Fake Gay Marriage Website and SCOTUS Ruling

[Emily Lake]

There's a nuance in here that I'm having trouble expressing. It seems clear to me that treating an illness has no connection to one's views on sexual orientation...

You weren't around during the AIDS panic, were you?

Were people with AIDS denied medical care because of their presumed sexuality? I am well aware of the social stigma around AIDS, but I don't recall doctors and nurses refusing to provide medical care because the people with that condition were assumed to be homosexuals. Nor do I remember any doctors or nurses saying they'd only treat people who got AIDS from sharing needles during drug use, but would not treat people who got it from sex.

Umm
Yeah, actually they were. It was complex.
But the cheap hospitals were run by Christians, and people really were turned away because they were An Abomination Before The Lord. Aids was often seen as God's Vengeance upon evildoers.

Things have changed hugely since the Reagan Administration. But yeah, that was the reality of the day.
Tom

That sucks.

 

[Copernicus]

After all this time, people are still arguing over hypothetical situations and cases, even though there was no actual discrimination or requirement to design a web site in the case that SCOTUS rammed down everyone's throats. It was an unconstitutional advisory opinion, and I suspect that the six justices knew that but realized there was nobody to call them on it. They have the final say on what the Constitution means, no matter what anyone else believes about it. Theoretically, the justices could be impeached, ha, ha. Now Alito is telling Congress that they can't even impose ethics rules on them. But Congress doesn't have the votes to pass any restrictions or changes on SCOTUS. Republicans have their rocket docket for striking down laws and precedents that they don't like, and boy are they going to take advantage of it. This is better than winning control of Congress, because they can even win the culture war, if they are clever enough at constructing softballs to pitch up to the Court.

 

[Emily Lake]

It does not forbid religion nor does it endorse religion.

Religion as a protected class is an endorsement of religion.

And yet religion is expressly protected in the first amendment. Not any specific religion, and it has been interpreted to include the absence of religion, but it is still there.

Also, religion is specifically listed as one of the protected classes so frequently appealed to in this discussion. You might not want it to be, but there it is.

 

[ZiprHead]

I see this case as a conflict between two rights guaranteed under the US Constitution: First Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion and the 14th Amendment along with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Let's ponder this for a moment. The First Amendment begins unequivocally with:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

The term "no" leaves no room for ambiguity. Thus, any law respecting an establishment of religion would violate the Constitution. This implies that the classification of religion as a protected class could be deemed unconstitutional.

The first amendment prohibits the government from establishing a state religion. That's what that first clause means. And that isn't something being discussed here at all.

But that same sentence goes on to say "or prohibiting its free exercise".

Is creating wedding websites and baking cakes a religious exercise?

 

[Emily Lake]

Medical situations. Do you think nurses and doctors can just willy nilly not treat gay people and keep their jobs?

How do you figure that a nurse or doctor treating a patient qualifies as them expressing a view in support of homosexuality?

If one thinks homosexuality is a mortal sin, then helping a homosexual stay healthy is promoting sin.

There's a nuance in here that I'm having trouble expressing. It seems clear to me that treating an illness has no connection to one's views on sexual orientation... but that creating a product for a wedding does have a connection to one's views on sexual orientation.

Why? Both situations involve providing a service or a good.

As to the rest of your response, disallowing people to use religion to discriminate against others in commerce is not discrimination against religion or the religious. No one is forced to believe anything against their will.

Not all services or goods are available to all people, and I don't think they need to be. Some goods are, for lack of a better term, necessary goods and services. Failure to have access to them places an undue burden on people, materially affects their overall quality of life, and in many cases increases their direct risk of death or injury. Things like access to basic food materials, shelter, necessary medical care. On the other hand... yachts are also a good, and personal masseuses are a service. But they're not necessary, and failure to have access to them isn't going to actually injure anyone.

That sounds quite like separate but equal to me.

I demand my yacht right now.

 

[Emily Lake]

Really? What protected group are white heterosexual cis men in? I mean, they still pretty much rule the world but which protected legal class?

If we are ALL in a protected class, then what is the point of protected classes.

I'm sorry: I'm really tired and maybe I'm missing stuff....

If race is protected then white is protected.
If sexuality is protected then heterosexual is protected.
If gender is protected then cis is protected.

