Justice Delayed. Once again, the Supreme Court sidetracked a case pitting gay rights against...

[DonViejo]

Justice Delayed

Once again, the Supreme Court sidetracked a case pitting gay rights against religious freedom.

By Joseph P. Williams | Staff Writer
May 5, 2017, at 6:00 a.m.

When the owner of a high-end Colorado bakery refused to make a wedding cake for two men, and the betrothed couple sued for discrimination, it became pretty clear, pretty quickly, that the U.S. Supreme Court would have to settle an urgent, potentially decisive clash between gay rights and religious freedom.

But this week, for the seventh time in nearly a year, the justices have delayed a decision on whether to hear arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. That's despite the fact that the closely-watched case has landmark potential, could define the limits of new state laws designed to curtail the rights of gay consumers, and could help define the political views of the court's newest member, Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The repeated delays of a major case is particularly curious, some analysts say, since the court is back at full strength since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016.

Masterpiece Cakeshop v. CCRC "has been languishing in limbo for months, waiting, perhaps, for one more conservative justice to provide a fourth vote to accept review," columnist Anne Rostow wrote Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Times, an online publication specializing in LGBTQ issues. "April 21 was the first petition review conference for Justice Gorsuch, so I sort of expected Masterpiece to show up on next year's docket. Instead, it was again delayed until the next conference, scheduled April 28. Hmmm."

The high court's April 28 session, however, came and went, and the Masterpiece Cakeshop case remained in limbo. That has led some to question why, given so many opportunities, the court hasn't made its move in what Rostrow calls the "critical" issue of the free exercise of religion and equal protection under law.

more
https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-05-05/supreme-court-delays-decision-on-religious-freedom-case?emailed=1&src=usn_thereport

[Princess Turandot]

1. FWIW The SCOTUSblog folks think that at this point...

the most likely reason for the petition hanging around is because the Court is not going to take up the case, but one of the justices is writing a dissent to that decision, which was not yet completed before the last conference. They think this in part because in 2014, they denied hearing a very similar case from New Mexico, Elane Photography, even though Scalia was still with them. Let's hope they're right.

Despite Gorsuch’s participation in last week’s conference, though, the court once again did not act on Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a challenge by a Colorado “cake artist” who objects to having to create cakes for same-sex weddings. Going into last week’s conference, the justices had relisted the case seven times, with an eighth presumably to follow. While Justice Antonin Scalia was still alive, the justices had declined to review a similar decision out of New Mexico, so it’s not clear why they have not yet acted on this case, although the most likely scenario is that one or more of the justices is writing an opinion regarding the court’s denial of review.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/05/todays-orders-64/

BTW The court below (Colorado Court of Appeals) had ruled unanimously 3-0 against the store.