13 ms·

Supreme Court will decide whether web designer has right to turn away gay couple

43 points by awb 5y ago

prirun 5y ago
I have never understood these cases. Even if you are able to force someone to work for you, which I don't agree with, you can't force them to do good work. Is the next step to sue someone because "they didn't do work up to their typical standard"? What if I don't want to work with Facebook because I think they're evil? Is that discrimination against evil corporations? Can they sue me and force me to work there? In America, all states except 1 are "right to work", which really means "right to fire". So anyone has the right to fire me, but I don't get to choose who I work for? Who wants to work with someone when you know they don't want to work with you?
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  > I have never understood these cases The Civil Rights Act was passed because in the United States, we had a real problem with entire sections of the country being functionally unlivable for minorities because of the general right to refuse service. So if you live in a town where nobody will serve you at a restaurant, nobody will sell to you, nobody will allow you to open a bank account, and nobody will even sell you gas for your car, it doesn't matter if the government isn't discriminating against you... You can't live there. But the Civil Rights Act didn't impinge directly on freedom of expression enshrined in the First Amendment (although it did impinge on freedom of association). The businesses the people had in mind when they passed the law were things like hotels, restaurants, and stores, where the provided service is commodity. When the provided service includes some aspect of artistic expression, people believe there's still an open question of whether the Civil Rights Act includes an aspect of compelled speech in using one's artistic talents to propagate a message one disagrees with. It's a legitimately complicated question of where one person's rights end and another person's rights begin (although, to be clear, so was the original Civil Rights Act when it clarified that the right to refuse service was not universal). > What if I don't want to work with Facebook because I think they're evil? Is that discrimination against evil corporations? The Civil Rights Act doesn't provide being an evil corporation as a protected class. So the answer would be "yes, refusing to work with evil corporations is legal discrimination."
jansen555 5y ago
Why banks can choose not do to business with due to one belief and yet freelancing business or bakers can't? Is there a double application of law doctrine that we need to know about?
syrrim 5y ago
>But in a brief order issued Tuesday, the court said it would limit the issue to free speech and decide “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment.” >A decision in favor of the web designer could have a significant impact in California and 19 other states that forbid businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ customers. It could give business owners an exemption based on their religion to refuse to provide flowers, photography or other products or services for a same-sex marriage. The two paragraphs seem to contradict. The court is supposed to be ignoring religion, and focusing squarely on free speech. So the question isn't whether someone can be compeled to speech counter to their religion, but rather whether an artist can be compeled to make any art at all. The latter seems to have much broader implications, applying to any political or aesthetic position, not just one prefered by a major religion. The very fact that this is being taken up by the supreme court seems to suggest a reasonable chance of winning as well.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  > The court is supposed to be ignoring religion, and focusing squarely on free speech. Sorry, why is court supposed to be ignoring religion?
  - rayiner 5y ago
    When the Court grants cert (chooses to hear a case), it takes up one or more specific “questions presented.” Here, the Court indicated in granting cert that it would only address the free speech issue.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    >> But in a brief order issued Tuesday, the court said it would limit the issue to free speech and decide “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment.”
  - ykevinator2 5y ago
    Isn't this obvious?
xtracto 5y ago
This is very interesting to me: On one side, I agree with the principle of free speech and my first thought was Why cant she decide who does she want to do business with? (Having to work on force on something you dont want to seems like slavery). On the other hand, this reminds me of the old signs that said "we dont serve Mexicans and black people. Dogs are welcomed " which were pretty bad. Should someone be forced to work on something he doesn't want to due to her (wrong) beliefs?
- johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
  It's perfectly fine to refuse work. It's highly illegal to refuse work on the grounds that you "don't work for gays" or similar. That implies hatred towards a group of people. And it's generally just a shitty thing to do. If you don't want to do something for any reason, just be professional about your refusal and you won't get into messes like this.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - leephillips 5y ago
    ‘She is “willing to work with all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender’ This is not a case of “don’t work for gays.” You’re overlooking a distinction that is important to the case.
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      It’s a case of “don’t work for gays on wedding websites”. A distinction without a difference.
      - dahfizz 5y ago
        I think the difference in a legal sense is huge. It is about compelling service vs compelling speech. If the gay couple wanted a website to showcase pictures of their dog and the web designer didn't take the job because the clients were gay - the supreme court never would have taken that case. It's just discrimination. If a straight couple wanted to build a pro-lgbt website and the web designer refused, the case would fundamentally be the same. It's an issue about compelling speech.
abracadaniel 5y ago
It looks like this is the same law that the SC visited with the wedding cake case a few years back, and they punted then on the actual decision of whether it was discrimination or not. If the court is now further to the right than it was, I'm not sure it matters how obvious a case of discrimination this is. The ramifications of allowing discrimination based on any religious belief would be drastic. I hope they're considering what other religions besides Christianity might do given the chance to legally enforce their morals on others. I'm sure The Satanic Temple would come up with some interesting interpretations of this.
- steve76 5y ago
- dahfizz 5y ago
  TFA was clear that the court was not considering the religious aspect and was focusing only on the speech issue. Can a customer compell speech from a person?
  - Kina 5y ago
