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US Supreme Court rules website designer can refuse to serve same-sex couples
- edoggie 3y agoI think if they are going to allow discrimination for "religious" reasons, then I think then the whole issue is gone to dust. I should be able to discriminate against your religion then as well, because I am not religious.
- GloomyBoots 3y agoYou can. That’s the point.
- buildbot 3y ago[flagged]
- GloomyBoots 3y agoYou absolutely can refuse to take on a job designing Christian content on the basis that it conflicts with your religious beliefs.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoThere are "public accommodation" laws that involve this, but they are pretty much saying that "public accommodation" doesn't extend to creative endeavors, like making websites or baking custom cakes.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoI believe that "not religious" is considered a religious belief. I'm pretty sure that "religious" beliefs can even include things like not wanting to take a vaccine (according to some courts).
- Natsu 3y agoThe headline is wrong and this is a free speech case, not a religious case, specifically the question of "whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment." The idea is that the government can't compel someone to endorse a particular message. This includes the commission of creative works that someone disagrees with. This is NOT a general right to refuse service based on protected characteristics. So you can't make a Jewish baker bake holocaust cakes if they don't want to (yes, this is an actual example that came up). But if someone is already selling holocaust cakes, they have to sell them to everyone regardless of race or sexuality.
- wernercd 3y ago[flagged]
- MarkMarine 3y agoAh, the “should bring back whites only water fountains” defense.
- wernercd 3y agoAh, the "if you disagree, you're literally hitler" response. Nothing in my statements endorses racism in any form. The only reason to bring that as a response is to strawman and attack what you think is said and not what really exists.
- MarkMarine 3y agoWhat do you think the rest of these cases test ? This is the same reasoning, what you’re using, that people used for segregation. The reason people are forced to serve black people in restaurants is the same reason that these protections for LGBT people exist. It’s “protected classes” including race. It was in the oral arguments, Alito was discussing a black Santa at a mall and a kid in a KKK hood. So I’m not standing up a straw man, I’m not calling you hitler, but it is funny how quickly you ran to that as some kind of defense.
- wernercd 3y ago"it's funny how quickly you ran" in response to you claiming support of religious protections is support of segregation. I literally responded to your escalation with an equally stupid response. I responded in kind. "protected class" you mean... like religion? You realize that religion is a protected class? belief in stuff like traditional marriage? Serving you food is not the same as creating art with a message that goes against your religion. Just like the cake guy didn't refuse to sell to anyone - he simply refused to make product with messages that went against his religion. he would sell you a cake... but not one with a message. We aren't "going backwards". We won't have black people at the back of the bus. The only ones fighting for segregation today is, like always, the left as they push for segregated graduation ceremonies and the like. Stop being disingenuous and maybe I won't be forced to respond in the way I did.
- DesiLurker 3y agowell if we are this far then can it be a precedent to disallow the website itself from serving LGBT folks? what about Muslims?
- geodel 3y agowhat about Muslims? What about them? Do muslims need to be forced to sell/serve non-halal items in their establishments?
- splendor_spoon 3y ago> Do muslims need to be forced to sell/serve non-halal items in their establishment? No and that is a mischaracterization of the decision. This case states that they can decide who they want to sell their items to and discriminate against those they feel are unworthy of their goods.
- jaywalk 3y ago> This case states that they can decide who they want to sell their items to and discriminate against those they feel are unworthy of their goods. It absolutely does not.
- badwolf 3y agoA more apt comparison, would be telling a muslim vendor they can refuse to sell their halal items to christians.
- jaywalk 3y agoThis doesn't make sense. Why would a Muslim vendor care to do that in the first place? There is nothing in their religion that says only Muslims can eat halal food. It's a completely different scenario.
- KMag 3y agoI think your proposed comparison follows the headline, and the headline doesn't actually reflect the ruling. I believe that the ruling is focused on the content, not the client. My reading is that if the same-sex couple had (for some odd reason) asked for a hetero wedding site, the web designer would not have been allowed to deny them business.
- 650REDHAIR 3y agoI’d love a complete breakdown on how this case even made it to the Supreme Court. From my (very limited) understanding the situation in this case is essentially a hypothetical?
- buildbot 3y ago100% designed to bring this issue to the supreme court, that’s all.
- Aken 3y agoEspecially after two lower courts sided with Colorado already.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MarkMarine 3y agoThe court took it cause they felt like it. Full stop. Standing, harm, prior precedence, it all just goes out the window when there is a 6/3 majority. The Supreme Court is explicitly political, partisan organization, which should have been obvious after bush v gore but now this is here to remind a new generation what a joke this thing is.
- Shekelphile 3y agoI'm not sure why states are not just ignoring federal courts at this point. The GOP hasn't allowed democrats to appoint any judges (even when they had majorities in the senate) for over a decade now. There is no reason for blue states to abide at all at this point, and they should just defer to their own state level courts instead. Either that or a 'supreme court in exile' needs to be made to counter this.
