New SCOTUS case, web designer refuses gay couple

Their religious excuse is nonsense.

 

There is no couple. She preemptively sued the State to make sure she doesn't get fined and forced out of business once she is up and running in the intended wedding design sector.

 

It's about grievance and trying to bully people. The earlier Mastercake lawsuit decided by the Supreme Court against Colorado was started over out of state activists looking for a Christian owned bakery for the specific purpose of filing a lawsuit. It's called lawfare and the leftist activists are particularly good at it in large part due to liberal judges being more willing to invent new interpretations of law. Even if they lose they get their socks knocked off out of other people footing the bill to bully people who disagree with them politically, religiously, etc.

 

Nope, we keep people from using religion as an excuse to treat people like second class citizens.

 

Yeah, I completely forgot about the left's huge grievance industry in this country. They never met a person they couldn't somehow classify as a victim.

 

You're right on the point of there is nothing in law (as I understand it) as to what a religious person's belief should or should not be. However, the point I raised, in my view, should be opened up to public scrutiny, only because I am highly suspicious of the fact that some are using the Bible to justify their bigotry. They select aspects of the Bible that concur with their bias, and reject others that do not, such as the parts of the Bible that advocate stoning prostitutes, and the only exemptions are for those who have never sinned. a claim which anyone could make. The problem is, under the umbrella of 'religion' all sorts of craziness is spawned, and this should be looked into. I don't know if there are any solutions or valid parameters, but I think there should be, insofar as the application of law.

Now then....as a layperson, as I understand the law:

A religious belief is allowed to be practiced in any public sphere as long as it not a crime or tort by law.

A restaurant cannot refuse a gay person, that would be discrimination (at least in the states that legislate it).

A web designer who sells pre designed websites, where all one has to do is replace the words 'Jill and John' which are placeholders on the predesigned site, with 'Jill and Jill', that is not the same thing as a web designer who would be hired to design a site from scratch, that would get first amendment protection, I would assume.

So it goes that there is the argument that a person cannot be compelled to give 'speech'.

That depends.

If one is engaging in 'work for hire', for example, a voice over specialist who isn't 'creating a speech' is merely reading from a prewritten script that he or she did not compose, and if that person refused a clearly pro-gay message, in my view, that would be discrimination because that person didn't create the speech, and is in business to repeat other's speeches, and should treat them all the same (unless the speech, itself, isn't protected by the first amendment, such as hate speech).

However, if that person, via his or her religious belief, as asked to compose that speech, then I think that person has first amendment protection against being compelled to create a speech against his or her belief and that would not be a tort.

I think lawyers, who are hired guns, essentially, defense lawyers, typically are hired to give arguments about persons who antics they do not agree with, religious or otherwise, but they are intentionally in business for that purpose.

As I was listening to the points raised by Gorsuch, whose opinion I would normally hold as suspect, I think he agreed with me on the above.

 

You can't compel speech.

If I were a work for hire artist, no one could compel me to create a work of art about a subject I know nothing about, nor do I believe in. I would be allowed to put this in my brochures.

But, If I were selling works of art that were already created, selling them off the shelf, I couldn't turn down the business of a gay person.

So...

But selling a can of soda to a gay person isn't speech.

Designing a website is, that is in concurrence of my argument, above.

Selling a predesigned website isn't, that would be like the artist selling art off the shelf.

Does that agree with Colorado?

I started this thread back in February, this is an old thread, and someone bumped it up, but my understand of the subject now is as above, which I don't think I fully understood back in february.

For off the shelf vending, service providing that isn't creative or 'speech', my argument still applies.

AS for pastors, priests, officiants, if they are ordained ministers of a religion, they should be allowed to marry only that which conforms to their religion. If they are secular officiants, Justices of the Peace, they cannot discriminate. "In my opinion".

 

I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

I would disagree with you here. About as close as I would get would be an issue of consistency. If a person claims a religious belief against artificially colored hair (just to throw an odd thing out there), then turns around and sells to someone with anime pink hair, then we can make the point that they are not being consistent with their supposed belief, and dismiss the claim of a religious belief. Now they could be forgiven if the dye was of a naturally occurring color and no roots are showing. Being fooled does not indicated violating one's claimed belief. Beliefs are beliefs and we have no part in regulating them in and of themselves. Only in ensuring that they are not forced upon another.

I agree with this in principle, but I do not always agree with what has been made into laws as crime or tort. For example, the religious belief that one should not work on the Sabbath. When I was young in the 70's, it was actually a law in many places that most businesses could not be open on a Sunday. Now I grant that this is rather in inverse parallel, but I would hope that the point is clear. In this case, the law should not make it a crime or tort to have one's business open on a Sunday.

As long as it is being refused as the person as opposed to being refused for something else and they happen to be gay as well. Sadly, we also have the ones who try to play off, being refused for some other reason, and claim it was because they are (protected status). But overall I think we are on the same page here.

When it comes to these kind of premade websites, the templates are designed ahead of time and it is the purchaser who is doing the fill in the blank. So the designer themselves are not actually designing the final version, and thus not able to refuse to let, using the thread's case, the end user turn it into a same sex wedding sight. And from what little I have seen of this case, I doubt that the designer in question would have balked at the end user doing those final design details.

So it goes that there is the argument that a person cannot be compelled to give 'speech'.

I would go as far as saying that even in the reading of something one disagreed with, for whatever reason, is legit grounds. And that may be part of the problem. Too many want to cherry pick the religious reasons, and then let all other reason go as ones a person can refuse upon. Personally, I am all for certain limited businesses to be designated as essential, and all others can discriminate to their heart's content and suffer any consequences thereof. No government aid if your business fails because of it.

I think you and I are on the same page as far as the principle of the thing goes. However, that does not automatically mean that we will agree as to whether any given case falls under that principle or not.

 

Sorry, getting you confused with someone else. Here's a link on Christopher Biggins -

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Biggins

Click on Personal Life, he was against marriage being legalised. So he's disagreeing with the majority of gays, so I take it the gay supporters and gay community label him as a bigot and homophobic because that's the narrative used if you disagree on any gay subject.

Don't forget, he's gay and married to a guy. I'm very much interested in your thoughts

 

Deciding you don't want to do custom art for a gay wedding or any wedding, does not open you to a cause of action.
You don't have a right to personal services ffs.

 

He's a gay conservative. But evolved on his view?

It's rather strange but, they do exist.

I would explain it like this:

I lived in Hollywood, west Hollywood, a predominantly gay neighborhood, for some 20 years, and I made the following observation:

There are two basic types of gay people:

There are those who lust after the same sex because it's more of a fetish, than a wholesome desire.

There are those who are truly gay, such as a man who wants what a woman wants, the arms, love, companionship of a man.

The former are the ones most likely to have issues with their gayness, more likely to be against homosexuality and hate themselves, given that their fetish is not healthy, not wholesome.

The latter is sincere, wholesome, no different than heterosexuality other than the fact it is same sex.

I suspect this man was, initially, of the former category, which would explain how it is possible he could feel the way he does but later evolved into the more sincere, wholesome type, and his view changed right along with the evolution.

Some gays start out as predominantly hetero, have a gay streak, more of a fetish, but later evolved into a 100% gay person over the course of their lives and have learned to except, be proud of who they are whereas in their youth, had a big problem with their identity (and might have been against gay marriage, therefore). I've met such persons.

 

Yes it does.

 

You do not have a right to personal services.
Follow the case and see.