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Supreme Court Rules Web Designer Can Refuse Work on Same-Sex Wedding Announcemen

30 points by shaburn 3y ago

shaburn 3y ago
https://archive.ph/iW601 https://archive.ph/iW601
marklubi 3y ago
That’s one hot take on the ruling. It was quite narrow, and has nothing to do with same-sex weddings, but is about compelled speech and free association.
- bluepod4 3y ago
  It’s not really a “hot take” since this is the main reason why the web designer filed the lawsuit to being with lol. But I understand what you’re saying.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    Not only that, the web designer initially filed the suit in anticipation that maybe, one day a gay couple would ask for her services... and then the specific gay couple who she eventually denied services to doesn't seem to exist at all. https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-... > Maybe it should not be a surprise, though, that this strange fake “request” popped up in a case in which the plaintiff’s main argument rested on the claim that someday, out there, a same-sex couple would want her to design a wedding website. The closest thing Smith had to an actual inquiry—the nonwedding of Stewart and Mike—arrived within 24 hours of her having filed a suit in which said inquiry would be potentially a helpful piece of supporting evidence. The inquiry floats through the filings only later, and still it remains. Despite the district court raising doubts about it representing a genuine inquiry from two men getting married—and the court didn’t even raise the real doubt that the couple does not exist—it is now part of the case history, a bit of fan fiction joining the other phantom gays the case invokes. ADF made no mention of Stewart and Mike specifically in their arguments before the Supreme Court this session, but they don’t need to: Their entire case, after all, is built around the idea of gay people doing something that they have not yet done, nor ever will do.
    - bluepod4 3y ago
      Yes! The “maybe, one day” thing threw me for a loop. I was sort of hoping that maybe she was planning on running for office and wanted to get some votes. But nope, not even that. All this over some hypotheticals lol.
  - olliej 3y ago
    The "web designer" filed a fraudulent law suit.
- wryoak 3y ago
  While I support the ruling for the abstract basis you describe, to say it has nothing in the concrete world to do with samesex weddings is disingenuous. Do you presume the plaintiff would have brought such a suit over something that echoed her beliefs? Unless you can reasonably attribute such conviction of principle to her, she cannot be said to have brought the suit on such principles, only that her argument was parallel to such principles.
decremental 3y ago
[flagged]
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  > forcing people to cater to every weird thing gay people want illegal Since when are wedding announcements a weird thing that only gay people want?
  - decremental 3y ago
    [dead]
injb 3y ago
It's disturbing to me that we need the supreme court's opinion on whether or not a person can refuse work.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  It's supposedly a mere slip slope from there to every restaurant and grocer in town refusing to sell food to members of $Disadvantaged_Group, causing them to die of starvation. (No, in the actual context, I don't think this ruling is very sensible.)
  - infamouscow 3y ago
    I'd be curious if the people worried about this slippery slope were equally worried about something similar happening with COVID vaccine cards.
    - spondylosaurus 3y ago
      The Venn diagram of people concerned about discrimination against marginalized groups and people concerned about being asked to get inoculated against an endemic virus is two discrete circles. Also funny how the COVID vaccine card thing never seemed to pan out anyway. I can't remember the last time someone asked me for proof of vaccination...
      - kashunstva 3y ago
        > an endemic virus But COVID-19 wasn’t endemic at the time that proof-of-vaccination requirements were commonplace. An endemic infectious disease has stable low-level incidence within a defined population. Nothing about the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic when such restrictions were in place fits that description. In any case, I was asked many times for proof of vaccination; but I don’t live in the U.S. so possibly the implementation compliance differed.
      - jdlshore 3y ago
        Asking for proof of vaccination was common here in Portland, toward the NR of the epidemic, when restaurants and venues were opening back up.
spondylosaurus 3y ago
Related reading: The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Man, and the Supreme Court (https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-...)
- Pfhortune 3y ago
  This is the real terrifying thing here… that a Supreme Court ruling is based on an entirely fictional scenario.
  - pohl 3y ago
    ...a fictional scenario using an actual person's identity without their knowledge, even.
    - spondylosaurus 3y ago
      What kills me about that is how the actual person whose identity got co-opted is himself a web designer. Doubly bold to pretend that a straight, married man is asking for a gay wedding announcement, and that he'd solicit someone else to create one instead of... doing it himself?
  - remarkEon 3y ago
    Huh? That Stewart isn't the one who filed the lawsuit has nothing to do with this. Smith sought clarity for what the Colorado law required, and it escalated to the Supreme Court. Smith's inquiry is also entirely reasonable, given the precedent set with Masterpiece. I'm not sure what TNR thinks it's proving with their article.
    - soganess 3y ago
      Sounds like an advisory opinion...
- smaddox 3y ago
olliej 3y ago
When you're so homophobic you invent a company, then fraudulently claim someone wants you as a client, and then sue to say you should be able to discriminate against people if their existence is against your beliefs. So yes they did commit perjury, and the Supreme Court said "who cares, our goal is to make it illegal to be gay again"
boeingUH60 3y ago
Is there anything wrong with this? There are thousands of web designers out there. If someone doesn’t want to serve you, then you take your business to another one interested in the money. Suppose a gay web designer gets offered a deal to design a website for a notoriously anti-LGBT church…they should be allowed to say no because it conflicts with their values. Pretty sure they’ll find another designer willing to do it.
- throwawaymanbot 3y ago
  [dead]
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  I think the real discussion is around where that line exists. What people, and under what conditions, can you refuse to serve? Specific races? Disabilities? etc
- belltaco 3y ago
  > Suppose a gay web designer gets offered a deal to design a website for a notoriously anti-LGBT church Sexual orientation is a protected class of people under the law, not being a bigot against minorities.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - listenallyall 3y ago
    A protected class under employment law. If the web designer was looking to hire someone, he couldn't exclude or discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. This case wasn't about hiring.
francisofascii 3y ago
I had a friend who used to work as a PM for a conservative outfit in DC. (Something like the Koch foundation) He said it was impossible to get Web Design agencies to work on their products. (Which, to me, should continued to be allowed.) This decision seems to fit that same situation.
- belltaco 3y ago
  No, being conservative isn't a protected class under law, sexual orientation is.
falcolas 3y ago
Like banning books based on content without context, this will have unintended consequences. But in the more immediate term, I fear for what will happen as traditional restaurants turn their existing biases against serving black people (who are sterotypically labeled as poor patrons) into bans. I don't think this will end peacefully.
daedalus_j 3y ago
I really don't understand this one. I turn down clients with projects I don't want to do all the time. How is "I don't want to make your crypto-scam website." substantially different than "I don't want to make your same-sex wedding website."? If you were a McDonalds of websites, and any person could walk in and order a stock website it would be a different matter entirely. To refuse to sell an item off of your shelf to a customer based on sex/religion/skin-color/etc would be entirely wrong, but to refuse to enter a contractual agreement with someone to create a bespoke thing seems different. Then again, I may be some sort of terrible despicable bigot, because I've turned down *EVERY* contract to write PERL that I've ever been offered, so maybe I'm just a warped individual.
- s__s 3y ago
  > I really don't understand this one. I turn down clients with projects I don't want to do all the time Yup. The key word here is “projects”. The web designer technically isn’t turning down the client they’re turning down the project. It’s an important distinction.
  - bob-09 3y ago
    I think it's also important to make the distinction that the project is purely hypothetical. This decision is historical in that "what if" cases now qualify for Supreme Court rulings.
shaburn 3y ago
This is an excellent case for the real dangers of state sanctioned monopoly.

