Fake Gay Marriage Website and SCOTUS Ruling

[jab]

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.

Why do you insist on comparing all of the below (VIA protected class) to Nazis?

• Race
• Color
• Religion (Does not include political ideologies like Nazis)
• Sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity)
• National origin
• Age (40 and older)
• Disability
• Genetic information
• Familial status (having children)
• Military status

It's like comparing the sun to a piece of shit on the ground. They're not related & It makes absolutely no sense.

The principal is the same.

I used Nazi because I know that everyone or almost everyone posting here abhors Naziism and would likely be just fine with refusing service to Nazis. The excuse is their ideology is repugnant —and there is no law against it.

But what if the law changed and you could no longer discriminate against Nazis? What if Naziism became a protected class?

I don’t think that will happen—but I thought Roe v Wade was settled law.

I see free speech as a superseding principle. One can neither be forbidden from expression nor compelled to express what you find repugnant.

Rationalization (psychology) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[jab]

In 2

The name 'United States' inherently implies a sense of unity, which is no coincidence. The Constitution, despite its arguably limited inclusivity in the beginning, was designed to unite individuals under one collective identity, rather than to sow division among them. Nowhere within the Preamble, Articles, Amendments, or Confederate Papers is there an implication that members of the in-group—which has been extended to include Black people—are permitted to discriminate amongst themselves. The idea is preposterous.

In 1943, the USSC determined that no one could be compelled to recite the pledge of allegiance.

Of course, many/most states still require the recitation of the pledge, with narrow exceptions.

Yer point is?

 

[jab]

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.

Then you should be concerned that a doctor cannot be compelled to counsel a pregnant woman on all her health care options, including contraception. After all, the doctor might be conscientiously opposed to giving advice that could trigger immoral behavior.

What the fuck makes you think that Toni is NOT concerned about that? I certainly am, and I'm pretty sure that Toni is as well. In fact, I think the women (the few of us there are) on this board are all a lot more concerned about that than you are, in a much more visceral way.

But then again, none of us are particularly surprised by a man telling us how we ought to feel and what we ought to be worried about. Thus has it ever been.

Toni says she fully supports the USA's 1st amendment--no wait, maybe not when it comes to doctor's speech and refusal of service to women. but when it comes to gays and marriage websites, then then she fully supports free speech for the web designer--though perhaps not so far as perjury.
None of us are really surprised by heterosexuals telling us how we should feel, how we should react to bigotry, that what we foolishly take for biggotry is simple fairness, and what we ought to be worried about. I've been hearing that for the 70+ years of my life. And whereas right-wingers try to bate us by references to enabling commies and pedophiles and with snark about "black Jewish Lesbians", Toni ignorantly and callously bates us with references to enabling Nazis, and (sometimes actually being them), as well as bringing up the old reliables: pedophiles and "Black Jewish lesbian".
Gotta leave this thread, past due for my blood-pressure meds.

 

[CosmicJellyfish]

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

Funny, a similar sentiment was expressed in support of gutting the Voting Rights Act. And immediately following the gutting of said Act, red states got to work suppressing the minority vote.

Nobody ever went broke overestimating the bigotry of the American people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So, creativity is the benchmark now, superseding principles, is it?

Loren can't exactly define creativity, but he knows it when he sees it. What we have here is a creative interpretation of the First Amendment.

I have defined it--something where you expect substantially different results from different people doing it.

So, IIDB posts are "creative expression"?

Duh!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Immigrants are quite often selected for success. Some shlub from a Zimbabwe ghetto isn't getting in. A highly educated black South African will have little trouble immigrating.

Huh?

The latter might have a chance at a H1-B visa, the former doesn't. A chance is nothing like little trouble, though.

And the shlub from a Zimbabwe ghetto is getting in if they marry an American. There was absolutely no investigation of my wife's skills or finances when I applied for a green card for her. Just a criminal background check and a medical check. What they were interested in was whether it was about love or just a green card marriage.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Since it’s an entirely fake case, there is an opportunity for Colorado to challenge the ruling, which it’s expected to do—and which could cause the USSC to throw out the case and the ruling. I am flabbergasted and outraged that this this was not discovered by Colorado before it reached its Supreme Court.

Or somebody knew and sat on the information.

