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Being a business owner does not mean government or others can compel speech from you > Why is the obligation to serve a gay person who sits down at your restau

Being a business owner does not mean government or others can compel speech from you > Why is the obligation to serve a gay person who sits down at your restaurant table any different? Serving a cheeseburger is not speech. Writing "I support gay marriage" on a cheeseburger is

olliej 3y ago
Refusing to sell cheeseburgers to gay people because you’re don’t think they’re people is not free speech
- Natsu 3y ago
  Indeed, it's not. The opinion only protects the commission of expressive works, not the general buying & selling of any goods. You'd have to work really hard to make selling a cheeseburger an expressive act.
  - olliej 3y ago
    I'm trying to work out if you're trolling, malicious, or just naive. Go to your prior comments, and replace "cheese burger" with "wedding cake". There is nothing in a wedding cake that is in any way more expressing than a cheeseburger with text on it saying "cheeseburger". There are two issues here. First you seem to be intent on ignoring or dismissing the context of this lawsuit and ruling: the entire conservative movement and the Supreme Court it appointed have explicitly declared that they want to ban LGBT people from existing, and everything they're doing is with that aim. Secondly the explicit purpose of this ruling is to allow bigots to discriminate against minorities - the entire position is any service for a minority indicates "support" for a "political position", because to these people allowing gay people to exist is a political position.
    - Natsu 3y ago
      This particular story is about Creative 303. It is about a website, not a cake or cheeseburger. While it's possible, in theory, that foods in some particular contexts could be commissioned with some expressive message, this ruling can only be extended to things like making a Jewish baker make a swastika cake or a devout Muslim put a picture of Muhammad on a cake, not to the general sale of off-the-shelf goods to the public. And it says as much: > Colorado now seems to acknowledge that the First Amendment does prohibit it from coercing Ms. Smith to create websites expressing any message with which she disagrees. Alternatively, Colorado con- tends, Ms. Smith must simply provide the same commercial product to all, which she can do by repurposing websites celebrating marriages she does endorse for marriages she does not. Colorado’s theory rests on a belief that this case does not implicate pure speech, but rather the sale of an ordinary commercial product, and that any burden on Ms. Smith’s speech is purely “incidental.” On the State’s telling, then, speech more or less vanishes from the picture—and, with it, any need for First Amendment scrutiny. Colorado’s alternative theory, however, does not sit easily with its stipulation that Ms. Smith does not seek to sell an ordinary commercial good but intends to create “customized and tailored” expressive speech for each couple “to celebrate and promote the couple’s wedding and unique love story.” Colorado seeks to compel just the sort of speech that it tacitly concedes lies beyond its reach. For cakes, you're probably thinking either of the Tastries case (an unrelated case in CA with a recent decision) or Masterpiece (the most famous of several), which ruled that: "The Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s actions in assessing a cakeshop owner’s reasons for declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding celebration violated the free exercise clause." https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cakeshop-ltd-v-colorado-civil-rights-commn/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cake... > the entire conservative movement and the Supreme Court it appointed have explicitly declared that they want to ban LGBT people from existing So how do you explain that, despite Gorsuch being appointed by Trump and Roberts by Bush, they delivered this ruling: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/gorsuch-roberts-deliver-biggest-lgbt-win-since-obergefell-because-biological-sex-exists https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/gorsuch-roberts-d... Would you like to amend that statement given evidence that a Trump appointed justice delivered one of the biggest legal wins ever for queer people? > Secondly the explicit purpose of this ruling is to allow bigots to discriminate against minorities No, this is the holding: > Held: The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees. You can claim that they don't really mean that or something, but these words are what every other court will base their decisions on and justify them with. No right given by the text of that holding to refuse customers based on protected characteristics at all. That is not only illegal, but some of the same conservative justices have very strongly ruled against it in the past. Your post neatly illustrates why I read actual court rulings and not reporting on them. Headlines about this have been wildly hyperbolic and completely unconstrained by anything actually said in the ruling. It is gravely concerning that even Sotomeyer was willing to outright ignore things stipulated to by the parties in this case and Gorsuch, one of those guys who delivered one of the biggest legal wins for queer people ever, calls her out on that.