30 points by shaburn 3y ago

https://archive.ph/iW601 https://archive.ph/iW601

That’s one hot take on the ruling. It was quite narrow, and has nothing to do with same-sex weddings, but is about compelled speech and free association.

bluepod4 3y ago
It’s not really a “hot take” since this is the main reason why the web designer filed the lawsuit to being with lol. But I understand what you’re saying.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Not only that, the web designer initially filed the suit in anticipation that maybe, one day a gay couple would ask for her services... and then the specific gay couple who she eventually denied services to doesn't seem to exist at all. https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-... > Maybe it should not be a surprise, though, that this strange fake “request” popped up in a case in which the plaintiff’s main argument rested on the claim that someday, out there, a same-sex couple would want her to design a wedding website. The closest thing Smith had to an actual inquiry—the nonwedding of Stewart and Mike—arrived within 24 hours of her having filed a suit in which said inquiry would be potentially a helpful piece of supporting evidence. The inquiry floats through the filings only later, and still it remains. Despite the district court raising doubts about it representing a genuine inquiry from two men getting married—and the court didn’t even raise the real doubt that the couple does not exist—it is now part of the case history, a bit of fan fiction joining the other phantom gays the case invokes. ADF made no mention of Stewart and Mike specifically in their arguments before the Supreme Court this session, but they don’t need to: Their entire case, after all, is built around the idea of gay people doing something that they have not yet done, nor ever will do.
  - bluepod4 3y ago
    Yes! The “maybe, one day” thing threw me for a loop. I was sort of hoping that maybe she was planning on running for office and wanted to get some votes. But nope, not even that. All this over some hypotheticals lol.
- olliej 3y ago
  The "web designer" filed a fraudulent law suit.
wryoak 3y ago
While I support the ruling for the abstract basis you describe, to say it has nothing in the concrete world to do with samesex weddings is disingenuous. Do you presume the plaintiff would have brought such a suit over something that echoed her beliefs? Unless you can reasonably attribute such conviction of principle to her, she cannot be said to have brought the suit on such principles, only that her argument was parallel to such principles.

decremental 3y ago

[flagged]

spondylosaurus 3y ago
> forcing people to cater to every weird thing gay people want illegal Since when are wedding announcements a weird thing that only gay people want?
- decremental 3y ago
  [dead]

injb 3y ago

It's disturbing to me that we need the supreme court's opinion on whether or not a person can refuse work.

