General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Masterpiece decision was narrow and hopefully not harmful but there is one good thing in it
the idea that if one says outrageous statements about religion then one can't be presumed to be fairly judging a policy that affects that religion. This should be fatal to Trump's travel ban. Clearly he has repeatedly denigrated Islam as a religion. How on earth after this decision can the court now turn around and say Trump's comments don't matter in regards to the travel ban?
it was based on the quite frankly pretty outrageous statements of one of the commissioners who decided that the baker didn't merit protection and the fact the discrimination took place in 2012 when such marriages were not recognized in Colorado. This set of facts is unlikely to come up in future cases. We can't be sure what Kennedy would do with a more neutral set of facts but it seems he would have ruled against the baker if marriage had been recognized and the commissioner had not said what he said.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,607 posts)People questioned that use, but the explanation came quickly.
Supreme Court rules narrowly for baker to refused to make wedding cake for same-sex couple.
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The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,837 posts)The court's decision was, indeed, narrow, and only addressed the issue of whether the Colorado civil rights commission gave both parties a fair and unbiased hearing. Knees are jerking all over the place but those knees don't seem to be attached to people who actually read the decision. But the point about a government entity expressing hostility toward certain religious beliefs could be applied quite nicely to Trump's travel ban aimed at Muslims. Good catch.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)I wonder...
malthaussen
(17,216 posts)It does appear that special circumstances apply to this specific ruling, and it reads like the USSC isn't looking to use it as a broader precedent.
Although "based on sincere religious beliefs" is still something I think we need to throw out of legal consideration.
-- Mal
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,607 posts)The legal term "narrow ruling" goes whizzing right over Jr.'s dizzy little head. #SCOTUS
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I am reading about a 7 - 2 vote. Pretty sure that's not narrowly... At least 2 dem leaning justices must have agreed.
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Contrary to what you may read, #SCOTUS did not "rule in favor of the baker. It ruled against the CO Commission. When it comes time for #SCOTUS to rule on the merits, it was clear: So-called "Religious Freedom" can't be used to nullify the dignity of gay people in the marketplace
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yardwork
(61,705 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,607 posts)Last edited Mon Jun 4, 2018, 01:27 PM - Edit history (2)
KneelBeforeHat Retweeted:.@ACLU calls the Masterpiece case they represented gay couple a non-loss, saying SCOTUS ruled "based on concerns unique to the case but reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the marketplace, including against LGBT people.
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LGBT group @SouthernEqual says the baker ruling "does not apply to businesses in other states and does not invalidate non-discrimination laws that protect LGBTQ people.
Statement:
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The narrow ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop may have been in favor of the religious baker, but this from Justice Kennedy a rousing defense of public accommodations law.
Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises is a case @NAACP_LDF won 50 years ago. Still the law. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/12/the_key_principle_in_the_masterpiece_cakeshop_case_was_litigated_in_1968.html
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Weve Already Litigated This
A cake maker has as much right to discriminate against gay customers as a BBQ shop has a right to discriminate against black ones: None.
By Cristian Farias
Judging from the coverage surrounding this weeks blockbuster case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, it might seem that the legal clash between religious liberty and discrimination in public spaces is a modern controversy that the Supreme Court is just catching up to. But more than 50 years ago, John W. Mungin, a black Baptist minister, was threatened with deadly force and told to leave a famous South Carolina barbecue restaurantall because its owner held to the belief that the races should be kept strictly separated.
He put a pistol to my head, said Mungin, 84, as he recalled the time he tried to eat at Maurices Piggie Park, a chain of drive-in restaurants renowned for its bright mustard-based sauce and the views of its founder, Maurice Bessinger, who in life was an avowed white supremacist. Mungin, who is now retired and living in Brooklyn, New York, doesnt remember exactly who met him with a shotgun at the Piggie Park on Main Street, a few blocks away from the South Carolina statehouse in downtown Columbia. But he was determined hed one day assert his right to eat there. I left, but I said, Ill be back, he told me recently.
The law happened to be on Mungins side. He was shunned in July 1964, just days after Congress passed Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Legally and literally, the law opened the door to blacks in all of the United States, but particularly in the South, to the full and equal enjoyment of places like Piggie Park. Plaintiff was not served and was required to leave the premises solely because of his race and color, read Mungins lawsuit against Bessinger in federal court, filed months later with the help of local South Carolina attorneys and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
In his defense, Bessinger tried to invoke a higher law. Bessinger believes as a matter of faith that racial intermixing or any contribution thereto contravenes the will of God, his lawyers wrote in their answer to Mungins complaint, which was joined by two other black Americans who had been turned away. As applied to this Defendant, the instant action and the Act under which it is brought constitute State interference with the free practice of his religion, which interference violates The First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The lower courts didnt think much of his argument. And neither did the Supreme Court, which resoundingly rejected Bessingers plea to allow his religious beliefs to serve as a shield for his obligations under the newly enacted civil-rights statutean obligation that included serving Mungin and other black customers. In a footnote joined by all the justices, the high court made plain that this is not even a borderline case of discrimination, and shot down Bessingers defense that the federal public-accommodations law was unconstitutional because it contravenes the will of God and constitutes an interference with the free exercise of the Defendants religion.