SCOTUS agrees with my characterization much more closely than yours. Decision was 7-2. Even Kagan and Breyer ruled in favor of the baker. Yet here you are still defending an action against the Christian baker where the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Christian baker in a 7-2 opinion, in large part due to the baker's First Amendment rights.
Bakke is crap law. That is why it will soon be tossed. Discrimination is discrimination. It’s not dependent upon who is being discriminated against, or who is doing the discriminating. All discrimination is wrong! Period!
A better example would be if you walked into an art framing store, owned by a Muslim, and ask them to frame a cartoon of Muhammad riding a pig. You just want a picture framed, and you saw the owner frame a picture of a flower just a few minutes earlier. How dare he not bow down to your wishes. Sue him!!!
We were in Chicago for a long weekend visiting friends last year and had a great time. Of course one of our maga friends thought we were crazy and would get shot.
Uhh… somebody owns those establishments too… in case you forgot how capitalism functions. A hypothetical reduction in business would hurt everyone. This is why even Scott and Rubio want Desantis to STFU with the Disney stuff. They know that $1 billion Disney pulled out isn’t just a hit to Disney. It damages other developers and potential businesses (I saw something like estimated $15 Billion loss to the area… I assume that is over a period of time ~ 10 years… but still).
That flies in the face of the original meaning of the 14th Amendment. But if you don't consider yourself an originalist, so be it. That's a poor example. The store owner isn't denying you service on the basis of a protected characteristic.
I'd settle for you not defending "your own" when they attack free speech rights. You should go check the holding of the case. They ruled against the commission that adjudicated the claim on the basis that it expressed religious intolerance towards the baker in coming to its decision. They didn't strike down the public accommodations law and had no occasion to rule on whether he violated the state statute.
Baltimore is ghetto and imo definitely not much point to visit, but Chicago, Boston, and NYC are must see destinations (as is D.C… perhaps especially D.C…) I always get a kick out of the fear mongering attacks on those places. Usually you can tell from people who haven’t gone anywhere. Chicago, basically just stay out of the South side. NYC if you are visiting as long as you stay in Manhattan it’s fine. Other Burroughs aren’t as “touristy” and probably depend more on you knowing the neighborhoods. I mean in any city you need to have some common sense and don’t just wonder down dark alleys. But statistically speaking these cities aren’t near the worst as far as the odds of a crime happening to you, and in Chicago almost all the crimes are concentrated in areas outside the touristy or upscale areas. If you stick to the touristy areas of those mega cities you are likely more safe than if you were downtown in most random “small cities” or some of the slightly decaying/sketchier suburbs.
Lol. I guess that pesky first amendment is irrelevant. So let’s change the facts a little bit to meet your warped sense of being. Let’s assume you’re a gay, trans, Eskimo with an 85 IQ….then what? As for the 14th Amendment and your originalist diatribe…. Are you f’ing kidding me? You think selective discrimination is embedded in the 14th. Did you pass the bar?
Yep, I did. I even practice constitutional law. Feel free to read: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1306&context=faculty-articles https://www.supremecourt.gov/Docket...20801161237875_Harvard UNC Final PDF.pdfA.pdf Irrelevant? No. I've said multiple times on this forum, the only compelling argument is the compelled speech argument. Of course, the challenge there is in offering a limiting principle. Is all food artistic expression? Some food? No food? Where is the line? As for your question, my answer remains unchanged. The Muslim owner did not deny the service requested on the basis of a protected characteristic.
Come for the deep dish pizza, Cinnabons, high taxes and crime...stay too long and one of the four will kill you.
Not impressed with either citation. The argument in the Amicus brief is very week and I expect SCOTUS to reject it conclusively. As for the Muslim hypothetical, you are ignoring the rights of the Muslim, the same rights as the baker. A devout Muslim, Jew or Christian would all likely refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding because their religious beliefs prohibit it.