    This really is not that anyway and it is disingenuous that it keeps being argued that way. It is ridiculous that the person is claiming their 1st Amendment rights as an artist are being impinged on. This person is representing themselves as a business. As a business, you cannot discriminate against certain classes. What you do in your own home is your business; what you do when trying to make money off it, is another. Attempting to make these the same is an attack on civil rights. See: Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), Rolon v. Kulwitzky, 200 Cal. Rptr. 217.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Yes. It really is that. It is a question presented in the petition. It is the question on which certiorari was granted. It is the question that will be briefed. It is the question that will be decided by the court. And it is one of the most important questions facing society right now. You, personally, may be uninterested in that question, as it seems you are. But that is indisputably the question, and it's inappropriate to suggest others are being disingenuous. "Assume good faith." And, for the record, the question of compelled speech is a vital one. Can you be forced to answer detailed questions about race and ethnicity and family structure on the census (I'll note that there hasn't been a prosecution for failure to answer the census since before compelled speech became a hot topic in constitutional law)? Can you be forced to say "one nation under God" or the Pledge of Allegiance at all? Can the government force you to stand and sing along with the national anthem? Can the government force you to write a back door into your software? Can the government force you to denounce a political view you hold, or force you to promote a political view you oppose? Can it force you to talk to a counselor who "isn't an investigator" but will turn over your conversation to law enforcement? I appreciate that you appear to be a strong advocate for people like me. But you can't protect civil rights by trampling on them. Once we start down the path of denigrating individual freedom based on the majority's moral judgment, it's only a matter of time before minorities like us are trampled upon. Widespread acceptance of gay marriage is great, but ensuring individual freedom - like my freedom to date, fall in love, and marry - remains the bedrock of our nation is far far more important.
cosmotic 5y ago
That's too bad google searches for her name or business will now forever be a long list of articles and comments about her supposed right to discriminate based on religious beliefs.
rnmwfQ3f 5y ago
> With the new case, “we are witness yet again to the unrelenting anti-LGBTQ > crusade being waged by self-described Christian fundamentalist legal groups > aiming to chip away at the hard-won gains of LGBTQ people by carving out swaths > of territory where discrimination can flourish,” said Jennifer C. Pizer, a > senior counsel at Lambda. It's hard for me to understand how someone doesn't see conservative Christians are on the defensive in these cases. LGBT groups are getting massive support from governments, NGOs, corporations, etc. Acceptance is being promoted in virtually every media and you are generally considered an evil person for holding views about homosexuality that would have been normal 30 years ago. Conservative Christians on the other hand are just praying their livelihood won't be the target of activists today.
- xxpor 5y ago
  If you don't think the conservative side doesn't have the same or more behind it, I really don't know what to tell you at this point. Who's funding the federalist? Who's funding FedSoc? They're just not as public about it.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    Do you genuinely believe that conservative christians right now are on the offensive, and LGBT groups are on the defensive?
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > Do you genuinely believe that conservative christians right now are on the offensive I'm not American so i might be mistaken, but can the recent changes in abortion laws across a section of US states be explained in any other way?
      - rayiner 5y ago
        Yes—Roe protects abortion through the end of the second trimester, which is out of sync with what 70% of the public believes: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-to-keep-abortion-legal-but-they-also-want-restrictions https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-... Mississippi’s 15-week ban, for example, would make the timing there somewhat more liberal than France or Denmark. It would also be consistent with the 70% of the public that thinks abortion should be legal, but only in the first trimester. Conservatives are very much in a defensive crouch on Roe.
jimbob45 5y ago
>She is “willing to work with all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” her lawyers told the court. “But she cannot create websites that promote messages contrary to her faith, such as messages that condone violence or promote sexual immorality, abortion, or same-sex marriage.” Seems like an open-and-shut case. She’s willing to work with gays, just not for this particular cause. Is this any different than turning away a white for wanting a KKK website? I think not.
ethbr0 5y ago
Interesting tangential link: my understanding is that device / encryption security is also rooted in the 1st Amendment? In that, by compelling the creation of a backdoor (by writing or modifying code, that did not exist before the demand) the government violates an individual's right to free speech, by which they cannot be compelled to speak in a certain manner. But at the same time, that "freedom" already appears to give way to the social good of equality for protected classes (i.e. personal characteristics). Thorny set of issues to balance.
- moonchild 5y ago
  I am not sure, but I know the 5th amendment is relevant: you cannot be forced to incriminate yourself by decrypting encrypted materials. Strong cryptography was also classified as weaponry at one point, and probably hence also subject to the 2nd amendment; whether this is still true, I don't know.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  Yes. This is a key insight. The gravamen of this case is compelled speech. Put simply: the government has the power to make a business involved in commerce not discriminate against people, but does it have the power to compel speech? Fundamental Constitutional principles and existing case law seem to say no. Over the past thirty years, this has been an evolving issue, starting with things like forcing people to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I wouldn't be shocked if we see challenges to mandatory expanded census questions in 2030 or 2040. And certainly compelling encryption backdoors is an issue that's been in the news the past few years. It's disconcerting to me, as a gay man, that this issue has been pushed this far. In my adult life, it has been a crime for me to have a sexual relationship. In my adult life it has been unlawful for me to get married. Historically, excessive government control over people has not worked out well for minorities, and it's a bit Uncle Tom-ish to try to use government to force people into conduct that aligns with your personal values. Structures and powers analyses are important. When looking at a question of the scope of government power, ask yourself: would you feel comfortable giving this power to your political adversaries? If the Religious Right had a majority in Congress or a state legislature, would the gay litigants in this case support the government's right to, say, make all wedding-related speech include praise of one-man-one-woman as the ideal form of marriage? A government without protections for individual rights of freedom and conscience isn't a republic, it's a mob. Mobs never turn out well for the little guy in the long run.
umvi 5y ago
I don't think the business owner should be able to turn away clients because of the clients' sexual orientation. However, I do not think the business owner should be forced to make content they find immoral, either. If we generalize this problem, it basically distills down to: If you are a web designer and a <protected class> commissions you to make a website glorifying <something you personally find to be immoral>, are you allowed to refuse the job on grounds that you don't want to use your skills to promote something you personally find immoral (though you would be happy to make them other content you don't object to)? Or should you be forced by law to make the website in order to not discriminate against <protected class>?