I don't really think that matters, though--zap this case and another will take it's place. It's not like the court would rule differently unless God strikes down some of his sinners (they are remarkably unChristian) before it's heard.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Web design is not the same thing as publishing. There is a line somewhere between publishing, hosting content, and pasting in content as requested by a client. Whereever that line is doesn't matter to me in this case because the case we have here is a christofascist camel sticking its nose under the tent under the guise of protecting speech.

But it’s not ‘pasting in content as requested by client.’ Clients who are capable of creating their own content would use a template.

It’s actually creating content for the clients. To me, that is absolutely key.

It can be cut and paste. Some people aren't technically literate enough to do it. I have been paid to paste text into a website before--they had no idea of how to use the editor, it was no big deal for me to figure out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Welcome to the New/Old America!

Most of your list is not creative.

Note that most of us supporting this decision are limiting it to creative things. Providing a standard service to all comers is very different than providing a creative one. It only becomes relevant when the nature of the customer changes the product, not when it's stock or quasi-stock (made-to-order from a list of stock choices.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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

13 is the lowest law--but 6 states do it only on parental or court (or both) consent without an age limit. To a large degree I think court consent should be able to override age laws, but not to this degree.

 

[Toni]

Web design is not the same thing as publishing. There is a line somewhere between publishing, hosting content, and pasting in content as requested by a client. Whereever that line is doesn't matter to me in this case because the case we have here is a christofascist camel sticking its nose under the tent under the guise of protecting speech.

But it’s not ‘pasting in content as requested by client.’ Clients who are capable of creating their own content would use a template.

It’s actually creating content for the clients. To me, that is absolutely key.

It can be cut and paste. Some people aren't technically literate enough to do it. I have been paid to paste text into a website before--they had no idea of how to use the editor, it was no big deal for me to figure out.

Right. I've done that as well, although not for a wedding website. But I've published newsletters using an established template/software; I've created programs for performances using (and sometimes slightly modifying) a template and using mostly text provided to me. That particular job it was necessary to be consistent with institution standards--very few degrees of freedom to be creative. That's not what I'm talking about. That's not this.

I've seen enough wedding websites to know that it is NOT cut and paste. It's curating photographs. It's selecting font. It's selecting poetry or music (original or otherwise), it's guiding the customers to make tasteful selections that go with their entire theme. There's a LOT to it, if it's done well.

If it were that easy, people would just use an online template and create their own. Some people do and do it well! Others? Not.

 

[Copernicus]

I don't really think that matters, though--zap this case and another will take it's place. It's not like the court would rule differently unless God strikes down some of his sinners (they are remarkably unChristian) before it's heard.

It mattered enough to the framers of the Constitution that they explicitly banned federal courts from giving advisory opinions on hypothetical controversies. There have to be two real parties engaged in the controversy and real harm experienced by one or both parties. In this case, the website designer never actually experienced anything other than a vicarious fear of being asked to design a site for a gay marriage. She didn't actually receive the bogus request for such a service until after she filed the lawsuit. And there was no actual party being discriminated against, so that party couldn't give an opposing argument. It was a set-up from front to back, and, if it really didn't matter, then it ought at least to have been a valid case for a federal court to consider. These slap-dash rulings coming out of SCOTUS do matter, because they affect a lot of people and, when they shatter precedents, they have consequences that may go beyond the hypothetical case at issue.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

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?

I wish, SCOTUS ruled businesses can find god a while ago.

 

[Bomb#20]

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?

It isn't difficult. Why on earth do so many people think when they're disagreed with it's because people find their reasoning "difficult"? Your reasoning is tediously easy to follow. The reason your argument gets rejected is because it's stupid, evil, and illegal, not because it's "difficult".

Selling labor to an employer is a business transaction. If you may not exhibit your bigotry during any business transaction, then when your boss quits and your metaboss hires a woman to replace him, but you're a fundamentalist who takes St. Paul's idiotic "No women bossing men" rule seriously, so you quit your job and go looking for another man to sell your labor to, the government can prosecute you for quitting your job. That's a Thirteenth Amendment violation.

Now I know what you're going to say. You're going to say buying labor from an employee is a business transaction but selling labor to an employer is not a business transaction, and if I can't see this it's because your argument was too "difficult" for me, not because they are one and the same transaction. A transaction is not magically both a business transaction and not a business transaction because reasons.

