Court hears case over gay wedding cake

[Swordsmyth]

That's a good point but SS and Medicare are double the military budget. And I'm guessing that most of the military budget goes to salaries not a couple rich guys.

The laws favor the poor and middle class and there's a huge transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor in this country. It's called socialism. Do you dispute that?

Medicare is a gift to big Pharma and the insurance companies, it enables them to jack their prices into the stratosphere and still survive, and most of the DoD budget goes to Contractors.

[Madison320]

Medicare is a gift to big Pharma and the insurance companies, it enables them to jack their prices into the stratosphere and still survive, and most of the DoD budget goes to Contractors.

Ok, I'll admit that in the process of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (socialism), most of the wealth ends up back with the rich, although usually not the ones that rightfully owned the wealth before it was redistributed. But wealth is not distributed from the poor to rich, just from one set of rich to another. Remember that the majority of tax dollars come from the rich. But the root cause of the problem is the voting system where parasites are allowed to vote. Vote for me and I'll steal for you. That's the main problem. That's why the laws favor the poor.

[Swordsmyth]

Ok, I'll admit that in the process of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (socialism), most of the wealth ends up back with the rich, although usually not the ones that rightfully owned the wealth before it was redistributed. But wealth is not distributed from the poor to rich, just from one set of rich to another. But the root cause of the problem is the voting system where parasites are allowed to vote. Vote for me and I'll steal for you. That's the main problem. That's why the laws favor the poor.

They favor the poor and the Super Rich, they target the Middle Class and the ordinary Rich, because that is where the greatest wealth creation is, the poor are pawns bought with cheap bribes to do the will of the Kleptocrats.
I think you and I are now in agreement.

[Madison320]

They favor the poor and the Super Rich, they target the Middle Class and the ordinary Rich, because that is where the greatest wealth creation is, the poor are pawns bought with cheap bribes to do the will of the Kleptocrats.
I think you and I are now in agreement.

I think so.

[AZJoe]

[Swordsmyth]

Perfect.

[Suzanimal]

The Supreme Court and the Right to Not Bake a Cake

12/06/2017

Ryan McMaken

Anyone who claims there's too much democracy in the United States needs to keep in mind that American law and policy is ultimately decided by five millionaires at the Supreme Court.

This week, we're being reminded that the Supreme Court of the United States is hearing arguments in the case of a small-time baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding. This, apparently, is a matter of such importance that it requires the intervention of the federal government and its court system to decide for whom a tiny small business shall be forced to bake desserts. In other words, the court's majority of five people will decide for 320 million people what is mandatory for anyone who wants to open a small business in the United States.

The fact that Americans regard this sort of thing as perfectly natural and legitimate illustrates just how thoroughly Americans have abandoned all notions of self government and any opposition to rule from distant, powerful elites.

Opponents of Donald Trump may be wringing their hands about the rise of populism, but the public's continued deference to the Supreme Court illustrates quite well that populism in the United States, far from growing out of control, is quite timid and of no threat to anyone currently in power.

In the discussion of the Court's decision to hear the case, we're reminded of two important issues:

1. The Supreme Court's ability to decide the Constitutionality of every law in the United States — from local ordinances to federal statutes — is based on a fanciful myth.

2. The American legal concept of "public accommodation" essentially abolishes property rights. The proper remedy is to restore property rights — and to steer clear of endless and pointless debates about religious freedom or freedom of speech.

...

https://mises.org/power-market/supre...-not-bake-cake

[Raginfridus]

Bakers need to raise their cakes in gender-incloosive environments, or the cake will not know what kind of cake it is and become disoriented.

[euphemia]

Exactly, Suz. And it says the government will bring full force on people of faith over a cake.

[Brian4Liberty]

https://mises.org/power-market/supre...-not-bake-cake

The obvious reaction if the court decides to force someone to work for someone else will be to go to a gay bakery, have them bake a cake depicting breasts with hands on them, with the caption, "I luv boobies" written on it. Then demand that they attend the bachelor party to set up the cake while strippers are dancing. Seems reasonable.

[nikcers]

What would Scalia say? Jiggery pokery, pure applesauce! Too bad they killed him, I always wondered if they killed him in order to get people to vote for the supreme court like to get conservatives to vote for Trump or Democrats to vote for Hillary. So many people held their tongues until they were told that they have to vote for republicrat so they could pick a republican/democrat for the supreme court.

[AuH20]

The USC just ruled in favor of the Baker. 7-2 Ruling.

[Anti Federalist]

The USC just ruled in favor of the Baker. 7-2 Ruling.

This is pretty big news actually.

