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>They've begun taking positions against individual civil rights... this has escalated to the point that I think they're often on the wrong side of 1a issues as

by slg 4y ago

>They've begun taking positions against individual civil rights... this has escalated to the point that I think they're often on the wrong side of 1a issues as well. Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another? A common example is the baker tasked with making a wedding cake for a gay couple. Should the baker have the civil right to practice their religion which does not condone gay marriage? Or should the gay couple have the civil right to not be discriminated against for their sexuality? You can't take a position in this situation without being against someone's civil rights. As the political environment in the US becomes more polarized, these conflicts become more common and the apolitical path becomes less tenable. EDIT: I wasn't trying to start a debate about this specific court case. But the fact that simply mentioning it did spark that debate basically proves my point. There is no universal agreed upon line between the civil rights of one individual and the civil rights of another. When these conflicts arise, the ACLU's work will be inherently political because an apolitical compromise is rarely possible.

ROTMetro 4y ago
For the record I am pro-gay marriage, but your example is BS. The baker in your example was willing to bake them a cake. They were never denied a cake. What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech. It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights. Or going to an artist who sells t-shirts with their standard art and saying they denied me service when they wouldn't let me commission a custom piece that they didn't like to content of.
- slg 4y ago
  >What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech This is just semantics of a legal argument. It is not some universal truth that ordering off menu puts any additional ethical strain on someone. If the baker would make those customizations for a straight couple and not a gay couple then the civil rights of the gay couple are being infringed.
  - a123b456c 4y ago
    Honest question: which civil rights were infringed?
    - alar44 4y ago
      The right to be a troglodyte, I'm guessing.
      - ROTMetro 4y ago
        And comment is why we need the ACLU in it's old form. Dude, do you not see no one is arguing for being pieces of crap, but that rights can easily be curtailed long term from an initial starting point of everyone agreeing we shouldn't be pieces of crap. You know, the saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.
        alar44 4y ago
        Discrimination isn't free speech, end of story.
        ohCh6zos 4y ago
        You're right, it's freedom of association.
        ROTMetro 4y ago
        No crap. Which is why we are discussing the boundaries of rights in the context of an organization that's purpose is to ensure that those boundaries don't get pushed to the point of infringing on other rights in either direction. In a free society we need someone willing to stand up for the unpopular side. I support gay marriage. I feel like a piece of crap in this discussion because the person I am defending disgusts me and is garbage. But I feel like there is a larger discussion that should be had. If political speech is banned in the 6 months before an election do I have free speech? If I am forced to do work I don't want when I am self employed and affluent enough to choose, do do I have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
- karpierz 4y ago
  > It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights. It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, noting that they seem only seem to be denying black patrons off menu orders, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights.
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    And? Ethnic restaurants do this all the time with same ethnicity patrons and not me as a white guy. Shoot, they often even have a seperate menu for the right ethnic group that I never even get to see.
    - ROTMetro 4y ago
      Wow, keep voting me down and ignore that this is a real world example that happens all the time. Making accommodations for off menu items at ethnic restaurants is often determined by race but it isn't being done out of racism.
    - atonse 4y ago
      They won’t deny it to you if you wanted it. I’ve been to restaurants like this, like one where The husband and wife owners were Vietnamese and Cambodian, and the wife used to cook Cambodian dishes for people that wanted it, and had a Cambodian menu. It wasn’t anything sinister. It just wasn’t something they advertised but found it to be a novel additional income. It was a Vietnamese restaurant cuz people seek that cuisine out more than Khmer food. But if even I asked for the Khmer menu they’d hand it to me, even though I’m a brown clearly Indian dude (who grew up with a few Cambodian friends)
      - ROTMetro 4y ago
        They sure do deny it, it's happened to me may times. Or they allow it once or twice, but then later on they told me I can't keep ordering it because it's too much work and not on the normal menu. I'm not saying it's sinister. Personally, I think it's reasonable. You have a standard business that you provide. And maybe those recipes are more generic to appeal to a larger customer base, but when someone from the home country comes in wanting the taste of home, you make them that special because you want to out of hospitality, and separate from your standard business. Is that illegal? Should you have to make that for everyone? Some places will accommodate you, but some won't. Maybe because they only make a limited amount of those items, or because they are more labour intensive, or because they include more expensive exotically sourced ingredients and aren't a westernized recipe, or as happened with an ex-girlfriend, because it's a pretty acquired taste, and you should believe them when they say you aren't going to like that, they aren't just being hipstery. As long as they provide me and everyone else their standard service, I think it's legitimate. But under what is being talked about here it would be considered an illegal racist practice.
- hexane360 4y ago