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.

What is or isn't "a business" is not a matter of "simple fact". It's a matter of arbitrary subjective labeling. If your argument were sound legal reasoning then the government could cancel any constitutional right it felt like whenever it pleased by the trivial expedient of labeling whatever activity it's suppressing "a business". "Business" is not defined in the Constitution. But that's okay -- we don't need a definition of it, because "unless you're running a business" is featured in our Bill of Rights exactly as prominently as "some animals are more equal than others".

What is a "simple fact" is that freedom of speech is a constitutional right, and nondiscrimination is a statutory right. Arguments like yours are transparent attempts to rationalize making statutory law trump constitutional law because the arguer likes the statute better than the Constitution.

 

[Copernicus]

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?

It isn't difficult. Why on earth do so many people think when they're disagreed with it's because people find their reasoning "difficult"? Your reasoning is tediously easy to follow. The reason your argument gets rejected is because it's stupid, evil, and illegal, not because it's "difficult".

Selling labor to an employer is a business transaction. If you may not exhibit your bigotry during any business transaction, then when your boss quits and your metaboss hires a woman to replace him, but you're a fundamentalist who takes St. Paul's idiotic "No women bossing men" rule seriously, so you quit your job and go looking for another man to sell your labor to, the government can prosecute you for quitting your job. That's a Thirteenth Amendment violation.

Now I know what you're going to say. You're going to say buying labor from an employee is a business transaction but selling labor to an employer is not a business transaction, and if I can't see this it's because your argument was too "difficult" for me, not because they are one and the same transaction. A transaction is not magically both a business transaction and not a business transaction because reasons.

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.

What is or isn't "a business" is not a matter of "simple fact". It's a matter of arbitrary subjective labeling. If your argument were sound legal reasoning then the government could cancel any constitutional right it felt like whenever it pleased by the trivial expedient of labeling whatever activity it's suppressing "a business". "Business" is not defined in the Constitution. But that's okay -- we don't need a definition of it, because "unless you're running a business" is featured in our Bill of Rights exactly as prominently as "some animals are more equal than others".

What is a "simple fact" is that freedom of speech is a constitutional right, and nondiscrimination is a statutory right. Arguments like yours are transparent attempts to rationalize making statutory law trump constitutional law because the arguer likes the statute better than the Constitution.

No, bilby is right on this one. Speech is statutorily regulated, and so are businesses. Businesses are legally defined corporations, as was the LLC named in the title of the lawsuit at issue. They must obey the laws, just as individuals must. An individual seeking employment is not the kind of business transaction at issue here. It is selling goods and services to the general public.

The role of the Supreme Court is to resolve issues regarding legal conflicts, and they have just ruled that a first amendment right to freedom of expression by an individual can override another individual's 14th amendment right to buy goods and services from a publicly regulated business that offers those goods and services to everyone else. The owner of the business cannot be compelled to supply goods and services when that owner feels compelled to express support for a law that implements 14th amendment protection to classes of individuals. In this case, the protected class is individuals belonging to the LGBT class, but the broad ruling by SCOTUS could extend to other protected groups. IOW, freedom of speech is now a tool for limiting antidiscrimination laws.

 

[Gospel]

Let's not misconstrue this. Statutory laws can be revised if they are deemed unconstitutional. The crux of the matter here, particularly with reference to the Civil Rights Act, is whether you truly condone the idea of enabling discrimination. Debating the legality of a law is one aspect; aligning with its fundamental purpose is a different conversation.

Edit: American citizens might want to contemplate renaming their country from the United States to the "Stay in Your Lane" States

 

[Bomb#20]

...
Selling labor to an employer is a business transaction. If you may not exhibit your bigotry during any business transaction, then when your boss quits and your metaboss hires a woman to replace him, but you're a fundamentalist who takes St. Paul's idiotic "No women bossing men" rule seriously, so you quit your job and go looking for another man to sell your labor to, the government can prosecute you for quitting your job. That's a Thirteenth Amendment violation.
...
What is or isn't "a business" is not a matter of "simple fact". It's a matter of arbitrary subjective labeling. If your argument were sound legal reasoning then the government could cancel any constitutional right it felt like whenever it pleased by the trivial expedient of labeling whatever activity it's suppressing "a business". ...