[EBounding]

I hear that the ruling was due to the particulars of the case and had little to due with the fundamental discrimination issue.

[timosman]

The USC just ruled in favor of the Baker. 7-2 Ruling.

Thanks, Obama.

[Suzanimal]

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 was 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."

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."

...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/polit...urt/index.html

[timosman]

I hear that the ruling was due to the particulars of the case and had little to due with the fundamental discrimination issue.

The baker was a transgender?

[jkr]

FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION!

...M'ERICA?...M'AYBE...

[timosman]

FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION!

...M'ERICA?...M'AYBE...

...M'ERICA?...You will be forced to associate whether you like it or not. You don't want us to call you racist, do you?

[Cdn_for_liberty]

What happened to the Judge?

[timosman]

What happened to the Judge?

He's afraid the same arguments will be used to discriminate against Italians.

[jkr]

...M'ERICA?...You will be forced to associate whether you like it or not. You don't want us to call you racist, do you?

maybe I dooo...tell me more...

[Madison320]

I hear that the ruling was due to the particulars of the case and had little to due with the fundamental discrimination issue.

That would be my guess. I can't imagine the SC ruling in favor of individual rights and against discrimination laws in general.

[angelatc]

This is pretty big news actually.

I have not been on the internet up to this point. Liberal heads must be exploding.

And it was 5-2? Wow.

[Zippyjuan]

Court ruling was narrow- focusing on how the bakers were treated by the justice system- not on how the customer was treated.

[angelatc]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/polit...urt/index.html

It appears that most of the lefties came over because the Colorado Commission behaved like a bunch of power-trippin' $#@!s.

At one hearing, Kennedy stressed, commissioners repeatedly “endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, implying that religious beliefs and persons are less than fully welcome in Colorado’s business community.” And at a later meeting, Kennedy pointed out, one commissioner “even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust.” “This sentiment,” Kennedy admonished, “is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law—a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.” Moreover, Kennedy added, the commission’s treatment of Phillips’ religious objections was at odds with its rulings in the cases of bakers who refused to create cakes “with images that conveyed disapproval of same-sex marriage.”

Here, Kennedy wrote, Phillips “was entitled to a neutral decisionmaker who would give full and fair consideration to his religious objection as he sought to assert it in all of the circumstances in which this case was presented, considered, and decided.” Because he did not have such a proceeding, the court concluded, the commission’s order – which, among other things, required Phillips to sell same-sex couples wedding cakes or anything else that he would sell to opposite-sex couples and mandated remedial training and compliance reports – “must be set aside.”

The court's gonna do what the court's gonna do. I'm primarily interested in Gorsuch, because I have no idea what he's gonna do. I keep waiting for him to yank the football away, but this doesn't seem to be the case where he does that

In a concurring opinion joined by Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Neil Gorsuch pushed back against both the Ginsburg and the Kagan opinions. In his view, the different bakers’ cases – refusing to make cakes for a same-sex marriage and refusing to make cakes disparaging same-sex marriage – were, from a legal perspective, similar, and the commission was wrong to treat them differently just because it regarded Phillips’ beliefs as “offensive.” Using strong language, Gorsuch emphasized that, in the United States, “the place of secular officials isn’t to sit in judgment of religious beliefs, but only to protect their free exercise. Just as it is the ‘proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence’ that we protect speech that we hate, it must be the proudest boast of our free exercise jurisprudence that we protect religious beliefs that we find offensive.”

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately, in an opinion joined by Gorsuch, to address an issue that the court did not decide: whether an order mandating that Phillips bake cakes for same-sex weddings violates his right to free speech. In Thomas’ view, Phillips’ creation of custom wedding cakes is exactly the kind of “expressive” conduct protected by the First Amendment. Requiring Phillips to make such cakes for same-sex marriage, even when it will convey a message that “he believes his faith forbids,” violates his First Amendment rights.

via: http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/op...ing-cake-case/

[angelatc]

Court ruling was narrow- focusing on how the bakers were treated by the justice system- not on how the customer was treated.

$#@! the customer. It's the job of the business to make them happy, not the federal government.

And as noted above, the government didn't have any problem with people who made cakes disparaging same sex weddings. So like I said, $#@! the customer. And I only said that because I'll get in trouble for saying what I want to say.

[Swordsmyth]

The USC just ruled in favor of the Baker. 7-2 Ruling.

[Swordsmyth]

What happened to the Judge?

Q U E E R S stick together.

Judge Swamp exposed himself as deepstate over Russiagate, I won't be surprised if he goes full statist now.

[dannno]

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."