, IMAGINED "rights" to have any job and never face consequences should trump my ACTUAL right to be treated the same as everyone else.

A bigot has as much a right to free speech as a Saint.

If we do not ALL have freedom of speech, then none of us do.

What consequences are you imagining that should be meted out to a jewelry maker who refuses to write Tim and Ted for ever inside a pair of wedding bands?

Like you, I believe in consequences for actions —or inactions, sometimes.

If you know—not just a rumor but actually know as fact that a business unfairly discriminated against someone, then boycott it! Spread the word! Oppose their applications for certification or licensure or that building permit.

You talk all the time about ‘protected groups’. I had never before considered wete not rightly protected. But as I read every one of your posts about how ‘protected groups’ could not be turned away while assuring me that Nazis and Proud Boys and KKK could be—

That is what will mean the end of protected groups. The apparent double standard that the law seems to imply: You can refuse to write words celebrating Nazi Heritage month but not gay marriage — as if there were no gay Nazis but I digress. What you are really saying is that it is OK to suppress the rights of dine people, those whose politics do not align with yours but not OK to suppress the the rights of those you agree with.

What this USSC decision seems to say to me is that the right of free speech cannot be dependent on whose speech we’re talking about.

I have every right in the world to stand in the middle of the street and scream out every single racist epithet and homophobic slur I wish to. The Constitution guarantees my right to do so. It also guarantees your right to stand 2 feet away and scream right back at me what a hateful ugly bigot I am.

If I can do this in the middle of the street, then surely I cannot be compelled to create or express support of something I despise or believe is morally wrong. Nor can you.


Either we all have freedom of expression or none of us do. If my freedom of expression can be impinged then do can yours.

" You can refuse to write words celebrating Nazi Heritage month but not gay marriage — as if there were no gay Nazis but I digress. What you"--any you are digressing, why? so let me digress--there were white heterosexual women Nazis. Perhaps this perjurious homophobe is one.

 

[Gospel]

Suppose a restaurant that specializes in kosher meals rents out its kitchen space to groups during off hours in order make ends meet. Do they have the right to insist that any group renting their space adhere to kosher rules sufficiently to maintain their kosher kitchen?

It's truly astonishing. The owner of a kitchen has every right to ask me to adhere to kosher guidelines while using their facilities. However, what they cannot do is refuse to rent the kitchen to me based on my race, sexual orientation, age, physical disabilities, religious affiliation or lack thereof. It's a crucial distinction.

 

[jab]

But at the same time, the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech. Without that foundational freedom, no one has the ability to advocate for their rights or fir change ti better ensure their rights,

A wedding is a wedding. Creating a wedding website for a straight couple is no more compelled speech in favor of that marriage as it is for a gay couple.

Ok, suppose you are asked to create a wedding website for a 40 year old man and a 12 year old girl?

A wedding is a wedding, right?

Whoa--I didn't know pedophilia was a protected class anywhere in America!
This is an old homophobic trope. gay either is equivalent to or on the slippery slope to child molesting.
So, another bit of egregious snark to imply that gays (some of them are even Nazi, don't ya know!) and lesbians (or at least black Jewish lesbians) are bad/ trivial/ foolish.

 

[jab]

But at the same time, the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech. Without that foundational freedom, no one has the ability to advocate for their rights or fir change ti better ensure their rights,

A wedding is a wedding. Creating a wedding website for a straight couple is no more compelled speech in favor of that marriage as it is for a gay couple.

Ok, suppose you are asked to create a wedding website for a 40 year old man and a 12 year old girl?

A wedding is a wedding, right?

Pedophiles aren't a protected class.

Protected group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Seriously, have you even bothered to open this link or the other ones I've provided?

All these scary hypotheticals about having to work for Nazis and pedophiles are pointless. You still don't understand how any of this works.

As disgusting as it is, child marriage is legal in most states, with parental or judicial approval. I am as horrified as you are.

In fact, sometimes the rape of a child and the resulting pregnancy are ‘covered up’ or ‘made right’ by marrying the child to their rapist. I find those sentences to be some of the most horrifying sentences that can be written.

Here’s the Wiki page. Warning: it’s not for the faint of heart:

Child marriage in the United States - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

So, from a cursory reading, 13 is the lowest age. But even so pedophiles, even with parental consent, are not a protected class.

 

[jab]

There are 20 states that do not have a minimum age fir marriage with parental or judicial consent. Yeah, I’m pretty horrified too.

Do I think a racist web designer should legally be required to create any content for a black person? No. Do I think that it is morally outrageous and repugnant that they refuse to do so refuse? Yes. Absolutely.