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  A third solution: if, in doing a thing, you feel you absolutely must discriminate against a protected class, then don’t do that thing for anyone. Discrimination prevented and speech not compelled.
  - _clhx 5y ago
    Right. I won't make a Nazi website for anyone. If I just make Nazi websites for black people, and refuse to make a Nazi website for some people, it isn't the Nazi website - it is the person that I disagree with.
    - umvi 5y ago
      This still isn't the same though. It would be more like if I own a pancake shop and I make pancakes in the shape of a man and a woman kissing. Then a gay couple walks in and orders pancakes in the shape of two men kissing and I refuse on the grounds that it is not on the menu because I object to the content. I tell them they are free to buy pancakes of a man and a woman kissing if they so choose. How is that discrimination? They aren't being asked to leave, and they are free to buy the heterosexual kissing pancakes if they want to, just like everyone else. I am not refusing the client, just their particular bespoke request. This is a highly contrived example, but it could be about anything, not just sexual orientation. A black guy walks into a white guy's barber shop and asks for a bespoke African haircut. The white barber refuses on the grounds that he doesn't think he would do a good job since he has never done one before and doesn't intend to learn how to do those types of haircuts. The barber doesn't tell the black guy to leave, but he tells him to pick a different haircut. Is this discrimination? Should the barber be compelled to perform the haircut he doesn't want to do against his will? What if he then does a bad job? Is that a hate crime?
HDMI_Cable 5y ago
Compared to "normal" industries, this and the cake designer suit [1] really are a different ball-game, because of the speech implications as well as discrimination. On the one-hand, this is very close, if not exactly the same as active discrimination against a protected group. But since being a web designer is a creative role, we also have to take into account the creative aspect: does the couple "forcing" the designer to work constitute a violation in speech? If this were a medical clinic or even a large advertising agency--which is also a creative firm-- it would clearly be discrimination, but the simple fact that this is an individual makes it an interesting case. --- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
chaganated 5y ago
dahfizz 5y ago
Am I the only one who feels like we have really stretched the definition of "speech"? I don't even think written word counts as speech in the literal sense, which is why the first amendment specifically mentions freedom of the press as well. If "speech" meant "literally anything produced by a human" then they would not have added the bit about press freedom. I feel a similar way about the contractor vs employee debate around Uber. Uber drivers are so clearly neither, but we get so focused on fitting new problems into the existing legal framework instead of growing the legal framework. It feels like we need to do some refactoring.
akersten 5y ago
> She is “willing to work with all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” her lawyers told the court. “But she cannot create websites that promote messages contrary to her faith, such as messages that condone violence or promote sexual immorality, abortion, or same-sex marriage.” It sounds like "willing to work with all people" is a lie then. If you are making a wedding website for a same-sex couple, what kind of message do you think it will contain? Also fairly disgusting of her to put "messages like violence or same-sex marriage" in the same sentence, as if they are remotely comparable things. If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business. "Oh, yes, I'm more than willing to work with handicapped people, but I can't promote ramps or accessible doorways, I just don't believe in them," would not fly to get out of an ADA lawsuit. The law says you must serve these groups equally, and you can't weasel your way out of it with "oh I just hate the sin, not the sinner!" Also have to love the ridiculous pearl-clutching here: > If left in place, the 10th Circuit’s decision will allow officials to compel Democratic speechwriters to plug Republican candidates and Muslim artists to create cartoon parodies of Allah.” No, this decision would not compel a general-purpose artist to paint a work that they don't want to create. This person is lost in the sauce. They keep thinking it's about the content of the work, ("I don't create gay websites"), and not their behavior of refusing to work with the gay couple. Of course an artist or speechwriter would get in trouble today if they turned down people based just on them being part of a protected class. By the way, political party is not a protected class, so that argument fails twice. These are the same type of people who feel their rights are being violated when they get kicked off Twitter because of their non-protected violent posts, and want to be able to simultaneously deny their own business services to actual protected classes. So square that how you will.
- EarlKing 5y ago
  Let me turn this around for you... > It sounds like "willing to work with all people" is a lie then. If you are making a wedding website for a same-sex couple, what kind of message do you think it will contain? Substitute "same-sex couple" with "conservatives" and you have Facebook right now. > If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business. So, just to be clear: You're saying that businesses should effectively operate like public accommodations? Does that apply to everybody, including people you personally dislike? Mind you, I actually favor that position, but I'd just like to get someone to actually admit to it publicly that all men are created equal and endowed with the same rights, not just those groups that happen to be politically favored during the current news cycle. I'm one of those weird people from the early days of the Internet that actually means it when he says he's for civil rights. > These are the same type of people who feel their rights are being violated when they get kicked off Twitter because of their non-protected violent posts And there it is. Anyone who thinks different than you is violent and should be deplatformed. QED. Sorry, sir, but the law applies to everyone or no one. You don't get to play favorites. This isn't Apartheid Zuid Afrika... or Israel for that matter.
heavyset_go 5y ago