olliej 3y ago

Refusing to sell cheeseburgers to gay people because you’re don’t think they’re people is not free speech

Natsu 3y ago
Indeed, it's not. The opinion only protects the commission of expressive works, not the general buying & selling of any goods. You'd have to work really hard to make selling a cheeseburger an expressive act.
- olliej 3y ago
  I'm trying to work out if you're trolling, malicious, or just naive. Go to your prior comments, and replace "cheese burger" with "wedding cake". There is nothing in a wedding cake that is in any way more expressing than a cheeseburger with text on it saying "cheeseburger". There are two issues here. First you seem to be intent on ignoring or dismissing the context of this lawsuit and ruling: the entire conservative movement and the Supreme Court it appointed have explicitly declared that they want to ban LGBT people from existing, and everything they're doing is with that aim. Secondly the explicit purpose of this ruling is to allow bigots to discriminate against minorities - the entire position is any service for a minority indicates "support" for a "political position", because to these people allowing gay people to exist is a political position.
  - Natsu 3y ago
    This particular story is about Creative 303. It is about a website, not a cake or cheeseburger. While it's possible, in theory, that foods in some particular contexts could be commissioned with some expressive message, this ruling can only be extended to things like making a Jewish baker make a swastika cake or a devout Muslim put a picture of Muhammad on a cake, not to the general sale of off-the-shelf goods to the public. And it says as much: > Colorado now seems to acknowledge that the First Amendment does prohibit it from coercing Ms. Smith to create websites expressing any message with which she disagrees. Alternatively, Colorado con- tends, Ms. Smith must simply provide the same commercial product to all, which she can do by repurposing websites celebrating marriages she does endorse for marriages she does not. Colorado’s theory rests on a belief that this case does not implicate pure speech, but rather the sale of an ordinary commercial product, and that any burden on Ms. Smith’s speech is purely “incidental.” On the State’s telling, then, speech more or less vanishes from the picture—and, with it, any need for First Amendment scrutiny. Colorado’s alternative theory, however, does not sit easily with its stipulation that Ms. Smith does not seek to sell an ordinary commercial good but intends to create “customized and tailored” expressive speech for each couple “to celebrate and promote the couple’s wedding and unique love story.” Colorado seeks to compel just the sort of speech that it tacitly concedes lies beyond its reach. For cakes, you're probably thinking either of the Tastries case (an unrelated case in CA with a recent decision) or Masterpiece (the most famous of several), which ruled that: "The Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s actions in assessing a cakeshop owner’s reasons for declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding celebration violated the free exercise clause." https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cakeshop-ltd-v-colorado-civil-rights-commn/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cake... > the entire conservative movement and the Supreme Court it appointed have explicitly declared that they want to ban LGBT people from existing So how do you explain that, despite Gorsuch being appointed by Trump and Roberts by Bush, they delivered this ruling: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/gorsuch-roberts-deliver-biggest-lgbt-win-since-obergefell-because-biological-sex-exists https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/gorsuch-roberts-d... Would you like to amend that statement given evidence that a Trump appointed justice delivered one of the biggest legal wins ever for queer people? > Secondly the explicit purpose of this ruling is to allow bigots to discriminate against minorities No, this is the holding: > Held: The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees. You can claim that they don't really mean that or something, but these words are what every other court will base their decisions on and justify them with. No right given by the text of that holding to refuse customers based on protected characteristics at all. That is not only illegal, but some of the same conservative justices have very strongly ruled against it in the past. Your post neatly illustrates why I read actual court rulings and not reporting on them. Headlines about this have been wildly hyperbolic and completely unconstrained by anything actually said in the ruling. It is gravely concerning that even Sotomeyer was willing to outright ignore things stipulated to by the parties in this case and Gorsuch, one of those guys who delivered one of the biggest legal wins for queer people ever, calls her out on that.