1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

LGBT News Supreme Court rules in favor of allowing discrimination against same-sex couples

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by AndHeCried, Jun 4, 2018.

  1. Aussie792

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2013
    Messages:
    3,317
    Likes Received:
    62
    Location:
    Australia
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    This decision more or less said those issues are ultimately policy matters, which the Court will attempt to avoid addressing in future. To be very clear, that means you have to wait however long it takes through democratic institutions, because that's the only way it will ever happen. The Court cannot, or at least should not, intervene in that process of entrenching and consolidating the specifics of favourable anti-discrimination policy when the most fundamental threshold for fulfilling basic LGBT rights has already been met.

    I think the Supreme Court's active role in women's and LGBT rights is one of the reasons people assume those protections are law. When courts are a safety valve for when you face a setback, you really don't see the same push by activists on governments and legislatures to get the desired outcomes. I think that is very much part of the reason you've been waiting so long.

    I'm really sympathetic, obviously. I just think the courts are far less useful than democratic institutions now, because of the nature of reforms that need to happen going into the future.

    Don't get me wrong, I love the undemocratic character of the judiciary.

    The problem is its functions are just so far removed from the other branches of government. Courts shouldn't just act as a second legislature when they encounter legislative intertia. They generally can't implement specific political solutions like the other branches can and their reasoning process is just not the same as how ordinary political discussion works, which leads to all the problems I mentioned in my previous post. If you're not bringing the public along, and not stamping the outcome with that legitimacy, the protections that result are going to be weaker.

    That's why I think they really can't resolve much more on LGBT rights in the US going on from here, which is something this judgment highlighted.
     
  2. AndHeCried

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2018
    Messages:
    59
    Likes Received:
    4
    Location:
    Bristol
    Gender:
    Male (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    A few people
    Also, might I add that laws can change beliefs. People tend to justify their beliefs based off of what the law says. If laws protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination, more people will view them as being worthy of protection because that's what the law says.
     
  3. AndHeCried

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2018
    Messages:
    59
    Likes Received:
    4
    Location:
    Bristol
    Gender:
    Male (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    A few people
    Here's another article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/us/florist-discrimination-gay-couple-washington-court.html

    "Ms. Stutzman herself, the court said, contradicted the argument that wedding flowers were a statement when she said in a deposition that providing flowers for a wedding between Muslims would not necessarily constitute an endorsement of Islam, nor would providing flowers for an atheist couple endorse atheism."

    Hopefully if this goes to the Supreme Court, it will not rule in favor of the florist!
     
  4. GayNotPC

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Dec 21, 2016
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    NY
    Gender:
    Male
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    You appear to be the only one answering objectively on this. I agree with you, even though you may not agree with what I'm about to say. The right to contract or not to contract must be absolute, and that cuts out a great deal of the ravages of political correctness over the past half century.

    Liberal gays and lesbians are so busy fighting "fascism" they don't notice themselves turning into the Gaystapo.
     
  5. OGS

    OGS
    Full Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2014
    Messages:
    2,716
    Likes Received:
    728
    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Well, I guess that's one vote for allowing discrimination of all kinds--fire people for being gay, refuse to serve black people in your restaurant, Jews need not apply. I guess there's something to be said for consistency--oh right, that it's the "hobgoblin of little minds."
     
  6. Barbatus

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2016
    Messages:
    685
    Likes Received:
    108
    Location:
    UK
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Some people
    Agree with OGS. An absolute freedom to contract would allow any deal to go through and means everything (including criminal law) would have to give way to it. Not only is it a ludicrous suggestion but no law is absolute - not merely in the sense that legal rights are qualified but that all rights need to be interpreted. Besides contracts are an artificial legal construct so there is not need to accord absolute priority - particularly when even constitutional law has limitations.

    Furthermore, freedom to contract would simply allow those in strong positions to force those in weaker positions to contract on their terms - which would give those exploited by contracts a reason to reject them or other throw the system that allow it to happen (which is what has happened with the development of labour law during the 19th and 20th centuries - for example the prohibition on child labour, indentured servitude etc).
     
  7. smurf

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2015
    Messages:
    1,645
    Likes Received:
    638
    Location:
    Florida
    I wouldn't put too much effort into answer that account. Literally the only reason why they created the account is to complain about "PC culture".... It should be fund seeing them pop up every so often to complain about "leftist gaystapo" lol
     
    #47 smurf, Jun 11, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2018
  8. Siegfried

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2015
    Messages:
    42
    Likes Received:
    2
    Location:
    Central Europe
    Gender:
    Male
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    I don't think people who believe that markets will solve problems of discrimination understand the way markets work. If a majority dislike a minority for whatever reason, and want to discriminate against them, i.e. have a preference for discrimination, then firms that discriminate against the disliked minority will tend to attract more customers and be more successful than firms that don't.