This is ACLU's opinion on this issue[1]: > Instances of institutions and individuals claiming a right to discriminate in the name of religion aren’t new. In the 1960s, we saw institutions object to laws requiring integration in restaurants because of sincerely held beliefs that God wanted the races to be separate. We saw religiously affiliated universities refuse to admit students who engaged in interracial dating. In those cases, we recognized that requiring integration was not about violating religious liberty; it was about ensuring fairness. It is no different today. > Religious freedom in America means that we all have a right to our religious beliefs, but this does not give us the right to use our religion to discriminate against and impose those beliefs on others who do not share them. This article[2] published in the Fordham Law Review journal also investigates the similarities between the use of religion to discriminate against interracial couples and the use of religion to discriminate against gay couples. It's a good read. Here's a quote from the beginning, from a judge: > In his 1965 opinion refusing to vacate the convictions of Richard and Mildred Loving, Judge Leon M. Bazile of Caroline County Circuit Court in Virginia included the following passage: > "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix" [1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/religious-liberty/using-religion-discriminate/end-use-religion-discriminate https://www.aclu.org/issues/religious-liberty/using-religion... [2] https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5513&context=flr https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=55...
ykevinator2 5y ago
I like freedom and I like anti hate laws, I think the hateful christians win this one by a hair.
athinggoingon 5y ago
Why is Twitter is supported on HN for refusing to do business with a conservative writer but a web designer is not? This is pretty much the top comment on HN from 5 years ago: "But private corporations are allowed to censor and be biased." [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12126548#12129927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12126548#12129927
- smt88 5y ago
  1. People aren't born conservative. If you want people to do business with you, you can just stop talking about your political views. Gay people can't decide to stop being gay. 2. Twitter doesn't drop conservative writers just for being conservative. There are still literally millions of conservative people on Twitter. Twitter has a line that a conservative or liberal person could cross.
  - akvadrako 5y ago
    Some people can choose to be gay (or straight). Even if you don't agree, given that hypothetical, you should see it doesn't matter if it's a choice or not.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- legobmw99 5y ago
  “Conservative” is not a protected class which faces generalized discrimination like gay people do
  - akvadrako 5y ago
    Conservatives certainly face lots of discrimination in certain areas like acadamia, where many feel the need to hide their views.
    - odonnellryan 5y ago
      People being critical of what you say is not discrimination.
steve76 5y ago
[dead]
parsimo2010 5y ago
This is a tough one for me. On the one hand, I don’t feel like you should be able to compel a private business owner or any other person to participate in something they are unwilling, except in certain things outlined by law. Paying taxes is one of those things the state compels you to do even if you don’t want. But they have never shown that they have the authority to make people speak a certain way. Instead of a gay couple getting married, can I (hypothetically) force a designer to make a website for a very creepy and grossly sexualized fursona? If they don’t, they are discriminating against my sexual orientation… Even if they are paid a fair wage, an artist’s reputation can be damaged by the work they take on, and I think they should be allowed to be selective, even if I don’t agree with the person in this case. On the other hand, we could wind up with troubling situations in some parts of the country if “speech” is able to dodge anti-discrimination laws. There are towns where nearly every business would refuse gay people if they knew who they were. Imagine being effectively banned from a town like that if businesses figure out how to call their business a form of “speech.” So this leaves me on the fence. I wish that artists have freedom to choose their clients but am a little worried about where that leads us. Hopefully the justices can craft a decision that avoids major issues in the future.
a_shovel 5y ago
Honestly, I don't see how a ruling against the web designer would work. If she really doesn't want to do it, couldn't she just make a really crappy website that nobody would want to use? If so, then the ruling is pointless. If not, how could you prove in court, beyond a reasonable doubt that she was doing it intentionally and she wasn't just bad at her job? They might well rule that web design counts as speech, and so she doesn't have to make speech she disagrees with by designing a website for a gay wedding. If this is how it goes, then logically, the ruling would apply to a narrower set of services than the article suggests. Things like selling flowers and catering don't have any significant creative component and so don't qualify as "speech" that needs to be free. Even the wedding cake case that made it to the supreme court wouldn't qualify, since the couple was refused before they said anything about the cake's design; they hadn't asked the baker to "say" anything at all.
- parsimo2010 5y ago
  The existence of a solution like that isn’t stopping these people from going to court. The gay couples could easily find someone else to do the work for them. The designer and baker could easily just do a crappy job whenever they find out the order is for a gay couple. But they are going to court because both sides have a point they want to prove.
leotravis10 5y ago
It's very likely that this case can also gut even the most basic civil rights as described in Mark Joseph Stern's piece over at Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/supreme-court-303-creative-discrimination-civil-rights.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/supreme-court-30... > If ADF prevails, businesses may secure a right to discriminate against anyone as long as their work involves speech. A racist photographer could refuse to shoot an interracial wedding. An antisemitic florist could refuse to provide flowers to a Bat Mitzvah. A hairdresser could refuse to serve Black people. A chef could refuse to cater a quinceañera. The list goes on; every commercial transaction involves expression, and every civil rights law is enforced through compelled speech. If a business’ First Amendment rights outweigh the government’s interest in ending discrimination, few non-discrimination laws will be safe from constitutional attack. I fear that this SCOTUS will pull that trigger.
dangom 5y ago
Abstracting away the specifics of the case (religion, sexual orientation), the true debate at hand is whether a human being should have the right to get an exemption from a law based on beliefs (perhaps provided that these beliefs are strongly held, and commonly found within a particular community). Accepting that exemptions to laws are OK based on beliefs leads to an asymmetry between individuals, whereby those with beliefs gain an advantage that is not readily available to all. Here, playing the free speech card makes no sense, since the purpose of that card is to eliminate power asymmetries, not create them. In my view, the only way to conciliate laws and exemptions is to make exemptions sufficiently costly to eliminate built in advantages to selected groups, whichever they may be. I don't know what a fair way to do so would be. Perhaps an alternative exit that doesn't require an exemption is an even better solution. In the specifics of this case, couldn't the web designer hire a third party to take care of the job, providing the service as requested, but not executing it themselves?
- vlmutolo 5y ago
  The question isn't whether to give people "exemptions" to a law. The question is whether that law infringes on US citizens' constitutional right to free speech.
dontcare007 5y ago
So the SC says she has to build a website. What if she builds a really crappy, horrible site? What then?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

