Fake Gay Marriage Website and SCOTUS Ruling

[laughing dog]

So the ultimate question is whether or not consenting to engage in creative work implies at least some degree of acceptance and support of the belief of the customer.

It has nothing to do with the beliefs of the customers. It is about refusing to provide a product to some customers while providing the same products to others.

No, it transparently is not. ….

A wedding website for heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple is still a wedding website no matter how many hairs you wish to split.

 

[laughing dog]

My point was “freedom of speech” has limits and that no limit is sacred. I am sorry I was not more explicit because it would have saved you some time and effort.

This is a case about freedom not to speak. You are equivocating. Your argument encourages readers to incorrectly jump from the uncontroversial premise that freedom to speak has limits to the illogical conclusion that freedom not to speak has limits.

No, this is a case about refusing to make and a sell a commercial product to some while selling to others. Your argument encourages readers to focus on the irrelevant.

 

[Bomb#20]

No, it transparently is not. ….

A wedding website for heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple is still a wedding website no matter how many hairs you wish to split.

A wedding website for the marriage of Bigus Dickus to Incontinentia Buttux is still a wedding website, but I doubt if you'd object to a designer declining to associate herself with such an event. "Wedding website" is an arbitrary category you made up. People are all free to categorize different products into the same category any way they please, but the circumstance that you are able to dream up a category two products both go in does not give a court a substantive reason to assume whatever things you wish to be lumped together are interchangeable parts, and to treat the differences between the products as legally irrelevant.

 

[laughing dog]

No, it transparently is not. ….

A wedding website for heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple is still a wedding website no matter how many hairs you wish to split.

A wedding website for the marriage of Bigus Dickus to Incontinentia Buttux is still a wedding website, but I doubt if you'd object to a designer declining to associate herself with such an event. "Wedding website" is an arbitrary category you made up. People are all free to categorize different products into the same category any way they please, but the circumstance that you are able to dream up a category two products both go in does not give a court a substantive reason to assume whatever things you wish to be lumped together are interchangeable parts, and to treat the differences between the products as legally irrelevant.

I made up no arbitrary categories. This SCOTUS has no problem making up rationales to suit their needs which leads me to find your response ironic and without merit.

 

[Bomb#20]

In Iran, they'll kill a person for being gay. And we look at that as backward.
In the US, they'll refuse to make a wedding cake because the couple is gay. And we applaud their "right" to do this?

Is discrimination only okay when it is trite?

Discrimination is only okay, apparently, when the discriminator is in your ingroup.

 

[Bomb#20]

I know what protected classes are. I also know that being a member of a protected class is not carte blanche for violating the rights of other people.

Yet you're demonstrating agitation for one protected class over the other.

And? One so-called "protected class"* is protected by a run-of-the-mill act of the Colorado legislature. The other is protected by the U.S. Constitution. Why on earth shouldn't one agitate for enforcing the Constitution and overturning unconstitutional state laws? To agitate for the state-"protected class" over the Constitution-"protected class"** other than by agitating for amending the Constitution is to throw rule-of-law out the window and agitate for a government of unlimited powers.

(* The whole concept of a "protected class" is a slap in the 14th Amendment's face. People are supposed to be protected equally regardless of classifications.)

(** And the Constitution's so-called "protected class" is actually a countryful of protected individuals, not a protected class. The same 14th Amendment that extended the rule against Congress prohibiting the free exercise of religion to the states also extends the same protection to atheists.)

 

[Elixir]

Who the bejesus said it was sending "a message about the website's designer"?

Well, according to the plaintiff’s implication, that would be GOD. You’re not going to argue with GOD, are you?

I don't care what her motivations were.

I'm not in favor of giving the government that kind of power.
Tom

You WOULD be if you were still suitably addicted to GOD!!!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

(** And the Constitution's so-called "protected class" is actually a countryful of protected individuals, not a protected class. The same 14th Amendment that extended the rule against Congress prohibiting the free exercise of religion to the states also extends the same protection to atheists.)

The issue here is the consideration that corporations are people. That sure the heck isn't in the Constitution.

 

[Shadowy Man]

(* The whole concept of a "protected class" is a slap in the 14th Amendment's face. People are supposed to be protected equally regardless of classifications.)

so a “no shirt no shoes no service” sign should be equally legal as a “no blacks” sign?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think she's expressing it fine and you just don't want to see it.

She and I are taking approximately the same position: Creativity is involved in providing the good. Not merely in producing a standard good.

Medical treatment is no less a creative activity than web design, so your response is off point.

Moreover, in my view, creativity is irrelevant in this commercial situation.

Creative? Ask 10 doctors, you should get the same answer from each. It's highly skilled, it's rarely creative.

 

[laughing dog]

I think she's expressing it fine and you just don't want to see it.

She and I are taking approximately the same position: Creativity is involved in providing the good. Not merely in producing a standard good.

Medical treatment is no less a creative activity than web design, so your response is off point.

Moreover, in my view, creativity is irrelevant in this commercial situation.