There are some who do not believe that it's possible to discriminate against the majority but obviously they never heard of apartheid South Africa.

What happens when there are conflicts though?

It's easy to say that if sexuality is protected, then heterosexuality is also protected. It's more challenging to realize that when sexuality is protected, religion is not protected.

It's easy to say that if gender is protected, then "cis" is also protected. It's more challenging to acknowledge that when gender is protected, sex is not protected.

It's especially challenging when you have to acknowledge that those conflicts exist, and also acknowledge that there may not be a single one-size-suits-all answer to it, and that there may need to be some case by case considerations put into place. For example, when the service or good being provided is off-the-shelf, then sexuality trumps religion; when the service or good is bespoke and is not deemed a necessary good, then religion trumps sexuality.

Religion IS protected.

I think perhaps you missed my point. There are situations in which both things cannot be fully protected, and where some decision needs to be made about which is more in need of protecting due to the particular circumstances involved.

Both religion and sexual orientation cannot be equally protected in all situations. There must be some situations in which one is granted precedence over the other, and other situations that are the opposite.

 

[ZiprHead]

Medical situations. Do you think nurses and doctors can just willy nilly not treat gay people and keep their jobs?

How do you figure that a nurse or doctor treating a patient qualifies as them expressing a view in support of homosexuality?

If one thinks homosexuality is a mortal sin, then helping a homosexual stay healthy is promoting sin.

There's a nuance in here that I'm having trouble expressing. It seems clear to me that treating an illness has no connection to one's views on sexual orientation... but that creating a product for a wedding does have a connection to one's views on sexual orientation.

Why? Both situations involve providing a service or a good.

As to the rest of your response, disallowing people to use religion to discriminate against others in commerce is not discrimination against religion or the religious. No one is forced to believe anything against their will.

Not all services or goods are available to all people, and I don't think they need to be. Some goods are, for lack of a better term, necessary goods and services. Failure to have access to them places an undue burden on people, materially affects their overall quality of life, and in many cases increases their direct risk of death or injury. Things like access to basic food materials, shelter, necessary medical care. On the other hand... yachts are also a good, and personal masseuses are a service. But they're not necessary, and failure to have access to them isn't going to actually injure anyone.

That sounds quite like separate but equal to me.

I demand my yacht right now.

That you would say such a thing shows how poor your analogy was.

 

[Emily Lake]

I see this case as a conflict between two rights guaranteed under the US Constitution: First Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion and the 14th Amendment along with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Let's ponder this for a moment. The First Amendment begins unequivocally with:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

The term "no" leaves no room for ambiguity. Thus, any law respecting an establishment of religion would violate the Constitution. This implies that the classification of religion as a protected class could be deemed unconstitutional.

The first amendment prohibits the government from establishing a state religion. That's what that first clause means. And that isn't something being discussed here at all.

But that same sentence goes on to say "or prohibiting its free exercise".

Is creating wedding websites and baking cakes a religious exercise?

To the extent that weddings are religious observances for most people, yes, I think there is an argument to be made.

 

[TomC]

There's a nuance in here that I'm having trouble expressing. It seems clear to me that treating an illness has no connection to one's views on sexual orientation...

You weren't around during the AIDS panic, were you?

Were people with AIDS denied medical care because of their presumed sexuality? I am well aware of the social stigma around AIDS, but I don't recall doctors and nurses refusing to provide medical care because the people with that condition were assumed to be homosexuals. Nor do I remember any doctors or nurses saying they'd only treat people who got AIDS from sharing needles during drug use, but would not treat people who got it from sex.

Umm
Yeah, actually they were. It was complex.
But the cheap hospitals were run by Christians, and people really were turned away because they were An Abomination Before The Lord. Aids was often seen as God's Vengeance upon evildoers.

Things have changed hugely since the Reagan Administration. But yeah, that was the reality of the day.
Tom

That sucks.

It was also decades ago.

USA society has moved on since then. Become vastly better.

What's most aggravating about this conversation is the conservatives who think we still live in the days of old. We don't. But they refuse to see it and insist that their ideological bent should still rule.

Rather like the old timey folks who knew that "A woman's place is in the home", "Black people are dirty and too dumb to vote", and "Men turn gay so that they can molest children."