43 points by awb 5y ago

I have never understood these cases. Even if you are able to force someone to work for you, which I don't agree with, you can't force them to do good work. Is the next step to sue someone because "they didn't do work up to their typical standard"? What if I don't want to work with Facebook because I think they're evil? Is that discrimination against evil corporations? Can they sue me and force me to work there? In America, all states except 1 are "right to work", which really means "right to fire". So anyone has the right to fire me, but I don't get to choose who I work for? Who wants to work with someone when you know they don't want to work with you?

shadowgovt 5y ago
> I have never understood these cases The Civil Rights Act was passed because in the United States, we had a real problem with entire sections of the country being functionally unlivable for minorities because of the general right to refuse service. So if you live in a town where nobody will serve you at a restaurant, nobody will sell to you, nobody will allow you to open a bank account, and nobody will even sell you gas for your car, it doesn't matter if the government isn't discriminating against you... You can't live there. But the Civil Rights Act didn't impinge directly on freedom of expression enshrined in the First Amendment (although it did impinge on freedom of association). The businesses the people had in mind when they passed the law were things like hotels, restaurants, and stores, where the provided service is commodity. When the provided service includes some aspect of artistic expression, people believe there's still an open question of whether the Civil Rights Act includes an aspect of compelled speech in using one's artistic talents to propagate a message one disagrees with. It's a legitimately complicated question of where one person's rights end and another person's rights begin (although, to be clear, so was the original Civil Rights Act when it clarified that the right to refuse service was not universal). > What if I don't want to work with Facebook because I think they're evil? Is that discrimination against evil corporations? The Civil Rights Act doesn't provide being an evil corporation as a protected class. So the answer would be "yes, refusing to work with evil corporations is legal discrimination."

jansen555 5y ago

Why banks can choose not do to business with due to one belief and yet freelancing business or bakers can't? Is there a double application of law doctrine that we need to know about?

syrrim 5y ago

>But in a brief order issued Tuesday, the court said it would limit the issue to free speech and decide “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment.” >A decision in favor of the web designer could have a significant impact in California and 19 other states that forbid businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ customers. It could give business owners an exemption based on their religion to refuse to provide flowers, photography or other products or services for a same-sex marriage. The two paragraphs seem to contradict. The court is supposed to be ignoring religion, and focusing squarely on free speech. So the question isn't whether someone can be compeled to speech counter to their religion, but rather whether an artist can be compeled to make any art at all. The latter seems to have much broader implications, applying to any political or aesthetic position, not just one prefered by a major religion. The very fact that this is being taken up by the supreme court seems to suggest a reasonable chance of winning as well.

xyzzyz 5y ago
> The court is supposed to be ignoring religion, and focusing squarely on free speech. Sorry, why is court supposed to be ignoring religion?
- rayiner 5y ago
  When the Court grants cert (chooses to hear a case), it takes up one or more specific “questions presented.” Here, the Court indicated in granting cert that it would only address the free speech issue.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  >> But in a brief order issued Tuesday, the court said it would limit the issue to free speech and decide “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment.”
- ykevinator2 5y ago
  Isn't this obvious?

xtracto 5y ago

This is very interesting to me: On one side, I agree with the principle of free speech and my first thought was Why cant she decide who does she want to do business with? (Having to work on force on something you dont want to seems like slavery). On the other hand, this reminds me of the old signs that said "we dont serve Mexicans and black people. Dogs are welcomed " which were pretty bad. Should someone be forced to work on something he doesn't want to due to her (wrong) beliefs?

johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
It's perfectly fine to refuse work. It's highly illegal to refuse work on the grounds that you "don't work for gays" or similar. That implies hatred towards a group of people. And it's generally just a shitty thing to do. If you don't want to do something for any reason, just be professional about your refusal and you won't get into messes like this.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- leephillips 5y ago
  ‘She is “willing to work with all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender’ This is not a case of “don’t work for gays.” You’re overlooking a distinction that is important to the case.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    It’s a case of “don’t work for gays on wedding websites”. A distinction without a difference.
    - dahfizz 5y ago
      I think the difference in a legal sense is huge. It is about compelling service vs compelling speech. If the gay couple wanted a website to showcase pictures of their dog and the web designer didn't take the job because the clients were gay - the supreme court never would have taken that case. It's just discrimination. If a straight couple wanted to build a pro-lgbt website and the web designer refused, the case would fundamentally be the same. It's an issue about compelling speech.

abracadaniel 5y ago

It looks like this is the same law that the SC visited with the wedding cake case a few years back, and they punted then on the actual decision of whether it was discrimination or not. If the court is now further to the right than it was, I'm not sure it matters how obvious a case of discrimination this is. The ramifications of allowing discrimination based on any religious belief would be drastic. I hope they're considering what other religions besides Christianity might do given the chance to legally enforce their morals on others. I'm sure The Satanic Temple would come up with some interesting interpretations of this.