The US went through that before... twice. Took 100 years for women to vote. It took 58 years to get the ball rolling from Plessy to Brown, then the Civil Rights Act and the application of interstate commerce. The problem with your principle based opinion is it creates islands. It could create large islands of prohibition. When I say "could" I mean, it did and will again.

This is porno all over again. The issue here is that bigoted people want to consider obscenity as anything they personally want to consider obscene. But the reality is, it isn't about obscenity at all, it is about bigotry against a class of people. And that bigotry is currently being given a pathway into the future via this legal hack. The arguments being made at the moment are camel noses under the tent that will expand the rights of individuals to interfere in the rights of minorities in receiving access to services they should have access to. Seriously, is hand crafting a cake and selling it, verses hand crafting a cake and writing two male names on a cake any different?

They are chipping at the stone and you are too trapped in the principle illusion they are putting together. This principle would not have allowed the Civil Rights Act to pass Constitutional muster.

I obviously don’t agree. I see a vast difference between baking a cake and decorating it ( no words) and being forced to write Nazi Rules! on that cake because a customer wants me to.

Remember some years back when the bakery refused to decorate a birthday cake with his name on it for a 3 year old named Adolph Hitler? I don’t have the patience to look for that thread but I’m pretty certain that most people here( including me) cheered the bakery for the refusal. As a side note, the parents later lost custody of their children, all with Nazi themed names.

Yes, yes: gay people are part of a protected class but the principal is the same: bakeries should not be compelled to write something on a cake that violates their principals. Even if their principals are wrong ( in our opinion).

I’m worried about the chipping away of our right to free speech. I saw how easily women’s rights to health care have been eroded, I take nothing for granted any more.

Please stop with this offensive and legally incorrect equivalency between "Nazi rules" or "Adolph Hitler" and my name coupled with my husbands. Do you even know or care what the German Nazis did to gay men when they gained power?
Fortunately we aren't Americans.

Please answer these questions:
Are Nazis are a protected class in America. Yes or no?
Are women a protected class in America? Yes or no?
Are lesbians and gay men a protected class in America? Yes or no?

 

[jab]

We have the right to freedom of expression.
We do not have the right to have any job.

Are you even aware of the consequences of your position? You're requiring ideological conformity to a particular belief in order for a person to be allowed to have a fucking job.

Seriously, you're a pubic hair away from "Only atheist democrats are allowed to have jobs".

And, if you haven't yet made that connection - predicating employment on the beliefs of the applicant is absolutely a violation of the 1st amendment in the US. The only exception is for employment positions in a literal church. Even companies that are owned by religious people, with religiously inspired business practices can't limit employment to only people that adhere to their religion. Hobby Lobby can't deny employment to a jewish or muslim or atheist on the basis of their religion.

The sheer level of illiberal authoritarian perspective involved in "Only people who believe what I want them to believe are allowed to have jobs that I think they should have" is astonishing.

So people who run businesses and discriminate on the basis of race as to the services they offer should face no legal repercussions. Is that your position? What about a photography business (photography is creative expression) which specializes in family portraiture refusing to photograph a mixed race family because that would force them to express something against their sincerely held beliefs?

 

[jab]

No, my example is illegal in some states. Sadly, horribly, not in all states. I chose that example precisely because it is legal in some states.

What state is a 12 yr old marrying a 40 yr old legal?

I don’t know how much you know about creating a personal wedding website, but a good deal of time, effort and some talent are necessary.

I 100% think that if you offer something already created for sale, you cannot refuse to sell it to any customer, regardless of whether or not you approve of them or how they plan to use the product.

But no one is required by law to create content or to express sentiments or ideas they do not wish to create or express. No matter how repugnant their reasons for refusal.

So inter-racial marriages, maybe even blacks marrying. Why should racist white web developers be compelled to create a wedding website for black couples?

There are 20 states that do not have a minimum age fir marriage with parental or judicial consent. Yeah, I’m pretty horrified too.

No one has ever been forced by anti-discrimination laws to make a wedding website for a child marriage. Pedophiles, pederasts, and hebephiles aren't protected classes. They are not covered by the Equal Protection Clause. We are all free to discriminate against kid fuckers.

Do I think a racist web designer should legally be required to create any content for a black person? No.

No one is required to do that. They can do something else for a living.

Do I think that it is morally outrageous and repugnant that they refuse to do so refuse? Yes. Absolutely.

Your words of support ring hollow because you support the partial rolling back of equal rights protections.

