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Topic: Gay Wedding Cake Case Pt. 2 - Supreme Court Punts AGAIN! Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Marc Baptiste
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 11:40am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Well, it seems the US Supreme Court has punted AGAIN on the ping-pong legal controversy known colloquially as the "Gay Wedding Cake Case(s)".  Handing a tangible, but limited victory to the bakers in the current Oregon case, but refusing (AGAIN) to rule on the larger constitutional issue and sending the case back (AGAIN) to the lower courts for reconsideration.

I have been a court watcher for decades, and cannot remember a case where the Supreme Court has been THIS reluctant to make a decision, when they so obviously have the votes to issue a final, decisive ruling.  The only thing I can surmise, is that Chief Justice John Roberts must be frustrating the more conservative members of the court from forming a clear 5-member majority.  He probably fears that to rule OUTRIGHT that bakers (and thus anyone) can outright discriminate against an entire segment of the population in the area of public accommodations would PROBABLY ultimately someday be overturned anyway and also, worse, be seen by history and most Americans as a Dred Scott type ruling and he doesn't want such a ruling coming from the "Roberts Court".

What I think he wants for now is a temporary solution: a LOWER court ruling/precedent that provides victory for the bakers - but NO Supreme Court ruling/precedent - that can be in place for a few years until a Federal Civil Rights bill that includes Sexual Orientation is passed and signed into law and helps clarify where the nation stands on the issue.

Also, with all the recent controversies of Religious Freedom VS vaccinations, abortion rights, medical treatment, etc. it is NO surprise the Supreme Court is reluctant as all hell to issue a sweeping final ruling in favor of Religious Freedom VS the Civil Law.  To all of you who think it is just about a cake, I have been warning you, it's PANDORA'S BOX!!

Marc
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 11:44am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

What makes this case so difficult is the ingrained America belief in the sanctity of free enterprise. Does that grant business people the right to be assholes? Yes—and if you think about it, you wouldn’t want it any other way.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

But then you are also on the side of the lunch counter in Birmingham that refused to serve black people, no? If I'm misunderstanding I'm open to that, but if it's the religion aspect which is considered the difference then that right-wing bogeyman of being subjected to sharia law would not be baseless anymore. I think this is something at least a few conservative SCOTUS minds may have thought of. If a business is going to be licensed to do business with the general public it can be a condition as with renting property that they comply with standards of non-discrimination. Libertarian everyone-gets to-do-their-own-thing with out supposed job-killing regulations can quickly see an unravelling taking us back to things like the Triangle Shirt-waists factory fire of over a hundred years ago, or no speed limits. It's kind of a been there done that situation to me. We learned the hard way that regulations and rules were necessary. I saw a professional well dressed black medical equipment operator have a hell of a time getting a taxi in a major U.S. city I had no problem finding on first try dressed at about the same standard. I know a gay married couple who had a new landlord do all kinds of little things to drive them from their apartment they'd been in together for years. Discrimination can be sane, when fact based, like the airport security that thought those hijackers on 9/11 looking/acting suspicious then were too afraid to discriminate... it's this illogical or race and religion based stupid discrimination that is the only problem. Are we really incapable of finding the balance? I say a cake is a cake, not a personal expression of the baker, nor marriage a copyright of the Christian church (or any other), and anyway, the cake does not do the marrying.

I have thought about it, also lived some of it, but we all have lived this and our forefather/mothers lived it before that, and sometimes the living was very hard and didn't need to be.


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 17 June 2019 at 12:38pm
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

“On the side?”

sigh

Are you, then, “on the side” of Big Government forcing itself into every corner of our lives?

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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

It should also be noted that prejudice against Black people was not something that manifested itself in isolated incidents. It was a nationwide sickness. The Gay couple who could not get their wedding cake from one particular baker had plenty of other options. Black people did not.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I want to delve deeper into this, and express a question to the entire forum. First, tho, a pretty obvious statement: a Gay couple should—and increasingly does—have every right to get married. And if they want an appropriate wedding cake they should have that too (tho that is a choice, not a right).

The question then: move this to a different set of parameters. Say, something equally innocuous but with which you personally disagree, and for personal reasons. Would you find it acceptable for the Government to force you to do what you don’t want to do? And if your answer should happen to be “yes” (Dog knows why!) how far do you want to allow the Government to go in dictating what you can or cannot do?

I am strongly opposed to the general “principles” held by this baker—but I cannot comfortably try to force him, thru the courts, to do otherwise. As noted, the couple in question had other options. One of those was to call for a boycott of the business. If the baker starts losing money, he can rethink his attitudes, or go broke.

It’s a sword Black Americans learned to use with almost surgical skill. THAT is the real power of the people.

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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Fair enough that racism isn't the same as religious discrimination, but I think it's possible to foresee religion based discrimination in the world of business becoming enough of a problem, especially with religion based schools now turning out Christian lawyers who could perhaps excuse themselves from being appointed to 'certain' individuals? areas where they accept. Forcing someone to marry people is I hope obviously wrong to all, or making a kosher deli handle pork rinds or somesuch... and with this cake case there is a very fine line to be drawn undoubtedly. I fall on the side of regulation for the reasons I've considered and would be repeating myself mostly, but I consider it erring on the side of caution. I likewise wouldn't want abortions late term as a common occurrence nor for the people directly involved and a accredited physician to be unable to have any access... neither no speed limits or exceptionally low with speed bumps. I guess we'll just have to see how it eventually plays out with this very nuanced case setting a precedent, seems pretty messy so far but had a decision come down hard against cake maker would there be a lot of protest actions following that causing even more (to me needless) trouble? A big country having a small government is not something I am really too keen on. It takes what it takes and ideally nothing more, and taxpayers should be seen as their real bosses.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

The gay couple was accepting of a fight, though perhaps not looking for one, where others would've quietly gone elsewhere if there was an elsewhere at hand. Rosa Parks is a well known example in a different era and situation of someone people at the time saw as looking for a fight (and white people were then 'forced' to share a seat with a person of color or take another bus if indeed one were at hand).