steve76 5y ago
dahfizz 5y ago
TFA was clear that the court was not considering the religious aspect and was focusing only on the speech issue. Can a customer compell speech from a person?
- Kina 5y ago
  This really is not that anyway and it is disingenuous that it keeps being argued that way. It is ridiculous that the person is claiming their 1st Amendment rights as an artist are being impinged on. This person is representing themselves as a business. As a business, you cannot discriminate against certain classes. What you do in your own home is your business; what you do when trying to make money off it, is another. Attempting to make these the same is an attack on civil rights. See: Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), Rolon v. Kulwitzky, 200 Cal. Rptr. 217.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Yes. It really is that. It is a question presented in the petition. It is the question on which certiorari was granted. It is the question that will be briefed. It is the question that will be decided by the court. And it is one of the most important questions facing society right now. You, personally, may be uninterested in that question, as it seems you are. But that is indisputably the question, and it's inappropriate to suggest others are being disingenuous. "Assume good faith." And, for the record, the question of compelled speech is a vital one. Can you be forced to answer detailed questions about race and ethnicity and family structure on the census (I'll note that there hasn't been a prosecution for failure to answer the census since before compelled speech became a hot topic in constitutional law)? Can you be forced to say "one nation under God" or the Pledge of Allegiance at all? Can the government force you to stand and sing along with the national anthem? Can the government force you to write a back door into your software? Can the government force you to denounce a political view you hold, or force you to promote a political view you oppose? Can it force you to talk to a counselor who "isn't an investigator" but will turn over your conversation to law enforcement? I appreciate that you appear to be a strong advocate for people like me. But you can't protect civil rights by trampling on them. Once we start down the path of denigrating individual freedom based on the majority's moral judgment, it's only a matter of time before minorities like us are trampled upon. Widespread acceptance of gay marriage is great, but ensuring individual freedom - like my freedom to date, fall in love, and marry - remains the bedrock of our nation is far far more important.

cosmotic 5y ago

That's too bad google searches for her name or business will now forever be a long list of articles and comments about her supposed right to discriminate based on religious beliefs.

rnmwfQ3f 5y ago

> With the new case, “we are witness yet again to the unrelenting anti-LGBTQ > crusade being waged by self-described Christian fundamentalist legal groups > aiming to chip away at the hard-won gains of LGBTQ people by carving out swaths > of territory where discrimination can flourish,” said Jennifer C. Pizer, a > senior counsel at Lambda. It's hard for me to understand how someone doesn't see conservative Christians are on the defensive in these cases. LGBT groups are getting massive support from governments, NGOs, corporations, etc. Acceptance is being promoted in virtually every media and you are generally considered an evil person for holding views about homosexuality that would have been normal 30 years ago. Conservative Christians on the other hand are just praying their livelihood won't be the target of activists today.

xxpor 5y ago
If you don't think the conservative side doesn't have the same or more behind it, I really don't know what to tell you at this point. Who's funding the federalist? Who's funding FedSoc? They're just not as public about it.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Do you genuinely believe that conservative christians right now are on the offensive, and LGBT groups are on the defensive?
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > Do you genuinely believe that conservative christians right now are on the offensive I'm not American so i might be mistaken, but can the recent changes in abortion laws across a section of US states be explained in any other way?
    - rayiner 5y ago
      Yes—Roe protects abortion through the end of the second trimester, which is out of sync with what 70% of the public believes: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-to-keep-abortion-legal-but-they-also-want-restrictions https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-... Mississippi’s 15-week ban, for example, would make the timing there somewhat more liberal than France or Denmark. It would also be consistent with the 70% of the public that thinks abortion should be legal, but only in the first trimester. Conservatives are very much in a defensive crouch on Roe.

jimbob45 5y ago

ethbr0 5y ago

Interesting tangential link: my understanding is that device / encryption security is also rooted in the 1st Amendment? In that, by compelling the creation of a backdoor (by writing or modifying code, that did not exist before the demand) the government violates an individual's right to free speech, by which they cannot be compelled to speak in a certain manner. But at the same time, that "freedom" already appears to give way to the social good of equality for protected classes (i.e. personal characteristics). Thorny set of issues to balance.

moonchild 5y ago
I am not sure, but I know the 5th amendment is relevant: you cannot be forced to incriminate yourself by decrypting encrypted materials. Strong cryptography was also classified as weaponry at one point, and probably hence also subject to the 2nd amendment; whether this is still true, I don't know.
torstenvl 5y ago
Yes. This is a key insight. The gravamen of this case is compelled speech. Put simply: the government has the power to make a business involved in commerce not discriminate against people, but does it have the power to compel speech? Fundamental Constitutional principles and existing case law seem to say no. Over the past thirty years, this has been an evolving issue, starting with things like forcing people to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I wouldn't be shocked if we see challenges to mandatory expanded census questions in 2030 or 2040. And certainly compelling encryption backdoors is an issue that's been in the news the past few years. It's disconcerting to me, as a gay man, that this issue has been pushed this far. In my adult life, it has been a crime for me to have a sexual relationship. In my adult life it has been unlawful for me to get married. Historically, excessive government control over people has not worked out well for minorities, and it's a bit Uncle Tom-ish to try to use government to force people into conduct that aligns with your personal values. Structures and powers analyses are important. When looking at a question of the scope of government power, ask yourself: would you feel comfortable giving this power to your political adversaries? If the Religious Right had a majority in Congress or a state legislature, would the gay litigants in this case support the government's right to, say, make all wedding-related speech include praise of one-man-one-woman as the ideal form of marriage? A government without protections for individual rights of freedom and conscience isn't a republic, it's a mob. Mobs never turn out well for the little guy in the long run.

umvi 5y ago

I don't think the business owner should be able to turn away clients because of the clients' sexual orientation. However, I do not think the business owner should be forced to make content they find immoral, either. If we generalize this problem, it basically distills down to: If you are a web designer and a <protected class> commissions you to make a website glorifying <something you personally find to be immoral>, are you allowed to refuse the job on grounds that you don't want to use your skills to promote something you personally find immoral (though you would be happy to make them other content you don't object to)? Or should you be forced by law to make the website in order to not discriminate against <protected class>?