T'was ever thus. All decent folks assume that their opinions are based on the obvious, no matter what it is.
Tom

 

[TomC]

Medical situations. Do you think nurses and doctors can just willy nilly not treat gay people and keep their jobs?

How do you figure that a nurse or doctor treating a patient qualifies as them expressing a view in support of homosexuality?

If one thinks homosexuality is a mortal sin, then helping a homosexual stay healthy is promoting sin.

There's a nuance in here that I'm having trouble expressing. It seems clear to me that treating an illness has no connection to one's views on sexual orientation... but that creating a product for a wedding does have a connection to one's views on sexual orientation.

Why? Both situations involve providing a service or a good.

As to the rest of your response, disallowing people to use religion to discriminate against others in commerce is not discrimination against religion or the religious. No one is forced to believe anything against their will.

Not all services or goods are available to all people, and I don't think they need to be. Some goods are, for lack of a better term, necessary goods and services. Failure to have access to them places an undue burden on people, materially affects their overall quality of life, and in many cases increases their direct risk of death or injury. Things like access to basic food materials, shelter, necessary medical care. On the other hand... yachts are also a good, and personal masseuses are a service. But they're not necessary, and failure to have access to them isn't going to actually injure anyone.

That sounds quite like separate but equal to me.

I demand my yacht right now.

That you would say such a thing shows how poor your analogy was.

Might you possibly do better on the long nested quotes thing?

 

[ZiprHead]

I see this case as a conflict between two rights guaranteed under the US Constitution: First Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion and the 14th Amendment along with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Let's ponder this for a moment. The First Amendment begins unequivocally with:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

The term "no" leaves no room for ambiguity. Thus, any law respecting an establishment of religion would violate the Constitution. This implies that the classification of religion as a protected class could be deemed unconstitutional.

The first amendment prohibits the government from establishing a state religion. That's what that first clause means. And that isn't something being discussed here at all.

But that same sentence goes on to say "or prohibiting its free exercise".

Is creating wedding websites and baking cakes a religious exercise?

To the extent that weddings are religious observances for most people, yes, I think there is an argument to be made.

A poor one. The baker and the website designer will not be attending. They have no part in the religious aspect of the marriage.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I see this case as a conflict between two rights guaranteed under the US Constitution: First Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion and the 14th Amendment along with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Let's ponder this for a moment. The First Amendment begins unequivocally with:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

The term "no" leaves no room for ambiguity. Thus, any law respecting an establishment of religion would violate the Constitution. This implies that the classification of religion as a protected class could be deemed unconstitutional.

Not really. It draws a bright line between the state and religion. It does not forbid religion nor does it endorse religion. Founding fathers were of diverse religious beliefs, including none. Jefferson famously clipped out parts of the bible he disagreed with--much like the writers of whatever edition of the bible we're talking about since the Gutenberg press was invented.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution unambiguously declares, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." This clause underscores the paramount importance of safeguarding religion as a separate class, and it explicitly prohibits Congress from legislating laws that either advocate for or discriminate against any particular religion. This directive serves to preserve religious neutrality on the part of the government, as outlined in our Constitution.

Furthermore, the First Amendment explicitly affirms that "Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This provision illustrates that Congress's role extends beyond refraining from legislating in favor or against specific religions. It is also incumbent on Congress to ensure that no legislative measures hinder the right of individuals to freely practice their religion of choice.

In essence, by refraining from legislating in a way that directly impacts religious establishments, either positively or negatively, Congress adheres to the United States Constitution's stipulations. However, if a law exists that seems to promote religion, it would, indeed, appear to contravene the Constitution's explicit directive. Right now we have a law on the books that supports religion which is unconstitutional. No matter how you want to cut it.

Essentially, the government's role should be to exclude religion as a factor in disputes among citizens, consistent with the United States Constitution's stipulation. This mandate ensures the upholding of religious neutrality and the prevention of preferential treatment or discrimination based on religious beliefs. In the case of our imaginative Web designer the government should not recognize religion but only the service denial itself.