I also genuinely don't think the baker was looking for a fight, at least initially. People and businesses have to function around all sorts of things that were not there when they originally bought a home or found a location. I have adjusted to women in burkas on my street though as a woman am very against the practice and see nothing in my Qur-an about faces having to be covered. I was glad when one all black one at least became a color anyway, less like a censored blob. I saw discrimination targeted at some just because they are female on my one block street often and it made me physically stressed, for awhile. I came to a place where I can hope they evolve from this here in a country where it is not enforced. Here they have a choice and I still don't and won't like their choice. I will continue to ask where this practice is ever mentioned in a Qur-an as opposed to the hidden ornaments having to be covered, or the similar to Catholic practice of covering hair in a church/temple or a veil when in mourning, without looking for a fight but wanting information and to inform.

It may be we will just all have to take our chances on not being served at businesses open to the general public in an increasingly diverse society, or if we see someone else discriminated against and we disagree to be vocal and not support such a business. It seems simpler to avoid that state to me, as I think we will always end up back at needing some clear guidelines and regulation. It's curious how it is often these sort of oddball cases with people wanting a fight that often carry the most weight as precedents. Hopefully we never decide people have the freedom to open carry grenade launchers, and just have things about cakes get hashed out to some decent compromise. I don't want to force someone to make or sell a cake so much, but if that was forced it seems fairly silly to me that it's any real hardship to do either.

Edit to add: the 'oddball' aspect being all this fuss over a cake.


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 17 June 2019 at 2:49pm
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Jim Muir
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

That’s a really good question JB. If I was a baker I certainly wouldn’t serve people I found offensive, so I’m fully onboard with the people in question. Likewise, government forcing me to do so is totally not acceptable.

Now, if I apply your question to guns, and the government forcing a mass reduction or ban in the domestic US, I’m suddenly on the governments side. 

Guns and cakes...  I guess they’re not really compatible !
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

And..... you switch a narrow specific (1 baker) to a broad general (millions of guns).

This makes your point... how?

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Marc Baptiste
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

The "sanctity of free enterprise" is certainly something worth examining here.  Of all areas of life in the United States, historically, the free speech and activities of business/enterprise have been subject to the MOST stringent government regulation and with good reason. 

The courts permit regulation of business because if you strictly applied constitutional rights to businesses and corporations, government would NEVER be allowed to force them to follow warning label guidelines, food health and safety guidelines, pharmaceutical warning/safety guidelines, CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS, labor laws, truth in advertising laws, package design laws (cigarettes), etc.!

Personally, even as a gay man, I continue to be torn over this particular case - on any given day, it's nearly a coin toss as to what side I find myself on.  I take religious liberty very seriously.  However, I also don't think when you open "Yummy Cakes, Inc." on Main Street, USA and hang a big OPEN sign on your door, and charge money for a product with the bottom line goal of making a profit and charging sales tax on top of that and agree to all relevant local, state and federal laws that govern BUSINESSES, that it is the same as opening a church or synagogue on the corner or having Bible study in your living room. 

As for Rebecca's comments about blacks and lunch counters - I found it poignant, for the simple reason that I know that it was not JUST about refusing blacks service at white lunch counters, it was also about serving the insidious purpose/intent of keeping blacks OUT of white neighborhoods, by having them go to black neighborhoods, where they could "just as easily" be served at black lunch counters, who would be "glad to serve them".

The bottom line, is it is more than a LITTLE curious that we are now debating/asking to CARVE out a little discriminatory niche in our Civil Rights Laws to allow blatant discrimination against people based on their Sexual Orientation AND marital status (same-sex married couple) just because we're talking about THE GAYS.  I know for a FACT we would not even be countenancing the embarrassment of this debate if this was about blacks, Jews, etc.

Marc









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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 June 2019 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

The bottom line, is it is more than a LITTLE curious that we are now debating/asking to CARVE out a little discriminatory niche in our Civil Rights Laws to allow blatant discrimination against people based on their Sexual Orientation AND marital status (same-sex married couple) just because we're talking about THE GAYS. I know for a FACT we would not even be countenancing the embarrassment of this debate if this was about blacks, Jews, etc.

•••

This is pretty obviously a test case, so the question becomes WHAT is being tested? Is the case about being Gay, or about being Religious?

It can’t be about the former, since, as noted, the Gay couple had plenty of other options. So it must be about the latter—whether this baker has the right to hold his faith inspired position.

And right there it becomes very curious. We leap to defend religious freedom—except when we don’t. The Constitution makes no provision for a cafeteria approach to religious freedom. Pretty much all or nothing. So, weirdly, it is the bigoted baker whose rights are being threatened.

This is the hard part. It’s Illinois Nazis all over again, in micro-micrcosm. The Constitution doesn’t allow us to simply not LIKE something. To get and possess the rights we treasure, we are often (too often) forced to allow others those same rights. Others with whom we strongly disagree.

And as I said, you really wouldn’t want to live in a country where that was not the case.

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