jakelazaroff 5y ago
A third solution: if, in doing a thing, you feel you absolutely must discriminate against a protected class, then don’t do that thing for anyone. Discrimination prevented and speech not compelled.
- _clhx 5y ago
  Right. I won't make a Nazi website for anyone. If I just make Nazi websites for black people, and refuse to make a Nazi website for some people, it isn't the Nazi website - it is the person that I disagree with.
  - umvi 5y ago
    This still isn't the same though. It would be more like if I own a pancake shop and I make pancakes in the shape of a man and a woman kissing. Then a gay couple walks in and orders pancakes in the shape of two men kissing and I refuse on the grounds that it is not on the menu because I object to the content. I tell them they are free to buy pancakes of a man and a woman kissing if they so choose. How is that discrimination? They aren't being asked to leave, and they are free to buy the heterosexual kissing pancakes if they want to, just like everyone else. I am not refusing the client, just their particular bespoke request. This is a highly contrived example, but it could be about anything, not just sexual orientation. A black guy walks into a white guy's barber shop and asks for a bespoke African haircut. The white barber refuses on the grounds that he doesn't think he would do a good job since he has never done one before and doesn't intend to learn how to do those types of haircuts. The barber doesn't tell the black guy to leave, but he tells him to pick a different haircut. Is this discrimination? Should the barber be compelled to perform the haircut he doesn't want to do against his will? What if he then does a bad job? Is that a hate crime?

HDMI_Cable 5y ago

Compared to "normal" industries, this and the cake designer suit [1] really are a different ball-game, because of the speech implications as well as discrimination. On the one-hand, this is very close, if not exactly the same as active discrimination against a protected group. But since being a web designer is a creative role, we also have to take into account the creative aspect: does the couple "forcing" the designer to work constitute a violation in speech? If this were a medical clinic or even a large advertising agency--which is also a creative firm-- it would clearly be discrimination, but the simple fact that this is an individual makes it an interesting case. --- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...

chaganated 5y ago

dahfizz 5y ago

Am I the only one who feels like we have really stretched the definition of "speech"? I don't even think written word counts as speech in the literal sense, which is why the first amendment specifically mentions freedom of the press as well. If "speech" meant "literally anything produced by a human" then they would not have added the bit about press freedom. I feel a similar way about the contractor vs employee debate around Uber. Uber drivers are so clearly neither, but we get so focused on fitting new problems into the existing legal framework instead of growing the legal framework. It feels like we need to do some refactoring.

akersten 5y ago

> She is “willing to work with all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” her lawyers told the court. “But she cannot create websites that promote messages contrary to her faith, such as messages that condone violence or promote sexual immorality, abortion, or same-sex marriage.” It sounds like "willing to work with all people" is a lie then. If you are making a wedding website for a same-sex couple, what kind of message do you think it will contain? Also fairly disgusting of her to put "messages like violence or same-sex marriage" in the same sentence, as if they are remotely comparable things. If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business. "Oh, yes, I'm more than willing to work with handicapped people, but I can't promote ramps or accessible doorways, I just don't believe in them," would not fly to get out of an ADA lawsuit. The law says you must serve these groups equally, and you can't weasel your way out of it with "oh I just hate the sin, not the sinner!" Also have to love the ridiculous pearl-clutching here: > If left in place, the 10th Circuit’s decision will allow officials to compel Democratic speechwriters to plug Republican candidates and Muslim artists to create cartoon parodies of Allah.” No, this decision would not compel a general-purpose artist to paint a work that they don't want to create. This person is lost in the sauce. They keep thinking it's about the content of the work, ("I don't create gay websites"), and not their behavior of refusing to work with the gay couple. Of course an artist or speechwriter would get in trouble today if they turned down people based just on them being part of a protected class. By the way, political party is not a protected class, so that argument fails twice. These are the same type of people who feel their rights are being violated when they get kicked off Twitter because of their non-protected violent posts, and want to be able to simultaneously deny their own business services to actual protected classes. So square that how you will.

EarlKing 5y ago
Let me turn this around for you... > It sounds like "willing to work with all people" is a lie then. If you are making a wedding website for a same-sex couple, what kind of message do you think it will contain? Substitute "same-sex couple" with "conservatives" and you have Facebook right now. > If you run a wedding business and cannot accommodate all the different types of weddings recognized under the law, you are not capable of running a wedding business. So, just to be clear: You're saying that businesses should effectively operate like public accommodations? Does that apply to everybody, including people you personally dislike? Mind you, I actually favor that position, but I'd just like to get someone to actually admit to it publicly that all men are created equal and endowed with the same rights, not just those groups that happen to be politically favored during the current news cycle. I'm one of those weird people from the early days of the Internet that actually means it when he says he's for civil rights. > These are the same type of people who feel their rights are being violated when they get kicked off Twitter because of their non-protected violent posts And there it is. Anyone who thinks different than you is violent and should be deplatformed. QED. Sorry, sir, but the law applies to everyone or no one. You don't get to play favorites. This isn't Apartheid Zuid Afrika... or Israel for that matter.

heavyset_go 5y ago

This is ACLU's opinion on this issue[1]: > Instances of institutions and individuals claiming a right to discriminate in the name of religion aren’t new. In the 1960s, we saw institutions object to laws requiring integration in restaurants because of sincerely held beliefs that God wanted the races to be separate. We saw religiously affiliated universities refuse to admit students who engaged in interracial dating. In those cases, we recognized that requiring integration was not about violating religious liberty; it was about ensuring fairness. It is no different today. > Religious freedom in America means that we all have a right to our religious beliefs, but this does not give us the right to use our religion to discriminate against and impose those beliefs on others who do not share them. This article[2] published in the Fordham Law Review journal also investigates the similarities between the use of religion to discriminate against interracial couples and the use of religion to discriminate against gay couples. It's a good read. Here's a quote from the beginning, from a judge: > In his 1965 opinion refusing to vacate the convictions of Richard and Mildred Loving, Judge Leon M. Bazile of Caroline County Circuit Court in Virginia included the following passage: > "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix" [1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/religious-liberty/using-religion-discriminate/end-use-religion-discriminate https://www.aclu.org/issues/religious-liberty/using-religion... [2] https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5513&context=flr https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=55...