  This discussion has been rehashed over and over again, but you're wrong on the facts of this case. The owner claimed that he would bake any cake, but the evidence shows he refused before they discussed any styling or even what the cake was. He would sell them cupcakes or prebaked items, but wouldn't bake any cake, arguing it was compelled speech. The problem is that in the absence of asking for a cake which specifically mentions gay people, the owner's line of argumentation works equally well for refusing to cook a burger for black people at a diner. By being a business owner in a community, you give up certain civil liberties because you have increased power to infringe upon the civil rights of others. Your analogies all fail because they consider situations where the customer asks the seller for a different, non-standard product. But that didn't happen; they were refused before any products were discussed.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > By being a business owner in a community, you give up certain civil liberties because you have increased power to infringe upon the civil rights of others. Big [citation needed] here. The Constitution doesn’t say you give up your rights by being a business owner and participating in the economy.
    - three_seagrass 4y ago
      Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: > Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term "private". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Title_II%E2%80%94public_accommodations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Title...
      - barry-cotter 4y ago
        > Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: The US constitution overrides other US laws, not the other way around.
parkingrift 4y ago
No one has a "civil right" to discriminate in the United States. The default law in the United States is that discrimination is illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 spells out protections against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin. Sexual orientation is not explicitly protected, but that does not mean you have a "civil right" to discriminate against gay people. You just... have a right to be an asshole.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > The Civil Rights Act of 1964 spells out protections against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin. Only in specific, enumerated contexts, such as employment and public accommodations. You have a civil right to associate with whomever you want to, for whatever reason you want. You also have a Constitutional right to live according to your religion even when participating in the economy.
  - three_seagrass 4y ago
    Public accomodations includes hotels, restaurants, and other institutions open to interstate commerce, per Title II. The baker in question claimed they were an artist (separate from their bakery/restaurant public accomodation) and that they had the religious freedom to discriminate against sexual orientation based on their religion. The court ruled that artists are not compelled to create for whomever they want, but did not say that people can discriminate against other protected classes based on their religious beliefs.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      A bakery is generally not a restaurant under Title II, which defines that to mean an establishment “principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises.” Title II is quite specific in what counts as a “public accommodation.” For example, banks are not covered: https://www.pospislaw.com/blog/2019/02/05/banks-are-not-places-of-public-accommodation-within-the-meaning-of-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964-court-holds/ https://www.pospislaw.com/blog/2019/02/05/banks-are-not-plac...
throwaway09223 4y ago
> Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another? Kind of, yes. I think where things go off the rails is where projection and extrapolation come into play. Recall: one of the key defining cases of the ACLU was their defense of (actual) neo-nazis marching in Skokie in the 70s. Contrast this with the ACLU in 2017 arguing that San Francisco should prevent an alt-right protest because of theorized violence (the protest went forward. No violence materialized). Volokh wrote a bit about it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/16/odd-statement-from-the-aclu-of-california-white-supremacist-violence-is-not-free-speech/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... There's a lot of inconsistency in the modern day ACLU. I think they've walked some of it back in the last few years, but from 2016-2020 I think they kind of lost their mind and I saw a lot of strong advocacy for these sort of projected societal norms -- don't let the bad people protest -- rather than the staunch defense of individual rights no matter who the individuals may be. I want an ACLU that isn't polarized by politics. With a focus on individual rights.
- slg 4y ago
  You are leaving out some important context. The ACLU statement against those alt-right protests came in the immediate aftermath of a similar rally in Charlottesville that resulted in violence and death. People have a right to protest whatever their political viewpoint. However they don't have a right to incite violence. The ACLU no longer believed that these protests would be peaceful so they came out against them. You can argue that the ACLU made the wrong decision because maybe they were misinformed about the nature of the protest and whether it would lead to violence. But the principle behind their decision seems clear and obvious. They will support peaceful free speech and not support speech which incites violence.
  - ip26 4y ago
    In particular, it's worth remembering the ACLU was backing the protestors at Charlottesville when it happened. They felt like they had blood on their hands.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
puffoflogic 4y ago
Bringing religion into the gay cake thing is just gish galloping. No one should be forced to make any cake, no questions asked. (And no, WElL yUo CoulD jUST sTOp MaKInG ALL caKeS does not work, that's just force with a pretty bow on top.) But by bringing irrelevant religion into it, this gives the slavers - er, excuse me, the people who think it's okay to force other people to do things - the moral high ground of defending against a bunch of fundies. Just fucking stop trying to force other people to conform to your beliefs, even if those beliefs are as morally righteous as LGBT rights. Not making someone a cake is not violence.
uuee 4y ago

