Damn damn damn damn!

[Odoreida]

Supreme Court rules in favor of Colorado baker who wouldn't make same-sex wedding cake
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-supreme-court-wedding-cake-ruling-20180604-story.html

The Supreme Court ruled narrowly Monday for a Colorado baker who wouldn't make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. But the court is not deciding the big issue in the case, whether a business can invoke religious objections to refuse service to gay and lesbian people.

The justices' limited ruling turned on what the court described as anti-religious bias on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it ruled against baker Jack Phillips. The justices voted 7-2 that the commission violated Phillips' rights under the First Amendment.

...

7-2 is "narrowly"?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. By "narrow" I believe they meant that the decision itself

was a narrow, that is, limited, holding. It was not a right not to bake a cake case; they did not decide the baker had a right to refuse service. They held only that the Colorado civil rights commission did not give the baker a fair and unbiased hearing. Read it here, especially Kagan's concurring opinion at p. 19: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

[unblock]

2. "narrowly" doesn't mean the decision was close, it means the decision doesn't apply broadly

in other words, they're not making some sweeping statement about discrimination vs. bigoted "religious" views.

the decision is "narrow" in the sense that it really only means very specifically that the government in this case was overly "disrespectful" of the religious views of the baker.

it's conceivable that the they would have upheld the lower courts decision had they arrived at it in a manner that showed more "respect" to the baker's religious views even if they ended up ruling against the baker.


"narrow" in the sense that it doesn't broadly give businesses the right to discriminate.

yet.

[bench scientist]

3. Narrow ruling refers to the scope of decision on the legal issue not the number of votes.

This is a nuanced narrow ruling and does not confer broad based discriminatory rights.The gist of the holding seems to be that the baker did not get a fair and impartial hearing before the state Civil Rights Commission (not that the Commission was prohibited from rejecting his arguments after a fair hearing).

The intro to the opinion thus concludes, "Given all these considerations, it is proper to hold that whatever the outcome of some future controversy involving facts similar to these, the Commission’s actions here violated the Free Exercise Clause; and its order must be set aside."

The decision here is intentionally factbound... This is more about how the Colorado Commission considered Phillips' particular case, and substantially less about whether there might or might not be a right under the constitution to refuse compliance with a neutral law forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public accommodations. In that respect, this holding is not going to resolve the underlying politically charged controversy.”