If you are a Christian who holds a personal belief opposing same-sex marriage, it's essential to recognize that if you choose to operate within the public sphere, you do so with the knowledge that same-sex marriage is legal. Should your convictions be such that any association with same-sex marriage feels injurious to your faith, you may want to reconsider participating in areas of public service that engage with it. Striking a balance between personal beliefs and public service demands can be challenging, and one must be prepared to navigate this duality without infringing upon the rights of others. It's a matter of understanding that you cannot simultaneously uphold personal beliefs at the expense of public law and expect protections from a Constitution that does not grant you any.

Compelling someone to violate their religious beliefs is a violation of the US Constitution as outlined in your first paragraph.

Can't kill gays. That is a Levite order! So there are limits. Certainly decorating a cake isn't as incasive as making people having to let gays live.

The Boundary between accommodation to faith and acts of "faith" is significant.

 

[Gospel]

It does not forbid religion nor does it endorse religion.

Religion as a protected class is an endorsement of religion.

And yet religion is expressly protected in the first amendment. Not any specific religion, and it has been interpreted to include the absence of religion, but it is still there.

Also, religion is specifically listed as one of the protected classes so frequently appealed to in this discussion. You might not want it to be, but there it is.

Emily, I kindly request that you direct your attention to the substance of my argument rather than assuming or misconstruing my personal motives. The merit of my statements should be the primary focus here. Let's not assume or speculate on my intentions, as that remains known only to me.

 

[bilby]

But I'd have thought the heart of judicial review is to have limited government rather than a British-style unrestrained Parliament

Britain doesn't have an unrestrained parliament.

They just (until the formation of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009) rolled their unelected supreme court into their upper legislative chamber, as the so called "Law Lords", officially the "Lords of Appeal in Ordinary".

That the judges who restrained parliament were sharing the same buildings as the parliament that they restrained, and that they were also directly involved in restraining government legislation even before it had been passed into law, is not an absence of restraint.

No wonder the 13 American colonies broke away from Britain, yawl weird.

As we see elsewhere in our environment, evolution generally leads to incomprehensible but extremely effective and resilient systems, and design to systems that are more easily understood, but fragile and prone to fail in unanticipated situations.

English law basically evolved over time, with ideas being added or subtracted almost at random by a bewildering array of politicians, monarchs, judges, lords, gentlemen, and intellectuals; And discarded whenever they don't seem to fit the purpose of keeping people from riot or revolution.

US law basically got designed from scratch a couple of hundred years ago, and is still trying to determine whether it's even capable of becoming an evolutionary success, without lurching catastrophically into fascism.

Studying American law is like studying engineering. Studying English law is like studying poetry.

 

[Gospel]

Emily, I gather that you don't perceive the designation of religion as a protected class as a form of endorsing religion. Are you familiar with the concept of endorsement, and its implications in the context of a US constitution that says congress shall make no laws respecting an established religion?

 

[Bomb#20]

Let's not forget that slave marriages weren't even legally recognized, so I'm at a loss as to what you're attempting to argue here.

A minor technical dispute between me and laughing dog, because he asked me a question and didn't like the answer.

Further, the slave owner could whimsically dissolve these marriages, even going so far as to sell off one spouse, with no legal recourse for the other to follow.

But, but that would mean, that would mean, slavers were hypocrites?!? And everyone thought they were such fine upstanding principled gentlemen...

 

[Bomb#20]

Based on some legal language I recall reading before it seemed to me that the standard was “sincerely held religious belief”.

Yes, pretty much.

So the “traditional” may be a red herring. Note: I am not a lawyer.

Why would that make "traditional" a red herring? Whether the belief is sincerely held is a question of fact; the court is perfectly entitled to investigate it and examine evidence for and against, same as if they're deciding whether a killer sincerely believed the dead woman was trying to kill him when they're evaluating his self-defense plea. What, if a guy says he has a sincere belief that God wanted him to sell that crystal meth, the court is required to take him at his word just because he intoned the word "God"? A belief is a heck of a lot more likely to be sincere if it was taught to the defendant as a child by a community that's been teaching it to children for hundreds of years than if it's something he just made up himself, suspiciously synchronized with encountering a law he wanted to break.

 

[Gospel]

For those who embrace the exploration of revisionist history with an open heart and keen curiosity, we delve into a synopsis of the American colonists' sentiments on religion. These are the individuals who laid the foundations of what would become the United States of America, their beliefs deeply intertwined with the nation's roots. This historical journey uncovers their intricate views on spirituality and faith, shining a fresh light on the past that shaped the present.