- areyousure 3y ago> The GOP hasn't allowed democrats to appoint any judges (even when they had majorities in the senate) for over a decade now. In case anyone was curious, literally the most recent appointment to the Supreme Court was by (Democratic president) Joe Biden. Ketanji Brown Jackson began her service exactly one year ago. (Biden has also appointed over a hundred other federal judges.)
- morelisp 3y agoThe "stay humble be kind" is a bit over the top tbh.
- awb 3y agoI’m surprised they took the case. It seems like a carbon copy of the cake decorator case that set this precedent. > But the Supreme Court now says artists cannot be compelled to express messages against their religious beliefs. How is this conclusion different from the conclusion they reached in the cake decorator case? (Also in CO if I’m not mistaken)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kyrra 3y agoYou misunderstand the baker case. All that case ruled was that the Colorado Civil Rights Commision was harassing Masterpiece Cakeshop, and that they needed to stop. It's why as soon as the case was over, the baker was sued again by someone else. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission#Majority_opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
- MattGaiser 3y agoIn the cake case, they ended up not really ruling on the issue and focusing on the specific treatment of the baker by the commission rather than the broader rights concerns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
- kyrra 3y agoBad headline is bad. The court ruled that creating a website was considered speech. The government cannot force you to produce speech you are against. The state stipulated (agreed with) the following: > Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” and she “will gladly create custom graphics and websites” for clients of any sexual orientation. > She will not produce content that “contradicts biblical truth” regardless of who orders it. This would also protect a Muslim artist from being forced to produce a drawing of Muhammad if requested by a client.
- flufferstutter 3y agoIt seems like that could be used to justify all sorts of questionable refusals?
- ec109685 3y agoLGBT is a protected class, just like race. The desire to have Muhammad drawn isn’t protected in anyway, so it’s not at all equivalent.
- jaywalk 3y agoWhat you're saying is nonsense. How is the desire to have something drawn for you all that different from the desire to have a website created for you? It's essentially the same.
- 2bitencryption 3y agoFrom the majority: "The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands." From a dissenting opinion: "Today, the court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class." Remember, the job of the Supreme Court is not to decide what is morally correct or just, but to interpret the Constitution.
- jfengel 3y agoBoth the majority and the dissent "interpret the Constitution". The difference is that the majority want to interpret it in a way that agrees with their morality, while the minority interpret it in a way that agrees with theirs. The actual text of the Constitution itself has no bearing on it; it can be used to justify any decision they want. So the majority opinion becomes the Constitution. They'd like for you to believe that it flows inevitably from the 1787 text, but that's simply not the case. The opposite opinion could just as easily have been "the interpretation", aside from the accident of history that made one group the majority and the other not.
- autoexec 3y agoI'm just waiting for someone to argue that it violates their religion to allow black people to sit at the lunch counter and suddenly we're back to the 1960s
- coliveira 3y ago[flagged]
- LexiMax 3y agoIt's not unprecedented. In the history of the US, the Bible has been used to justify owning slaves and segregation. It's a common strategy. Figure out the conclusion you want to draw first, and then look in the Bible for things that justify your viewpoint, glossing over things that don't support or contradict your point of view or shine a bad light on your subsequent behavior.
- gameman144 3y agoIt seems like there's a distinction between things here, though. As far as I can tell, no precedent has been set here regarding an individual's right to receive non-speech-based goods or services. For instance, if you go into a burger shack and the owner doesn't like some trait about you, they still have an obligation to sell you the same burgers they'd sell anyone else. If they have a special bun where they write out in sesame seeds "I endorse your decisions" for some people, though, then they'd be under no obligation to give you that specific bun.
- autoexec 3y agoI figure if cake can be protected speech surely a ham on rye with a side of fries can be.
- gameman144 3y agoWasn't the whole cake thing that they wanted custom writing on top? As in, a plain old cake would be fine, but a cake that said "Congratulations on your wedding!" would be speech, as far as I read it. It's a good point regardless, though, and I don't envy the position of trying to draw the line between what's protected speech and what's not. Edit: it seems the cake was not requesting custom writing -- custom writing was explicitly protected as free speech in another case. It seems in the analogy of the burger joint, that case was more akin to a burger joint which only sold "I endorse your decisions" buns. Which makes me as glad as ever that I'm not in charge of being the arbiter of what's speech and what's not.
- samtho 3y agoShe had every right to refuse business to anyone for any reason as a business owner, regardless of the quality of her reasoning. People also have the right to refuse to use her business and go to a competitor who would likely be happy to service them. The free market goes both ways and while first amendment protects you from state prosecution of exercising free speech, it does not protect you, however, from the court of public opinion, which she and her business may need to answer to.
- floatrock 3y agoIf you operate a retail store, should you be able to refuse business to someone in a wheelchair, especially if building the ADA ramp will cost you an extra 10k that you don't want to spend?