by slg 4y ago

ROTMetro 4y ago

For the record I am pro-gay marriage, but your example is BS. The baker in your example was willing to bake them a cake. They were never denied a cake. What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech. It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights. Or going to an artist who sells t-shirts with their standard art and saying they denied me service when they wouldn't let me commission a custom piece that they didn't like to content of.

slg 4y ago
>What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech This is just semantics of a legal argument. It is not some universal truth that ordering off menu puts any additional ethical strain on someone. If the baker would make those customizations for a straight couple and not a gay couple then the civil rights of the gay couple are being infringed.
- a123b456c 4y ago
  Honest question: which civil rights were infringed?
  - alar44 4y ago
    The right to be a troglodyte, I'm guessing.
    - ROTMetro 4y ago
      And comment is why we need the ACLU in it's old form. Dude, do you not see no one is arguing for being pieces of crap, but that rights can easily be curtailed long term from an initial starting point of everyone agreeing we shouldn't be pieces of crap. You know, the saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.
      - alar44 4y ago
        Discrimination isn't free speech, end of story.
        ohCh6zos 4y ago
        You're right, it's freedom of association.
        ROTMetro 4y ago
        No crap. Which is why we are discussing the boundaries of rights in the context of an organization that's purpose is to ensure that those boundaries don't get pushed to the point of infringing on other rights in either direction. In a free society we need someone willing to stand up for the unpopular side. I support gay marriage. I feel like a piece of crap in this discussion because the person I am defending disgusts me and is garbage. But I feel like there is a larger discussion that should be had. If political speech is banned in the 6 months before an election do I have free speech? If I am forced to do work I don't want when I am self employed and affluent enough to choose, do do I have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
karpierz 4y ago
> It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights. It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, noting that they seem only seem to be denying black patrons off menu orders, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  And? Ethnic restaurants do this all the time with same ethnicity patrons and not me as a white guy. Shoot, they often even have a seperate menu for the right ethnic group that I never even get to see.
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    Wow, keep voting me down and ignore that this is a real world example that happens all the time. Making accommodations for off menu items at ethnic restaurants is often determined by race but it isn't being done out of racism.
  - atonse 4y ago
    They won’t deny it to you if you wanted it. I’ve been to restaurants like this, like one where The husband and wife owners were Vietnamese and Cambodian, and the wife used to cook Cambodian dishes for people that wanted it, and had a Cambodian menu. It wasn’t anything sinister. It just wasn’t something they advertised but found it to be a novel additional income. It was a Vietnamese restaurant cuz people seek that cuisine out more than Khmer food. But if even I asked for the Khmer menu they’d hand it to me, even though I’m a brown clearly Indian dude (who grew up with a few Cambodian friends)
    - ROTMetro 4y ago
      They sure do deny it, it's happened to me may times. Or they allow it once or twice, but then later on they told me I can't keep ordering it because it's too much work and not on the normal menu. I'm not saying it's sinister. Personally, I think it's reasonable. You have a standard business that you provide. And maybe those recipes are more generic to appeal to a larger customer base, but when someone from the home country comes in wanting the taste of home, you make them that special because you want to out of hospitality, and separate from your standard business. Is that illegal? Should you have to make that for everyone? Some places will accommodate you, but some won't. Maybe because they only make a limited amount of those items, or because they are more labour intensive, or because they include more expensive exotically sourced ingredients and aren't a westernized recipe, or as happened with an ex-girlfriend, because it's a pretty acquired taste, and you should believe them when they say you aren't going to like that, they aren't just being hipstery. As long as they provide me and everyone else their standard service, I think it's legitimate. But under what is being talked about here it would be considered an illegal racist practice.
hexane360 4y ago
This discussion has been rehashed over and over again, but you're wrong on the facts of this case. The owner claimed that he would bake any cake, but the evidence shows he refused before they discussed any styling or even what the cake was. He would sell them cupcakes or prebaked items, but wouldn't bake any cake, arguing it was compelled speech. The problem is that in the absence of asking for a cake which specifically mentions gay people, the owner's line of argumentation works equally well for refusing to cook a burger for black people at a diner. By being a business owner in a community, you give up certain civil liberties because you have increased power to infringe upon the civil rights of others. Your analogies all fail because they consider situations where the customer asks the seller for a different, non-standard product. But that didn't happen; they were refused before any products were discussed.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > By being a business owner in a community, you give up certain civil liberties because you have increased power to infringe upon the civil rights of others. Big [citation needed] here. The Constitution doesn’t say you give up your rights by being a business owner and participating in the economy.
  - three_seagrass 4y ago
    Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: > Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term "private". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Title_II%E2%80%94public_accommodations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Title...
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      > Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: The US constitution overrides other US laws, not the other way around.

