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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. fadedstar

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    I don't know much about U.S. law (I'm too lazy to research it) but I would assume that workers have certain protections enshrined in law that go beyond the kind of legal protection afforded to consumers. I'm pretty sure that if someone fires an employee for discriminatory reasons that the employer incurs legal sanctions since a person's livelihood is at steak which can't really be said for the consumer. Although I will concede that renting is probably a legal minefield when it comes to discrimination. Legal protections definitely ought to be in place to stop discriminations against potential tenants for spurious reasons as shelter/housing is a fundamental human need and right in a way that cake is not.
     
  2. ANewHope4

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    So the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Business owners cannot refuse to serve people in facilities that are open to the public, like theaters, restaurants, hotels, retail stores, etc. This does not extend to private establishments, like private clubs or churches. Pastors, for example, have the same legal workplace protections that other workers do (which makes sense). The current issue is whether these protections extend to sexual orientation or whether business owners can refuse to serve them based on "sincerely held religious beliefs."

    I think you are overestimating the power of the consumer. Prior to the American civil rights era, businesses (as well as local and state governments) freely practiced discrimination and thereby locked an entire class of citizens to the margins of society. "Whites Only" establishments were able to make profit and not serve African-Americans.

    One of the concerns now is that if a religious exemption to anti-discrimination law is carved out, it's not inconceivable that the majority of a city or region could lock out LGBTQ individuals from the economy without causing themselves significant financial harm.
     
  3. brainwashed

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    I like the analogy provided by @OGS. I'll throw out another analogy for discussion. My religion is called Wombo Wombo. Wombo Wombe's hate infidels. Anyone who is not a Wombo Wombo beliver is inferior. Wombo Womb religions clearly states, infidels should be put to death. Would that be right to kill someone based upon religious doctrine?

    Getting back to the main thread. Should businesses be allowed to discriminate based upon religion?
     
    #23 brainwashed, Jun 5, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  4. OGS

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    As Anewhope pointed out those legal protections do exist and they are the same ones that make it illegal to refuse to help black people in your bakery. Interestingly enough those protections, whether it be cake or employment or housing, do not apply to gay people unless a locality expressly passes it into law, which Colorado did. The question here really isn't even whether the Civil Rights Act should apply to gay people. The original prosecution wasn't brought under federal statute but under Colorado law. The suit brought by the baker contends that it is illegal to make it illegal to discriminate against gay people. It's absolutely not a small issue.
     
  5. Kira

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    Right in the middle of June, too. This whole country is starting to feel like a lost cause.

    I wonder what would happen if I went and founded a hospital that refuses to serve Christians?
    Especially if it's the only hospital in town. Would they see the point then, or am I wasting my breath expecting them to think?
     
  6. Aleko

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    In my honest opinion, its capitalism. If you do not cater to a specific group they will find someone else to do it, making that person gain buisness while you are losing it. Its going to hurt him in the end, so I could care less.
     
  7. Kyrielles

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    I feel like this is a situation where separation of church and state be applied, but seems this is completely invalid all the time, there's not really a separation of church and state. Also if it's their right to deny service based off their religious beliefs shouldn't it be legal for the sports players to kneel during the anthem? Imo they're basically the same, with our freedom we also deserve the right to protest. The new administration clearly has one sided views and the president is definitely on the path to dictatorship. Hope the dude who refuses to make the cakes business goes way under.
     
  8. Kyrielles

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    It's like they made a statement in itself with the timing too, Happy Pride month!
     
  9. ANewHope4

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    According to the owner, Masterpiece Cakeshop lost 40% of its business due to the publicity. He's also received death threats, which is not kosher.
     
  10. ANewHope4

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    Correction: it appears that the bakery lost 40% of its business because they stopped making wedding cakes in order to comply with Colorado law.
     
  11. LaurenSkye

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    The same goes for me. Businesses do have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. And remember, for the most part this Supreme Court is the same one that legalized gay marriage. And I hope, and would expect, that people who aren't gay, but support gay rights would join LGBT people in not doing business with this bakery for anything. That's the best way to teach them a lesson.
     
  12. OGS

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    I think the thing I have found the most amazing about discussing this case with people is the sheer number of people who think this is true in the US--not necessarily that it should be, but that it currently legally is. It's just not true as a matter of federal law. In many places LGBT people are the only demographic group that you can legally discriminate against in this way. For the moment Colorado isn't one of those places. This lawsuit argued, largely unsuccessfully, that one should be able to discriminate against gay people in that way, indeed that the ability to do so was a fundamental right.
     
  13. KyleD

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    Exactly, the baker could not have used that excuse with any other demographic group.
     
  14. KyleD

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    In the United States it is illegal for a business to refuse service to someone based on their race or colour, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability or veteran status. All of these are protected classes so if a business owner refuses to serve someone based upon any of the reasons above it is illegal.

    The suggestion that in the United States of America a business can refuse service to anyone for any reason is totally untrue.
     
    #34 KyleD, Jun 6, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2018
  15. AndHeCried

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  16. smurf

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    Seriosuly, its crazy how many of you think that capitalism will protect you.

    We have tried this before. The US has literally tried this and it didn't fucking work. We had business that wouldn't cater to black people, to Hispanics, to Jews, to Catholics, etc. It was damaging to people. There would be whole towns who would kick certain people out.