- peteradio 3y agoNot according to laws passed by congress.
- Aken 3y agoI generally hold this opinion, also, but I worry about the ramifications. Should we allow restaurants to exclude certain races? What if employees of the business differ on their treatment of customers? It feels like opportunity for much more chaos, even if the free market handles it. The lines between what individuals can do and what a business can do (with individuals representing it) feel too blurred. In cases like the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses after Obergefell, she _has_ to because of the office she represents. It feels like businesses should have the same obligation, because business !== person.
- samtho 3y agoI agree that there are problems, specifically when an ideology dominates an industry in a given locale. For single employee behavior, a company should have a code of conduct or expectation of some degree of professionalism because they are representing the company. If a single employee treats someone poorly, the business can be called out and hung out to dry. It is the business’s responsibility to hire and maintain employees that accurately represent their business. In the case of Kentucky county clerk, that person failed at their position as a public servant to perform the duty they were assigned. If it goes against their personal beliefs, that is not the job for them and they can reenter the job market for a position they are capable of performing. I don’t agree that business should have the same obligations as public institutions, but they must also be willing face indefensible criticism if they choose to die on this hill. Social issues tend to always be progressing on the whole in some way, and I would be in favor of government subsidized grants for small business owners who are willing to create a competing business in an otherwise monopolistic environment. It’s easy to suggest that we should just legislate away undesirable behavior, but this does not solve the underlying problems and will simply be gamed as most laws lacking teeth or clear violation criteria are. It’s only when social pressures force a business either to rethink their stance or to close will you get meaningful results.
- KMag 3y agoTechnically, isn't the ruling that the website designer can refuse to create same-sex wedding content? If the same-sex couple commissioned a website for a hetero wedding, the designer would be obligated, right? It's a subtle distinction, but legally important. Things get really messy because it's tough to disentangle the content from those commissioning the website in the case of a same-sex wedding. Don't get me wrong: I hold these web designers in low regard. However, my understanding is that this ruling isn't as bad as the headline suggests.
- gameman144 3y ago> If the same-sex couple commissioned a website for a hetero wedding, the designer would be obligated, right? Based on this ruling, no. The designer would be just as firmly within their rights under this ruling to say "I don't think anyone should get married, so I won't do a heterosexual wedding website", or to say "I think this person is too tall, so I don't want to make their website". If the designer agreed to make a given website, though, then declined upon finding out that the customers were a same-sex couple (in a way that didn't change the contract at all), then that would still presumably be a case of discrimination.
- KMag 3y agoYes, I guess that's what I meant, but wasn't precise enough. Thanks for the correction.
- arcbyte 3y agoI think there's a pretty clear line with this sort of thing that we'll eventually settle around. Let me start with the hypothetical illustration. Michaelangelo was a devout catholic. If a Muslim sultan had captured him and forced him to create works of art that offended his personal values, do we really believe that he would have been capable of producing his best works of art, or even items of the same caliber as those he regularly created? Of course not. He would have created art for sure, but without the spark that comes from his passion, there is no physical force in existence that could have prodded him to paint his best masterpieces. So then neither should a court force a modern day expression of artistic creation when it goes against the personal values of the creator. Most of these cases boil down to someone wanting work involving a not insubstantial amount of creativity by a craftsman who holds opposing viewpoints. Even if we force them to do so at gunpoint, they won't create at the same standards because it will be intrinsically impossible to coerce creativity. Should we then punish them for that? Of course not. Now on the other extreme, I don't think there's any real principled disagreement that can be had by forbidding McDonalds from discriminating who can buy a cheeseburger. It's a mass produced item, devoid of creativity at the point of production. What I mean is that all the creativity has already happened at the corporate office and we see merely the works of distributed assembly. There's no discernable difference between a McChicken assembled under coercion and one by incentive. Of course there's a murky line in there, but insofar as a work involves creativity, it ought not be compelled. For example: a wedding cake bakery. Mixing the dough and baking it is not a creative act - it's a well practiced procedure sourced previous creative endeavors that don't need repeating. A bakery serving the public ought not to be able to refuse an undecorated, baked rectangular cake to anyone if its part of a product regularly produced. Beyond that, you start to get into exercising creativity with frosting, however simple and I think you should not be compelled to exercise your creativity.
- foogazi 3y agoIt wasn’t even a real case - no one asked the designer to create anything There were no customers, it’s all just hypothetical
- omniglottal 3y agoWaaaait, isn't this the same court which considers money to be speech?! By the same rationale, a bank cannot be forced to "speak" with you after you "speak" with it....
- tourmalinetaco 3y agoMoney = speech regardless of where you are. Because money means influence, and that means you have minimal consequences for your actions.
- KMag 3y agoIf you're getting the "money=speech" information from the Citizens United ruling, then you fell into the same trap I did by reading the headlines. Despite what all the headlines said, Citizens United didn't actually rule that money is speech.
- s3p 3y agoWhy was this flagged?