parkingrift 4y ago

No one has a "civil right" to discriminate in the United States. The default law in the United States is that discrimination is illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 spells out protections against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin. Sexual orientation is not explicitly protected, but that does not mean you have a "civil right" to discriminate against gay people. You just... have a right to be an asshole.

rayiner 4y ago
> The Civil Rights Act of 1964 spells out protections against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin. Only in specific, enumerated contexts, such as employment and public accommodations. You have a civil right to associate with whomever you want to, for whatever reason you want. You also have a Constitutional right to live according to your religion even when participating in the economy.
- three_seagrass 4y ago
  Public accomodations includes hotels, restaurants, and other institutions open to interstate commerce, per Title II. The baker in question claimed they were an artist (separate from their bakery/restaurant public accomodation) and that they had the religious freedom to discriminate against sexual orientation based on their religion. The court ruled that artists are not compelled to create for whomever they want, but did not say that people can discriminate against other protected classes based on their religious beliefs.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    A bakery is generally not a restaurant under Title II, which defines that to mean an establishment “principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises.” Title II is quite specific in what counts as a “public accommodation.” For example, banks are not covered: https://www.pospislaw.com/blog/2019/02/05/banks-are-not-places-of-public-accommodation-within-the-meaning-of-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964-court-holds/ https://www.pospislaw.com/blog/2019/02/05/banks-are-not-plac...

throwaway09223 4y ago

> Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another? Kind of, yes. I think where things go off the rails is where projection and extrapolation come into play. Recall: one of the key defining cases of the ACLU was their defense of (actual) neo-nazis marching in Skokie in the 70s. Contrast this with the ACLU in 2017 arguing that San Francisco should prevent an alt-right protest because of theorized violence (the protest went forward. No violence materialized). Volokh wrote a bit about it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/16/odd-statement-from-the-aclu-of-california-white-supremacist-violence-is-not-free-speech/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... There's a lot of inconsistency in the modern day ACLU. I think they've walked some of it back in the last few years, but from 2016-2020 I think they kind of lost their mind and I saw a lot of strong advocacy for these sort of projected societal norms -- don't let the bad people protest -- rather than the staunch defense of individual rights no matter who the individuals may be. I want an ACLU that isn't polarized by politics. With a focus on individual rights.

slg 4y ago
You are leaving out some important context. The ACLU statement against those alt-right protests came in the immediate aftermath of a similar rally in Charlottesville that resulted in violence and death. People have a right to protest whatever their political viewpoint. However they don't have a right to incite violence. The ACLU no longer believed that these protests would be peaceful so they came out against them. You can argue that the ACLU made the wrong decision because maybe they were misinformed about the nature of the protest and whether it would lead to violence. But the principle behind their decision seems clear and obvious. They will support peaceful free speech and not support speech which incites violence.
- ip26 4y ago
  In particular, it's worth remembering the ACLU was backing the protestors at Charlottesville when it happened. They felt like they had blood on their hands.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

puffoflogic 4y ago

Bringing religion into the gay cake thing is just gish galloping. No one should be forced to make any cake, no questions asked. (And no, WElL yUo CoulD jUST sTOp MaKInG ALL caKeS does not work, that's just force with a pretty bow on top.) But by bringing irrelevant religion into it, this gives the slavers - er, excuse me, the people who think it's okay to force other people to do things - the moral high ground of defending against a bunch of fundies. Just fucking stop trying to force other people to conform to your beliefs, even if those beliefs are as morally righteous as LGBT rights. Not making someone a cake is not violence.

uuee 4y ago