What is a "simple fact" is that freedom of speech is a constitutional right, and nondiscrimination is a statutory right. Arguments like yours are transparent attempts to rationalize making statutory law trump constitutional law because the arguer likes the statute better than the Constitution.

No, bilby is right on this one. Speech is statutorily regulated, and so are businesses. Businesses are legally defined corporations, as was the LLC named in the title of the lawsuit at issue. They must obey the laws, just as individuals must.

And the laws must obey the laws, just as individuals and businesses must. "That's a business" is not a get-out-of-the-Bill-of-Rights-free card. If it were then Richard Nixon could have banned the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers.

An individual seeking employment is not the kind of business transaction at issue here.

If an employer were refusing to hire somebody because he was in a gay marriage do you seriously think bilby would say his reasoning doesn't apply because an individual seeking employment is not the kind of business transaction at issue here?

(Moreover, I was talking about an already employed individual seeking non-employment. Bilby's argument plainly implies it should be illegal to quit your job for discriminatory reasons. Ergo his argument is plainly wrong.)

It is selling goods and services to the general public.

And the reason it is is because some statute says so.

The role of the Supreme Court is to resolve issues regarding legal conflicts, and they have just ruled that a first amendment right to freedom of expression by an individual can override another individual's 14th amendment right to buy goods and services from a publicly regulated business that offers those goods and services to everyone else.

Where in the 14th amendment do you see such a thing as a "right to buy goods and services from a publicly regulated business that offers those goods and services to everyone else"? The 14th amendment guarantees citizens the right to be treated the same as everyone else by the state. It doesn't say a bloody thing about being treated the same as everyone else by private citizens.

The owner of the business cannot be compelled to supply goods and services when that owner feels compelled to express support for a law that implements 14th amendment protection to classes of individuals.

The law is not implementing 14th Amendment protection. It is implementing Title VII Civil Rights Act protection. No amount of sophistry is going to magically change a statute into constitutional law. You might as well get the government to enter a contract with you in which they promise to make your Christian neighbor say "God is dead.", and then claim their obligation to fulfill their contract is on equal standing with their obligation to respect her freedom of religion.

In this case, the protected class is individuals belonging to the LGBT class, but the broad ruling by SCOTUS could extend to other protected groups. IOW, freedom of speech is now a tool for limiting antidiscrimination laws.

"Now"? It always has been. Constitutions are tools for limiting legislatures. That's kind of their point.

The Constitution guarantees free speech but not private nondiscrimination because Congress and the ratifying states agreed to protect free speech instead of agreeing to make private citizens write promotions of stuff they disagree with. If you think antidiscrimination laws should be a tool for limiting free speech rather than vice versa, you're free to go agitate for a constitutional amendment making the 1st Amendment subordinate to statutory law. But be careful what you wish for. If Congress is given the power to make people who say "Yay straight marriage" also say "Yay gay marriage", it will equally have the power to make people who say "Yay Democrats" also say "Yay Republicans". A "protected group" is whatever a government says* it is. There's nothing to stop Congress from making Republicans a protected group.

(* Funny story about that. Progressives tend to love the whole "protected group" concept because they take for granted that they'll be put in charge of defining which groups are protected; but it turns out some red states got clever and defined Israelis as a protected group and passed antidiscrimination laws stomping on the BDS movement. Progressives mostly didn't like that so much.)

 

[bilby]

Bilby's argument plainly implies it should be illegal to quit your job for discriminatory reasons.

No, it really doesn't.

An employee is not a one person labour hire business.

 

[bilby]

The IRS can tell you the difference between an employee and a labour hire business.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/business-structures

Businesses are clearly defined in US taxation and corporate law, and an employee is not a business, and so could not be a business engaged in unlawful discrimination, regardless of their level of bigotry.

Of course, when an employee is acting on behalf of your business, your business is required to ensure that they act within the law; But quitting for bigoted reasons isn't an action on behalf of your business, and so is not subject to legal constraints against discriminatory behaviour by businesses.

 

[scombrid]

America where corporations have all the rights and none of the responsibilities of citizens. We need to just repeal the 14th already and put Clarence in jail for being married to a white woman.