I will say that I see it ( very very very ) slightly different ONLY because gay marriage has only been legalized since 2004 and it takes time for widespread acceptance of societal changes.

This is ahistorical.

In the 1960s, black people had the newly attained freedom to eat in what had previously been whites-only restaurants because new civil rights laws forced the issue. Racists didn't suddenly stop being racist out of nowhere. Widespread acceptance of societal changes didn't happen by accident. You are putting the cart before the horse. Widespread acceptance of societal changes happened because of the civil rights laws.

In a generation, I doubt that this will be even a tiny issue. Gay rights have progressed much more rapidly than equal rights for black people.

No they didn't. This is another ahistorical claim. Sexual orientation only became a protected class in 2020, 56 years after race.

Or women. And in case there is any doubt: I’m all for equal rights for all, an end to bigotry everywhere

Your support for this right-wing SCOTUS ruling that partially rolls back equal rights belies this claim.

and universal health care, expansive voter rights ( but not until 18) and pretty much every other lefty cause in the US.

I think that your words ring very hollow because you are quite willing to not only interfere with someone’s right to free speech if you believe in the cause but you are willing to torture all logic and any sense of justice and equality justify the same behavior if it does not fall within the narrow parameters of that particular cause. Your sense of justice and equality are inconsistent and are skewed by your political beliefs.

More dangerously, this sort of logic absolutely will destroy the entire concept of protected groups.

Question: is this also how you feel about the anti-discrimination laws that have been in place since the 1960s?

Which anti-discrimination laws do you mean?

I absolutely am 100% am in favor of treating everyone equally and of never discriminating against anyone on the basis of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability, national origin, etc.

I am as fully committed to first amendment rights and not forcing someone to create content that violates their principles.

What about 14th Amendment Rights? How committed are you to them?

 

[jab]

If you want there to be less bigotry in the world, you have to force the issue and make the bigots feel uncomfortable.

If you want there to be less bigotry in the world, you should probably not make an effort to be intentionally bigoted against a group of people, and probably shouldn't advocate for other people to engage in bigotry against them too.

Let's cut the vagueness and innuendo: Which group of people, precisely, is C/J being bigotted against?

 

[bilby]

It's got nothing to do with expression, opinion, belief, or freedom of speech.

If you want to run a business, you must run it by the rules. If you don't want to obey the rules, you have the option not to run that particular business.

That's it. That's all of it. Literally everything else is just a smokescreen to try to obscure this simple fact.

The US government says businesses (not individuals, or clubs, or groups, or wedding designers, or bakers) cannot discriminate against customers on the basis of their membership of certain specified classes.

They are right to do so, and the constitution in no way prevents them from doing so.

You can be as bigoted as you like. But you may not exhibit that bigotry during any business transaction.

What's difficult about this?

 

[jab]

The above flowery words are all empty rhetoric if you support legalized discrimination. And if you support this SCOTUS ruling, you support legalized discrimination.

Nah, you're missing a fundamental point here. You're focused solely on discrimination against gay people - and I share your dislike of such discrimination. What you're missing is the discrimination on the basis of belief that you are actively supporting in your approach.

So American people, in your view, have the right to act on homophobic and other bigotted beliefs, including in their commercial interactions with other people.

 

[jab]

At some point, the opinion of the seller isn't relevant or their "speech" isn't "expression" at all. Where are you drawing the line? Because based on principles, you are suggesting 1910s worldview.

I, like Toni, am drawing the line at the point where you cross from prohibiting discrimination to compelling speech, and thereby compelling the perception of belief.

Look, let's talk about how belief plays into this. I'm going to make the potentially naïve assumption that everyone in this thread actually understands the importance of freedom of religion and belief as protected by the first amendment of the US. I'm going to assume that even if someone practices a faith that you (and I) think is utter bollocks, we agree that they should have the right to their own beliefs.

Now then. Let's talk about a website designer who does custom work, who is approached to design a website for a muslim customer who is celebrating his daughter's first hijab. The designer is an atheist, who truly and deeply believes that it is morally wrong for women to be forced to wear hijab and to be treated as subordinate to men for their entire lives. The designer truly believes that this is an abhorrent practice.

Do you take the position that the atheist designer, who opposes misogynistic religious practices on principle, should be forced by law to design the requested website?

You are equating homosexuality with misogyny. I was not aware that misogyny was, per se, a protected position legally in America.
Unless the web designer was convinced the daughter was being forced into a hijab, and thus that it was not her own choice of expression of her identity, yes she should design the web site.