Creative? Ask 10 doctors, you should get the same answer from each. It's highly skilled, it's rarely creative.

Practicing medicine is problem-solving. Sometimes the problem is easy, sometimes it is not. Just like web design - sometimes it is easy, sometimes not. Problem-solving involves creativity.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I think she's expressing it fine and you just don't want to see it.

She and I are taking approximately the same position: Creativity is involved in providing the good. Not merely in producing a standard good.

Medical treatment is no less a creative activity than web design, so your response is off point.

Moreover, in my view, creativity is irrelevant in this commercial situation.

Creative? Ask 10 doctors, you should get the same answer from each. It's highly skilled, it's rarely creative.

Practicing medicine is problem-solving. Sometimes the problem is easy, sometimes it is not. Just like web design - sometimes it is easy, sometimes not. Problem-solving involves creativity.

Unfortunately, most of the physicians I’ve dealt with are not good at problem solving.

One can say that baking is a creative endeavor but many people can successfully bake something simply by following a recipe invented by more creative people.

I have found that most physicians are more like that baker following a recipe than truly being creative when dealing with me and my ailments.

 

[laughing dog]

I think she's expressing it fine and you just don't want to see it.

She and I are taking approximately the same position: Creativity is involved in providing the good. Not merely in producing a standard good.

Medical treatment is no less a creative activity than web design, so your response is off point.

Moreover, in my view, creativity is irrelevant in this commercial situation.

Creative? Ask 10 doctors, you should get the same answer from each. It's highly skilled, it's rarely creative.

Practicing medicine is problem-solving. Sometimes the problem is easy, sometimes it is not. Just like web design - sometimes it is easy, sometimes not. Problem-solving involves creativity.

Unfortunately, most of the physicians I’ve dealt with are not good at problem solving.

One can say that baking is a creative endeavor but many people can successfully bake something simply by following a recipe invented by more creative people.

I have found that most physicians are more like that baker following a recipe than truly being creative when dealing with me and my ailments.

It seems to me that you confuse "creative" with "successful". One can be creative and still be unsuccessful.

More to the point, web design is also an activity that many people simply follow designs made by others. Which means that medicine is no less creative than web design by LP's standard.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Practicing medicine is problem-solving. Sometimes the problem is easy, sometimes it is not. Just like web design - sometimes it is easy, sometimes not. Problem-solving involves creativity.

Unfortunately, most of the physicians I’ve dealt with are not good at problem solving.

One can say that baking is a creative endeavor but many people can successfully bake something simply by following a recipe invented by more creative people.

I have found that most physicians are more like that baker following a recipe than truly being creative when dealing with me and my ailments.

It seems to me that you confuse "creative" with "successful". One can be creative and still be unsuccessful.

I don’t understand your comment. I believe that physicians can be successful without being creative, that’s my point.

I don’t disagree that one can be creative and unsuccessful — enough so-called “starving artists” can attest to that. I don’t see how we are in conflict here.

 

[Bomb#20]

(* The whole concept of a "protected class" is a slap in the 14th Amendment's face. People are supposed to be protected equally regardless of classifications.)

so a “no shirt no shoes no service” sign should be equally legal as a “no blacks” sign?

Of course not, as the part of my post you snipped shows. A “no blacks” sign is illegal because it's discrimination on the basis of race, not because black people are a protected class. Framing the issue in terms of class membership rather than in terms of decision criteria is a recipe for teaching the public to make bad arguments and acquire bad mental habits.

Maybe an analogy will make this clearer. I presume you've heard of "intellectual property"? It's a catch-all term for copyrights, trademarks and patents. But there's no basis for the concept in common law, in statute law, or in the Constitution. "Intellectual property" is more correctly called by its original name, "propriété intellectuelle".
Treating copyrights, trademarks and patents as different aspects of the same underlying thing is an idea from French law that lawyers have tried to graft into Anglo-American law. But copyrights, trademarks and patents are three different things, each with its own history, legal bases, and limitations. In particular, as the Constitution makes clear, the purpose of copyrights and patents is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." I.e., the government is promising potential authors "Create stuff for us and we'll give you a reward". That's not a property right. That's what's called a "unilateral contract", the same thing as "Reward, $100 for return of my lost dog".

What's the difference, you may well ask? Huge. If you think of an artist's relation to the cartoon he drew as a property right, then the endlessly repeated lengthening of the terms of copyrights will seem reasonable, because you'll think of a copyright expiration as a transfer of the cartoon -- from owned by him to owned by the public. And you'll think of the "for limited times" bit in the Costitution as an annoying error that Congress needs to work around by achieving the permanent ownership of Mickey Mouse for Disney and his heirs that the "property right" theory implies they're entitled to, using the charade of extending the copyright for a finite period infinitely often instead of making it last forever all at once. But when you think of a copyright as the contract it actually is, it's retroactively lengthening the term of the copyright after the author already accepted the original deal he was offered that's a transfer -- from the public to the author. The government took away the public's right to copy the work after 28 years and gave it to the author for free, same as if they passed an ex-post-facto law saying "Hey, dog owner, we've decided that guy you gave a hundred bucks to when he found your dog is entitled to two hundred."

