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Thread: Respectfully, I decline to make your cake

  1. #1
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    Respectfully, I decline to make your cake

    Supreme Court rules for Colorado baker in same-sex wedding cake case

    Washington (CNN)The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake to celebrate the marriage of a same sex couple because of a religious objection.

    The ruling was 7-2.

    The court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility toward the baker based on his religious beliefs. The ruling is a win for baker Jack Phillips, who cited his beliefs as a Christian, but leaves unsettled broader constitutional questions on religious liberty.

    "Today's decision is remarkably narrow, and leaves for another day virtually all of the major constitutional questions that this case presented," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. "It's hard to see the decision setting a precedent."

    The ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, held that members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed animus toward Phillips specifically when they suggested his claims of religious freedom were made to justify discrimination.

    The case was one of the most anticipated rulings of the term and was considered by some as a follow-up from the court's decision three years ago to clear the way for same-sex marriage nationwide. That opinion, also written by Kennedy, expressed respect for those with religious objections to gay marriage.

    "Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth," he wrote Monday.

    Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner, who represented Phillips, praised the ruling.

    "Jack serves all customers; he simply declines to express messages or celebrate events that violate his deeply held beliefs," Waggoner said in a statement. "Creative professionals who serve all people should be free to create art consistent with their convictions without the threat of government punishment."

    She further added that the case "will affect a number of cases for years to come in free exercise jurisprudence. That's how the court's decisions work."

    Waggoner said Phillips is "relieved" at the court's decision and that he will be working with the Alliance Defending Freedom to determine when to move forward to continue making wedding cakes.

    "It's been a long, six-year battle where his family business, his income, has been hanging in the balance. He's also, obviously, handling a large volume of calls himself and looking out for the protection of his family, to be candid," Waggoner said.

    Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, emphasized the narrowness of the opinion.

    "The court reversed the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision 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," Melling said in a statement.

    Because Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in part, the judgment of the court on the case was 7-2 but the opinion on the rationale was 6-2.

    Religious tolerance

    Kennedy wrote that there is room for religious tolerance, pointing specifically to how the Colorado commission treated Phillips by downplaying his religious liberty concerns.

    "At the same time the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression," Kennedy wrote, adding that the "neutral consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised here."

    "The commission's hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment's guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion," Kennedy said, adding to say that the case was narrow.

    "The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market," the opinion states.

    Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent which was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, argued that "when a couple contacts a bakery for a wedding cake, the product they are seeking is a cake celebrating their wedding -- not a cake celebrating heterosexual weddings or same-sex weddings -- and that is the service (the couple) were denied."

    Baker emphasizes Christian beliefs


    Phillips opened the bakery in 1993, knowing at the outset that there would be certain cakes he would decline to make in order to abide by his religious beliefs.

    "I didn't want to use my artistic talents to create something that went against my Christian faith," he said in an interview with CNN last year, noting that he has also declined to make cakes to celebrate Halloween.

    In 2012, David Mullins and Charlie Craig asked Phillips to bake a cake to celebrate their planned wedding, which would be performed in another state. Phillips said he couldn't create the product they were looking for without violating his faith.

    "The Bible says, 'In the beginning there was male and female,'" Phillips said.

    He offered to make any other baked goods for the men. "At which point they both stormed out and left," he said.

    Mullins and Craig filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which ruled in their favor, citing a state anti-discrimination law. Phillips took his case to the Colorado Court of Appeals, arguing that requiring him to provide a wedding cake for the couple violated his constitutional right to freedom of speech and free exercise of religion. The court held that the state anti-discrimination law was neutral and generally applicable and did not compel Phillips' Masterpiece Cakeshop to "support or endorse any particular religious view." It simply prohibited Phillips from discriminating against potential customers on account of their sexual orientation.

    "This case is about more than us, and it's not about cakes," Mullins said in an interview last year. "It's about the right of gay people to receive equal service."

    The Trump administration sided with Phillips.


    "A custom wedding cake is not an ordinary baked good; its function is more communicative and artistic than utilitarian," Solicitor General Noel Francisco argued. "Accordingly, the government may not enact content-based laws commanding a speaker to engage in protected expression: An artist cannot be forced to paint, a musician cannot be forced to play, and a poet cannot be forced to write."
    Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President... - Theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln and Free Speech, Metropolitan Magazine, Volume 47, Number 6, May 1918.

    Every Communist must grasp the truth. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party Mao Zedong, 6 November, 1938 - speech to the Communist Patry of China's sixth Central Committee

  2. #2
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    Not a surprise after the oral arguments. The baker doesn't do Halloween or divorce cakes too. I think that it is narrow and it is 7-2 means there is a lot of arguing left, but at least there is a pretty clear endstop as a reference.
    The Second Amendment ACKNOWLEDGES our right to own and bear arms that are in common use that can be used for lawful purposes. The arms can be restricted ONLY if subject to historical analogue from the founding era or is dangerous (unsafe) AND unusual.

    It's that simple.

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    How on earth is 7-2 a "close decision"? Is the left so diluted by their fantasies that they can't acknowledge a sound defeat? Im sure its not the end but constitutional sanity carried the day this time.


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    I too, am confused how 7-2 is "close". It aint.
    Anyway you look at it..trying to force someone to do someone elses will is wrong, and Im glad the court smacked down the very anti-Christian Colorado panel that sided with the gays.
    And YES..the Left IS so diluted by defeat..every time they lose..they win, according to them. Ive said that for years now. All their candidate has to do to "win" now is get a few more votes than expected, and/or the Repub get a few less than expected. Thats now a "win".
    The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than the cowards they really are.

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    Wondering if I can go to a Gay Pride baker in San Francisco and get a "Congratulations Grand Dragon" KKK cake.
    It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.

    Chuck, we miss ya man.

    كافر

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    Genuinely curious What was on the cake? Just names or "We're having an LGBTQ wedding!"

    What if Ashely and Courtney want to get married?
    How about Andy and Alex?
    Or Billy and Billie?
    or Pat and Sean?
    etc?

  7. #7
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    And the two dissenters are known baby eaters.

    Quote Originally Posted by sgtrock82 View Post
    How on earth is 7-2 a "close decision"? Is the left so diluted by their fantasies that they can't acknowledge a sound defeat? Im sure its not the end but constitutional sanity carried the day this time.


    Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

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    A great victory for both common sense and freedom.

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    Better than Oregon. I wonder if this close decision will affect this case...

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ing-cake-case/

    I'm sure they found someone else to make the damn cake.
    Gettin' down innagrass.
    Let's Go Brandon!

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    Didn't those folks go out of business over this? Any reparations from the gay community forthcoming?
    - Either you're part of the problem or you're part of the solution or you're just part of the landscape - Sam (Robert DeNiro) in, "Ronin" -

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