1. Established Church: The Church of England (Anglican Church) was the established church in England, meaning it was supported by the state and had a privileged status in society. Many colonists, particularly those from Nonconformist or Dissenter backgrounds, objected to this religious establishment.
2. Religious Persecution: Some colonists were descendants of or were themselves individuals who had fled religious persecution in England and other parts of Europe. This included Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, and other religious minorities who often faced restrictions on their worship and political rights.
3. Lack of Religious Freedom: Tied to the point above, there was a lack of religious freedom in Britain. The state religion was imposed on the populace, with non-Anglicans often facing legal and social disadvantages. This was a stark contrast to the religious freedom many colonists sought in the New World, where they wanted to practice their beliefs freely.
4. Religious Uniformity: The Church of England enforced a high degree of religious uniformity, particularly in its liturgy and church governance. Many dissenting groups, like the Puritans, sought a more simplified, "pure" form of worship, free from what they perceived as the corrupting influences of ceremony and hierarchy.
5. Autonomy in Governance: Many religious groups in the American colonies wanted to have the right to self-govern their local congregations, as opposed to being dictated by a centralized religious authority across the Atlantic.

So again, Emily, before drawing metaphorical sword and shield to challenge what you perceive as the dragon that is my character, could we examine how the Constitution, which explicitly prohibits any laws favoring or disfavoring religion, also supports the idea of religion as a protected class? I'm keen to understand your perspective on this nuanced issue.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Really? What protected group are white heterosexual cis men in? I mean, they still pretty much rule the world but which protected legal class?

If we are ALL in a protected class, then what is the point of protected classes.

I'm sorry: I'm really tired and maybe I'm missing stuff....

If race is protected then white is protected.
If sexuality is protected then heterosexual is protected.
If gender is protected then cis is protected.

There are some who do not believe that it's possible to discriminate against the majority but obviously they never heard of apartheid South Africa.

What happens when there are conflicts though?

It's easy to say that if sexuality is protected, then heterosexuality is also protected. It's more challenging to realize that when sexuality is protected, religion is not protected.

It's easy to say that if gender is protected, then "cis" is also protected. It's more challenging to acknowledge that when gender is protected, sex is not protected.

It's especially challenging when you have to acknowledge that those conflicts exist, and also acknowledge that there may not be a single one-size-suits-all answer to it, and that there may need to be some case by case considerations put into place. For example, when the service or good being provided is off-the-shelf, then sexuality trumps religion; when the service or good is bespoke and is not deemed a necessary good, then religion trumps sexuality.

Religion IS protected.

I think perhaps you missed my point. There are situations in which both things cannot be fully protected, and where some decision needs to be made about which is more in need of protecting due to the particular circumstances involved.

Both religion and sexual orientation cannot be equally protected in all situations. There must be some situations in which one is granted precedence over the other, and other situations that are the opposite.

Generally it is when one impacts the other. The issue we are suffering from was how the far right-wing SCOTUS managed to sell corporations are people. Because before that, who's civil rights matter more, the person or the corporation. Well, corporations don't have civil rights, they have a different set of right. So, it was a defaulted judgment that the customer had to be reserved access to services because corporations weren't people.

Today, corporations can be people (talk about identifying as something one isn't!) and it muddles the conversation. Now a limited liability company that exists more on paper than in any metaphysical way gets to have the employees (or is it just the owner?) demand religious exemptions that impact third parties.

How about this? Can a website designer have a second staff member, one who is totally cool with making a website for a gay couple, fire the staff member if he made the website? Is a corporation compelled to have to provide the service if someone at the place would provide it, even if the owner or whomever would refuse? Just how much leeway are we providing the intolerance... I mean religious beliefs of one person?

 

[Gospel]

The SCOTUS is always grappling with how to maintain the balance between the government's duty not to establish a religion, while also not inhibiting the free exercise of religion—a tension that lies at the heart of First Amendment jurisprudence.

IMO - The impact of a web designer creating a website for a same-sex couple on their ability to practice their religion is as negligible as the effect of death on Christ's role as the Messiah.