    What people don't get is that this isn't about cake. If the Supreme Court says that its legal to discriminate based on religious beliefs then everything will be on the line.
     
  17. Barbatus

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    As others have said the ruling was actually about the way the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had conducted themselves. I agree with Justices Ginsberg and Sotomayor (dissenting) that the entire process (i.e. all the courts involved) negated any misconduct by the CCRC but the majority held that the commission has effectively prejudged the outcome of this case. In other words, the majority held that Mr Phillips had not had a fair hearing and his constitutional rights had been given appropriate consideration. They did not address the more substantive issues of discrimination against queer people.

    It's likely that they would have ruled that you cannot deny a service to some on the basis of sexuality (assuming there is a law in place or perhaps on constitutional grounds) if you provide the service for others. However, you are allowed to refuse to provide 'offensive' messages which may cause some problems in the future.

    Regardless, the case was not a ruling that you can discriminate against queer people.
     
    #37 Barbatus, Jun 8, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
  18. Aussie792

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    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/opinion/in-masterpiece-kennedy-solidifies-his-lgbt-legacy.html

    I'd suggest reading this article for a clear understanding of why this is not bad news for LGBT rights.

    I also want to make a few points on this. Many LGBT people are loath to submit our rights and desired policy outcomes (two distinct concepts that get conflated a great deal) to democratic processes. The argument often goes that it submits our existence to the judgement of a possibly hostile population, humiliates us and causes emotional damage. And that is not an unreasonable argument at all.

    I live in a country where constitutional guarantees of human rights are virtually non-existent.* As a result, it is in the nation's parliaments, not the courts, that our civil protections originate. Yet unlike in the United States, they are far more culturally and politically entrenched.

    I think it is incredibly important that policy outcomes be decided by elected governments, not by unelected courts, for those protections to become culturally normal. It doesn't matter if the rights we seek shouldn't be up for debate - the fact they're not guaranteed shows we actually do have to debate them and convince people.

    Political parties, when forced to engage in the substance of LGBT rights, have to actually explain what they want and why they want it. When politicians make quasi-legal arguments about whether LGBT rights or religious rights are/should be constitutionally protected, two things happen.

    First, the public is shut out. Law is complex. Politicians invariabily misrepresent it because they are a) generally not lawyers and b) appealing to a public which has a terrible knowledge of law and romanticised and partial (both in the sense of bias and incompleteness) understandings of what that law contains and c) dealing in what is quite inaccessible legal language, in uncertian areas of law, so it's hard to disprove.

    That ultimately means the public doesn't really get to understand or engage in the reasons for legal protections for LGBT people. If the substance of those decisions ends up being deferred to the Supreme Court, why does it matter what the public thinks? The Supreme Court takes on a somewhat legislative character in the public imagination, but still works in legal terms, further complicating things.

    Second, as a result of that, the public is removed from the consequences of decision-making. Reasonable accommodations for religion or LGBT people are never discussed on their own merits and the moral authority/democratic unaccountability (depending on which side of the decision you stand) of a court's judgment is stamped on the protection of either LGBT or religious policy preferences.

    The public doesn't take responsibility, doesn't get to engage in the substance and has no democratic recourse to resolving that conflict. That means they never have to get used to it. If it's in LGBT people's favour, many activists will blithely say the Supreme Court says it's right and never feel they have to engage in any form of compromise. If it's in favour of religious conservatism, the fact that it is constitutionally permissible replaces the question of whether it is desirable policy, partly because LGBT activism's focus on the courts allows that debate to stop at the constitutional law level.

    This judgment throws the ball back into the policy-makers' court, and therefore into the public arena. It says that there is a baseline protection both for LGBT and religious rights but that democratic processes should determine exactly what middle ground should exist. And that's a good thing for LGBT people in the US, I think, because it means the merits of a case we can win is what the public sees.

    *
    It's a bit more complex than that but the point is that very few substantive rights are constitutionally entrenched (the most notable exceptions are the unconstitutionality of federal legislation regulating or establishing religion, freedom of political communication and only possibly women's and ethnic minorities' suffrage.)
     
  19. Barbatus

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    @Aussie792 Great post. I think you highlight the difficulty in resolving things through the courts.

    I would however say that the unelected nature of a judiciary (although that is a weaker concept in the USA with Federal appointments by the executive) is what allows them to reach decisions that politicians feel unable to. (As a side note, it's possible that the Supreme Court in the USA would be able to interpret the 2nd Amendment are restrictively than Congress and the President might feel able to do through legislation.) The courts can therefore play a role, in an anti-democratic manner (i.e. not as a representative of a political vote or constituency), as a bulwark against simple majoritarianism and safeguard the basic civil rights that a liberal democracy relies on. (And yes, there is also a problem with 'rights talk' as it sets up irreconcilable conflict between conflicting rights but that's another debate.)
     
    #39 Barbatus, Jun 9, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2018
  20. OGS

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    Aussie792, I think what you say makes sense in theory. I think, however, that you have a great deal more faith in the robustness of political discourse in the US than I do, and frankly I think more than the facts warrant. Just one example: ENDA in all it's various incarnations (straight up, screw the cake, let's just say that most--not even all--companies shouldn't be able to fire you expressly for being gay) has been before Congress for almost 40 years now without passage--despite the fact that not only do a majority of people in the US support the idea, a majority think it's already a law. How long are we supposed to wait?