I fully expect Republican SCOTUS will rule the other way. But it won't be based in originalism. It'll be because it is their preferred outcome. The fact that the framers of the Reconstruction Amendments saw remedial race-conscious measures as both justifiable and constitutional forecloses any argument that the meaning of the EPC at the time prohibited those sorts of measures. When you're making the same arguments today that Andrew Johnson made at that time, you're 100% wrong on the original meaning. This is the exact same argument segregationists made against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 256 F. Supp. 941 (D.S.C. 1966) "Neither is the court impressed by defendant Bessinger's contention that the judicial enforcement of the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 upon which this suit is predicated violates the free exercise of his religious beliefs in contravention of the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is unquestioned that the First Amendment prohibits compulsion by law of any creed or the practice of any form of religion, but it also safeguards the free exercise of one's chosen religion. The free exercise of one's beliefs, however, as distinguished from the absolute right to a belief, is subject to regulation when religious acts require accommodation to society. . . . This court refuses to lend credence or support to his position that he has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of the Negro race in his business establishments upon the ground that to do so would violate his sacred religious beliefs." (internal citations omitted) ------------------------------------------- Until Republican SCOTUS overturns it, your argument is foreclosed by Justice Scalia's decision, Employment Division v. Smith: Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990) "The government's ability to enforce generally applicable prohibitions of socially harmful conduct, like its ability to carry out other aspects of public policy, cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector's spiritual development. To make an individual's obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law's coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State's interest is compelling -- permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, to become a law unto himself -- contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense." (citations omitted)
Seems to me a baker in Colorado, and SCOTUS disagree with you. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf
Seems to me they don't. Because as I told 715 earlier, the holding in that case is the commission who adjudicated the claim violated his rights by being hostile towards religion (based on remarks made), not that the public accommodations law was unconstitutional. You should read cases before citing them.
Right, and what Constitutional Amendment explicitly protects the Free Exercise of religion? You're acting like somebody was arguing whether public accommodations law is unconstitutional. A case can be made that prohibiting discrimination (on a private level) is bad policy for the same reason that mandated discrimination is bad policy: it inhibits freedom of association. But to my knowledge, nobody was saying public accommodations law is unconstitutional. You were arguing that the baker should've been forced to bake the cake despite his religious views. SCOTUS disagreed.
No, they didn't. It's incredible how y'all still don't understand the holding of that case after I've explained it twice. SCOTUS did not rule on whether the baker could be punished for not baking the cake. SCOTUS ruled that the commission that punished him made statements hostile to religion in coming to their decision. It still left the door open for him to be punished. You seem to be confusing the opinion criticizing members of the commission for their statements as saying that the act of punishing the baker in and of itself would violate the Free Exercise Clause. That was not what they ruled. Indeed, the decision reaffirmed the principle I mentioned earlier from Employment Division v. Smith: "Nevertheless, while those religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law."
From the Majority Opinion in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case: "One of the difficulties in this case is that the parties disagree as to the extent of the baker’s refusal to provide service. If a baker refused to design a special cake with words or images celebrating the marriage—for instance, a cake showing words with religious meaning—that might be different from a refusal to sell any cake at all. In defining whether a baker’s creation can be protected, these details might make a difference. The same difficulties arise in determining whether a baker has a valid free exercise claim. A baker’s refusal to attend the wedding to ensure that the cake is cut the right way, or a refusal to put certain religious words or decorations on the cake, or even a refusal to sell a cake that has been baked for the public generally but includes certain religious words or symbols on it are just three examples of possibilities that seem all but endless. Whatever the confluence of speech and free exercise principles might be in some cases, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s consideration of this case was inconsistent with the State’s obligation of religious neutrality." I understand that this isn't the holding, but it clarifies the Court's thought process. Additionally, in the interest of transparency, I will say that the Court did not find the type of event for which the cakeshop was catering to be a noteworthy distinction. In other words, they suggested that you can't refuse to supply apples for example for a gay wedding just because it's a gay wedding, even if you have a religious excuse. Where this case becomes complicated on the issue of a civil rights violation of some sort is that the baker was being asked to perform artwork on the cake which falls closer in line to speech and expression. But they ultimately punted on that issue despite allowing the baker not to bake the cake because he was treated prejudicially by the commission on the basis of his religion. That said, based on the language in the majority opinion and counting the justices... this is speculation, but I still think the outcome would have favored the baker if it addressed that issue exclusively for the aforementioned reason, they just would've lost Breyer and Kagan which would've made it 5-4. But that's speculation. We'll never know for sure.
You're only proving my point. They're saying that these sorts of cases could present difficult questions, but they don't have to answer that question in Masterpiece Cakeshop. Indeed, read the next paragraph: "Whatever the confluence of speech and free exercise principles might be in some cases, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s consideration of this case was inconsistent with the State’s obligation of religious neutrality. The reason and motive for the baker’s refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions. The Court’s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws. Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor in the balance the State sought to reach. That requirement, however, was not met here. When the Colorado Civil Rights Commission considered this case, it did not do so with the religious neutrality that the Constitution requires." Do I think the current majority would rule for the baker? 100%. I also think they'll be seeking to overturn Employment Division v. Smith and are totally full of shit.