bell-cot 3y ago
It's supposedly a mere slip slope from there to every restaurant and grocer in town refusing to sell food to members of $Disadvantaged_Group, causing them to die of starvation. (No, in the actual context, I don't think this ruling is very sensible.)
- infamouscow 3y ago
  I'd be curious if the people worried about this slippery slope were equally worried about something similar happening with COVID vaccine cards.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    The Venn diagram of people concerned about discrimination against marginalized groups and people concerned about being asked to get inoculated against an endemic virus is two discrete circles. Also funny how the COVID vaccine card thing never seemed to pan out anyway. I can't remember the last time someone asked me for proof of vaccination...
    - kashunstva 3y ago
      > an endemic virus But COVID-19 wasn’t endemic at the time that proof-of-vaccination requirements were commonplace. An endemic infectious disease has stable low-level incidence within a defined population. Nothing about the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic when such restrictions were in place fits that description. In any case, I was asked many times for proof of vaccination; but I don’t live in the U.S. so possibly the implementation compliance differed.
    - jdlshore 3y ago
      Asking for proof of vaccination was common here in Portland, toward the NR of the epidemic, when restaurants and venues were opening back up.

spondylosaurus 3y ago

Related reading: The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Man, and the Supreme Court (https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-...)

Pfhortune 3y ago
This is the real terrifying thing here… that a Supreme Court ruling is based on an entirely fictional scenario.
- pohl 3y ago
  ...a fictional scenario using an actual person's identity without their knowledge, even.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    What kills me about that is how the actual person whose identity got co-opted is himself a web designer. Doubly bold to pretend that a straight, married man is asking for a gay wedding announcement, and that he'd solicit someone else to create one instead of... doing it himself?
- remarkEon 3y ago
  Huh? That Stewart isn't the one who filed the lawsuit has nothing to do with this. Smith sought clarity for what the Colorado law required, and it escalated to the Supreme Court. Smith's inquiry is also entirely reasonable, given the precedent set with Masterpiece. I'm not sure what TNR thinks it's proving with their article.
  - soganess 3y ago
    Sounds like an advisory opinion...
smaddox 3y ago

olliej 3y ago

When you're so homophobic you invent a company, then fraudulently claim someone wants you as a client, and then sue to say you should be able to discriminate against people if their existence is against your beliefs. So yes they did commit perjury, and the Supreme Court said "who cares, our goal is to make it illegal to be gay again"

boeingUH60 3y ago

Is there anything wrong with this? There are thousands of web designers out there. If someone doesn’t want to serve you, then you take your business to another one interested in the money. Suppose a gay web designer gets offered a deal to design a website for a notoriously anti-LGBT church…they should be allowed to say no because it conflicts with their values. Pretty sure they’ll find another designer willing to do it.

throwawaymanbot 3y ago
[dead]
unshavedyak 3y ago
I think the real discussion is around where that line exists. What people, and under what conditions, can you refuse to serve? Specific races? Disabilities? etc
belltaco 3y ago
> Suppose a gay web designer gets offered a deal to design a website for a notoriously anti-LGBT church Sexual orientation is a protected class of people under the law, not being a bigot against minorities.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- listenallyall 3y ago
  A protected class under employment law. If the web designer was looking to hire someone, he couldn't exclude or discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. This case wasn't about hiring.

francisofascii 3y ago

I had a friend who used to work as a PM for a conservative outfit in DC. (Something like the Koch foundation) He said it was impossible to get Web Design agencies to work on their products. (Which, to me, should continued to be allowed.) This decision seems to fit that same situation.

belltaco 3y ago
No, being conservative isn't a protected class under law, sexual orientation is.

falcolas 3y ago

Like banning books based on content without context, this will have unintended consequences. But in the more immediate term, I fear for what will happen as traditional restaurants turn their existing biases against serving black people (who are sterotypically labeled as poor patrons) into bans. I don't think this will end peacefully.

daedalus_j 3y ago

I really don't understand this one. I turn down clients with projects I don't want to do all the time. How is "I don't want to make your crypto-scam website." substantially different than "I don't want to make your same-sex wedding website."? If you were a McDonalds of websites, and any person could walk in and order a stock website it would be a different matter entirely. To refuse to sell an item off of your shelf to a customer based on sex/religion/skin-color/etc would be entirely wrong, but to refuse to enter a contractual agreement with someone to create a bespoke thing seems different. Then again, I may be some sort of terrible despicable bigot, because I've turned down *EVERY* contract to write PERL that I've ever been offered, so maybe I'm just a warped individual.

s__s 3y ago
> I really don't understand this one. I turn down clients with projects I don't want to do all the time Yup. The key word here is “projects”. The web designer technically isn’t turning down the client they’re turning down the project. It’s an important distinction.
- bob-09 3y ago
  I think it's also important to make the distinction that the project is purely hypothetical. This decision is historical in that "what if" cases now qualify for Supreme Court rulings.

shaburn 3y ago

This is an excellent case for the real dangers of state sanctioned monopoly.