(Incidentally, all this isn't just me blowing legal smoke. John Paul Stevens made exactly the same point in one of his SCOTUS opinions.)

Anyway, my point is, thinking of antidiscrimination law as a matter of whether someone is in a "protected class" encourages the same mushheadedness as thinking of a copyright as "intellectual property".

 

[Shadowy Man]

So where does homosexuality lie on the continuum between race and shirtless? Is it more like race and thus not a “protected class” or is it a classification like not wearing a shirt? If there is indeed a continuum, which we would all likely agree there is, then we need some kind of way to make legal distinctions. A line has to be drawn. How else other than explicit enumeration should we do this?

 

[laughing dog]

So where does homosexuality lie on the continuum between race and shirtless? Is it more like race and thus not a “protected class” or is it a classification like not wearing a shirt? If there is indeed a continuum, which we would all likely agree there is, then we need some kind of way to make legal distinctions. A line has to be drawn. How else other than explicit enumeration should we do this?

One line could be choice. One can choose to wear a shirt or to go shirtless. Typically, one does not choose one’s sexual preferences or eye color or ethnicity.

 

[Shadowy Man]

So where does homosexuality lie on the continuum between race and shirtless? Is it more like race and thus not a “protected class” or is it a classification like not wearing a shirt? If there is indeed a continuum, which we would all likely agree there is, then we need some kind of way to make legal distinctions. A line has to be drawn. How else other than explicit enumeration should we do this?

One line could be choice. One can choose to wear a shirt or to go shirtless. Typically, one does not choose one’s sexual preferences or eye color or ethnicity.

That’s not a fully agreed upon opinion though. Especially with bigots. That’s why it’s good to have these things explicitly stated in law.

 

[TomC]

So where does homosexuality lie on the continuum between race and shirtless? Is it more like race and thus not a “protected class” or is it a classification like not wearing a shirt? If there is indeed a continuum, which we would all likely agree there is, then we need some kind of way to make legal distinctions. A line has to be drawn. How else other than explicit enumeration should we do this?

How about we lose the focus on a continuum of personal characteristics and focus on a continuum of needfulness of service?

EMT services are critical. Fancy cakes are not. How about instead of protected demographic categories we have protected service categories?

Substitute "privileged" for "protected" if you prefer. It's the same thing, in this context.
Tom

 

[Gospel]

I know what protected classes are. I also know that being a member of a protected class is not carte blanche for violating the rights of other people.

Yet you're demonstrating agitation for one protected class over the other.

And? One so-called "protected class"* is protected by a run-of-the-mill act of the Colorado legislature. The other is protected by the U.S. Constitution. Why on earth shouldn't one agitate for enforcing the Constitution and overturning unconstitutional state laws? To agitate for the state-"protected class" over the Constitution-"protected class"** other than by agitating for amending the Constitution is to throw rule-of-law out the window and agitate for a government of unlimited powers.

(* The whole concept of a "protected class" is a slap in the 14th Amendment's face. People are supposed to be protected equally regardless of classifications.)

(** And the Constitution's so-called "protected class" is actually a countryful of protected individuals, not a protected class. The same 14th Amendment that extended the rule against Congress prohibiting the free exercise of religion to the states also extends the same protection to atheists.)

The creation of a "protected class" does not inherently conflict with the 14th Amendment's tenets. Instead, it's bolstering the amendment's principles. The 14th Amendment promises equal protection under the law for all citizens, but historical instances show that certain groups are frequently more susceptible to discrimination and prejudice. The formation of protected classes is a response to this reality, seeking to augment the 14th Amendment's goals by acting as the EL15 for citizens who don't understand it.

In my perspective, the U.S. Constitution is not an immutable document. It is a dynamic embodiment of our nation's values and principles, shaped by context-specific interpretations and guided by Supreme Court precedents. Through periodic amendments and revisions, it continuously evolves, mirroring our changing societal landscape and growing comprehension of human rights and liberties.

State-established protected classes do not represent an overreaching government but are efforts to foster a more equitable society. They aim to tackle specific forms of discrimination that might not be adequately addressed by federal laws. There will come a time when such specifics may no longer be required, a point at which we, as a collective society, will agree to modify the constitution and relevant laws as needed.

Indeed, the 14th Amendment ensures protection for all, including atheists, but that doesn't negate the need for specific laws safeguarding particular groups. Each of society's diverse factions face unique experiences and challenges that call for tailored protections. Anti-discrimination laws can be seen as a more detailed interpretation of the 14th Amendment, providing further specifics for those who might not fully grasp its broad mandates.

Advocacy for state-protected classes is not tantamount to rejecting the Constitution or the rule of law. Rather, it signals an understanding that within our constitutional framework, there is room for legislation that can address unique societal needs and injustices. While I may not necessarily agree with every law, I do not perceive state laws and the Constitution as inherently antagonistic. Instead, I view them as elements of a nuanced, adaptable system dedicated to a shared goal: the preservation of justice and the assurance of equal rights for all.