ykevinator2 5y ago

I like freedom and I like anti hate laws, I think the hateful christians win this one by a hair.

athinggoingon 5y ago

Why is Twitter is supported on HN for refusing to do business with a conservative writer but a web designer is not? This is pretty much the top comment on HN from 5 years ago: "But private corporations are allowed to censor and be biased." [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12126548#12129927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12126548#12129927

smt88 5y ago
1. People aren't born conservative. If you want people to do business with you, you can just stop talking about your political views. Gay people can't decide to stop being gay. 2. Twitter doesn't drop conservative writers just for being conservative. There are still literally millions of conservative people on Twitter. Twitter has a line that a conservative or liberal person could cross.
- akvadrako 5y ago
  Some people can choose to be gay (or straight). Even if you don't agree, given that hypothetical, you should see it doesn't matter if it's a choice or not.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
legobmw99 5y ago
“Conservative” is not a protected class which faces generalized discrimination like gay people do
- akvadrako 5y ago
  Conservatives certainly face lots of discrimination in certain areas like acadamia, where many feel the need to hide their views.
  - odonnellryan 5y ago
    People being critical of what you say is not discrimination.

steve76 5y ago

[dead]

parsimo2010 5y ago

This is a tough one for me. On the one hand, I don’t feel like you should be able to compel a private business owner or any other person to participate in something they are unwilling, except in certain things outlined by law. Paying taxes is one of those things the state compels you to do even if you don’t want. But they have never shown that they have the authority to make people speak a certain way. Instead of a gay couple getting married, can I (hypothetically) force a designer to make a website for a very creepy and grossly sexualized fursona? If they don’t, they are discriminating against my sexual orientation… Even if they are paid a fair wage, an artist’s reputation can be damaged by the work they take on, and I think they should be allowed to be selective, even if I don’t agree with the person in this case. On the other hand, we could wind up with troubling situations in some parts of the country if “speech” is able to dodge anti-discrimination laws. There are towns where nearly every business would refuse gay people if they knew who they were. Imagine being effectively banned from a town like that if businesses figure out how to call their business a form of “speech.” So this leaves me on the fence. I wish that artists have freedom to choose their clients but am a little worried about where that leads us. Hopefully the justices can craft a decision that avoids major issues in the future.

a_shovel 5y ago

Honestly, I don't see how a ruling against the web designer would work. If she really doesn't want to do it, couldn't she just make a really crappy website that nobody would want to use? If so, then the ruling is pointless. If not, how could you prove in court, beyond a reasonable doubt that she was doing it intentionally and she wasn't just bad at her job? They might well rule that web design counts as speech, and so she doesn't have to make speech she disagrees with by designing a website for a gay wedding. If this is how it goes, then logically, the ruling would apply to a narrower set of services than the article suggests. Things like selling flowers and catering don't have any significant creative component and so don't qualify as "speech" that needs to be free. Even the wedding cake case that made it to the supreme court wouldn't qualify, since the couple was refused before they said anything about the cake's design; they hadn't asked the baker to "say" anything at all.

parsimo2010 5y ago
The existence of a solution like that isn’t stopping these people from going to court. The gay couples could easily find someone else to do the work for them. The designer and baker could easily just do a crappy job whenever they find out the order is for a gay couple. But they are going to court because both sides have a point they want to prove.

leotravis10 5y ago

It's very likely that this case can also gut even the most basic civil rights as described in Mark Joseph Stern's piece over at Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/supreme-court-303-creative-discrimination-civil-rights.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/supreme-court-30... > If ADF prevails, businesses may secure a right to discriminate against anyone as long as their work involves speech. A racist photographer could refuse to shoot an interracial wedding. An antisemitic florist could refuse to provide flowers to a Bat Mitzvah. A hairdresser could refuse to serve Black people. A chef could refuse to cater a quinceañera. The list goes on; every commercial transaction involves expression, and every civil rights law is enforced through compelled speech. If a business’ First Amendment rights outweigh the government’s interest in ending discrimination, few non-discrimination laws will be safe from constitutional attack. I fear that this SCOTUS will pull that trigger.

dangom 5y ago

Abstracting away the specifics of the case (religion, sexual orientation), the true debate at hand is whether a human being should have the right to get an exemption from a law based on beliefs (perhaps provided that these beliefs are strongly held, and commonly found within a particular community). Accepting that exemptions to laws are OK based on beliefs leads to an asymmetry between individuals, whereby those with beliefs gain an advantage that is not readily available to all. Here, playing the free speech card makes no sense, since the purpose of that card is to eliminate power asymmetries, not create them. In my view, the only way to conciliate laws and exemptions is to make exemptions sufficiently costly to eliminate built in advantages to selected groups, whichever they may be. I don't know what a fair way to do so would be. Perhaps an alternative exit that doesn't require an exemption is an even better solution. In the specifics of this case, couldn't the web designer hire a third party to take care of the job, providing the service as requested, but not executing it themselves?

vlmutolo 5y ago
The question isn't whether to give people "exemptions" to a law. The question is whether that law infringes on US citizens' constitutional right to free speech.

dontcare007 5y ago

So the SC says she has to build a website. What if she builds a really crappy, horrible site? What then?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]