    If the fundamental problem is that people belonging to different groups dislike each other, then far from solving discrimination, markets will entrench it. That's why identity politics is dangerous, but the alternative to identity politics isn't to simply do nothing and imagine that markets will make everything right. It's to forge a common identity amongst citizens of a country/region/etc. Within-group differences are often far greater than between-group differences, but people have to be willing to communicate and not hate other groups.

    I don't really like regulating things like this, especially when small firms and individuals are involved, but when there is a clear pattern of actual discrimination (and not simply statistically significant differences in outcomes that could be a result of discrimination), then markets simply don't solve the problem. The only long-term solution is to bring people together and avoid the fragmentation of society into hostile groups (mutually hostile or hostile in one direction only). In the sort run, however, legislation barring discrimination is often the least bad option.
     
  9. BadassFrost

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2017
    Messages:
    374
    Likes Received:
    11
    Location:
    Czech Republic
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
  10. mnguy

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2006
    Messages:
    2,377
    Likes Received:
    450
    Location:
    Mountain hermitage
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Some people
    Unfortunately the headlines on this ruling were misleading so a lot of people won't really understand it and I wouldn't be surprised if as a result some people will discriminate against LGBT people. I wish the court didn't take the case or sent it back to a lower court due to how it was handled earlier. The thing I don't understand is what did the commission say that was so offensive? Articles on the decision have referred to some great offense, but don't quote what they were, at least that I've seen. Maybe it's in the full decision which I haven't read, but something that important should be in every article so we can see what they did to lose the case.

    In some areas of the country if a business discriminates against LGBT people and the word gets out, they will lose a lot of money and may go out of business, but that won't happen everywhere. Many states still don't have protections for employment and housing discrimination against LGBT people. We should be included in the federal civil rights laws, but who knows if that will ever happen, unlike the wonderful country of Canada that did that years ago. Too many Americans believe the lies about us and refuse to question what they were taught so we remain stuck and divided rather than learning the truth and changing their minds. This lack of understanding extends to issues beyond LGBT rights and is encouraged by many leaders. They know it perpetuates the divisions and that's what they want. They ridicule education, inclusion and empathy as weakness, which is a lie, but people can't see that unless they get out of the cycle they're stuck in which is very hard since it's self-reinforcing.
     
  11. Jinkies

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2011
    Messages:
    2,321
    Likes Received:
    47
    Location:
    Northern Ireland
    Gender:
    Female (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    This is something I've been saying for quite awhile now, and for some reason it gets overlooked.

    If we had some - any kind of way to be included in the Civil Rights act of 64, even if it's an amendment, or if even legally, we'd have to make another one to add onto it, then a lot of this wouldn't even be an issue. Marriage would have been tackled along with other things, but nope. We had to lobby for politicians who basically cared pretty little for us, to begin with, and only used our platform to help themselves. I say this, because as OGS said, people think a lot of this is already law because it seems pretty common sense anyway.

    Would we have to fight tooth and nail for it? Yes. Hell yes, we would.
    Would people die along the way? Very likely. But we'd guarantee less of that if it gets passed.
    Would this change the minds of people who already have us ingrained as their enemies? No.

    The entire point of this is to include immutable traits of everyone when it comes to everyday activities. This is the ultimate goal of the LGBT movement. I hear a lot from others who are tired of hearing us complain when someone refuses service to us because of our being gay, and I myself am tired of potentially being refused service because of something I can't control. It never starts with the reaction, so why are we pretending it does? Furthermore, why haven't we grabbed the movement by the horns? Getting marriage legal was a great victory, but I think we could have done a lot more.

    I know someone's going to ask me here why I'm saying this on a thread about cake, but I'm starting to see more and more people come to this conclusion. We can make this work, one way or another! There's a lot of hate, yes, and many people on the fence have swung right again, but we still overall have more supporters. If it's any time to propose this, now's the time.
     
  12. AndHeCried

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2018
    Messages:
    59
    Likes Received:
    4
    Location:
    Bristol
    Gender:
    Male (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    A few people
    Yeah, the US needs to catch up with other countries. Brazil rewrote their constitution in 1988, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they have in their constitution that LGBT people can't be discriminated against.
     
  13. CuriousLad

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jul 3, 2018
    Messages:
    131
    Likes Received:
    41
    Location:
    India
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    A few people
    So he used his first ammendment rights. But I'm just worried that other religious/homophobic professionals might follow his example and start denying/provide poor quality services to LGBT people. It's a slippery slope if the US Supreme Court also backs bigoted pharmacists, lawyers, doctors or even florists. Where does it stop?
    Especially for medical professionals; I hope their first amendment doesn't compromise their Hippocrates oath.
     
  14. DragonBoys

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2018
    Messages:
    103
    Likes Received:
    19
    Location:
    Pennsylvania, United States of America
    Gender:
    Other
    Gender Pronoun:
    They
    Sexual Orientation:
    Other
    Out Status:
    A few people
    Literally they're using religion now as justification to legalize discrimination. And who knows how far they'll take it