Supreme Court Rules Against Gay Couple

Front-page NYT headline: “Supreme Court Rules Against Gay Couple in Cake Case, 7-2”.

But the story says that the case is Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In other words, the happy now-married couple is not part of the litigation so the ruling could not have been either for or against them.

It didn’t come down as Harvey Silverglate had predicted (see “The Colorado baker case at the Supreme Court”), but seems to have hinged on the Supreme Court justices reading the minds of the state bureaucrats who punished the baker:

“The neutral and respectful consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised here,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “The Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection.”

So is the NYT headline accurate? Did the 7 justices rule against the potential cake customers or against the bureaucrats on a state commission?

Another way to look at this is that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of litigation. Instead of a bright-line rule that would enable everyone to know in advance how a cake situation should be resolved, they suggest a more elaborate process for litigating cake-related disputes. The process has to include judges who, if they are hostile to religious believers, keep this hostility secret and find a neutral-sounding way to stick it to the haters.

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18 thoughts on “Supreme Court Rules Against Gay Couple

  1. Can’t get everything we want in one day. Judges will continue to be legislators and not judges, the executive branch will continue to be judges and executives. Legislators will continue to do nothing.

  2. [personal attack removed by moderator]

    Obviously the CCRC acted based on a complaint by the gay couple. Since they made the decision, they were the ones who were sued.

    Much like the recent Murphy v NCAA case, since Murphy is the sitting governor if NJ, it was his name on the case, even though former governor Chris Christie is the one who started the ball rolling.

  3. I think it’s great that the CCRC ruled against a cake maker for refusing to make a cake for a wedding that __Colrorado law didn’t legally recognize at the time__.

  4. Haha, it gets complicated very quickly.

    I know some girls that wanted penis-decorated cake for the bachelorette party. Religios baker wasn’t comfortable with the idea, and, without letigation, they settled on getting undecorated cake and icing on the side and girls managed to successfully drew penises on the cake themselves.

  5. Anonymous: Interesting point! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Amendment_43 says “Colorado Amendment 43 was a referendum approved by the voters in 2006 that added a new section to Article II of the Colorado Constitution to define marriage in Colorado as only a union between one man and one woman. It passed with 56% of the vote.”

    So this does seem to show a disconnect between the civil rights commissioners, who can pay themselves from a $2.1 million annual budget (see https://coloradopolitics.com/funding-civil-rights-agency-state-budget/ ) and the public, which has no way to make money from being more virtuous.

  6. This is a victory that is actually a loss. The judges were careful to confine their ruling to the facts of this particular case. They just couldn’t stomach the obvious hatred for Holy Rollers that the state bureaucrats showed. In the future, they will still rule against religious believers but they will be more careful not to call them Nazis.

  7. Funny how the First and Thirteenth amendments are so unclear.

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”

    “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

    As the baker had not been “duly convicted” of a crime, the gay couple have no legal right to force him to express their views.

  8. I’m a Baker: If someone walks to my bakery shop and ask me to decorate a cake for him with a Nazi symbol and “Kill Jews” write-up, can I refuse?

    I’m a Carpenter: If someone want me to add hidden cameras in the bathroom and shower room of my business, can I refuse?

    I’m a Taylor: If someone want me to saw a hidden camera in a button to a Girl’s Scout jacket which will be worn by the troopers, can I refuse?

    Those are some examples where I see this would have been an issue if the Court sided with the gay couples — no one will be able to refuse a request be it you believe in it religiously or ethically.

  9. What’s interesting here is that the baker did not have to appeal to any religious authority to establish his sincere religious beliefs, all he had to do was state his beliefs (apparently for the first time) at the moment the service was denied. What could possibly go wrong with a ruling upholding that? Of course we all know this is not about religions freedom at all, but rather about right wing christian domination as will become obvious to all the moment someone not a right wing christian attempts the same behavior.

  10. zzazz said:
    > What’s interesting here is that the baker did not have to appeal to any
    > religious authority to establish his sincere religious beliefs

    If a person claimed that they were christian, and opposed same sex marriage, you would not believe them without a note from some authority?

    > all he had to do was state his beliefs (apparently for the first time) at
    > the moment the service was denied.

    You clearly have not read the supreme court opinion, or bothered to learn the facts of the case. The baker in question was open about his faith, and no one involved questioned his sincerity.

    > Of course we all know this is not about religions freedom at all, but rather
    > about right wing christian domination as will become obvious to all the
    > moment someone not a right wing christian attempts the same behavior.

    This is simply false. Go read the opinion. A member of the board that judged the baker makes the case that religious freedom was used to justify slavery and the holocaust, as if all people who exercise their consitutional rights are guilty of a crime. This blatant intolerance seems to be a key factor in the supreme court’s decision.

  11. The irony of zzaz’s comment is that his type of blatant hatred for “right wing christians” is what sunk the case against the baker in the 1st place. I’m not worried anymore that clever bureaucrats will disguise their anti-religious feelings in the future, #1 because they are not that clever and #2 because they just can’t help themselves – in the Age of Trump their hatred for fundamentalist Christians and need to virtue signal is so great that they couldn’t possibly hide it.

    Should the baker have gotten a letter from his rabbi in order to establish his “sincere religious beliefs”? What about the gay couple – who do they go to in order to prove their sincere gayness? Maybe they are just trolling the baker and are not really gay?

  12. There are 70 million Catholics, 90 million Evangelicals and 100+ million mainline protestants vs. 10 million LGBT people. Is might makes right really the best strategy? This newfound acceptance of LGBT, literally a couple of years old(those of us with memories recall the supremely virtuous President Obama opposed gay marriage), could be gone in a blink of an eye. And not just gone back to 2010 either. An increasing number of gays are realizing this.

  13. Tony: To me this case actually shows that righteousness on behalf of LGBTQIA folks is growing. https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/politics/masterpiece-cakeshop-owner-says-hes-lost-40-of-business-welcomes-scotus-hearing says that the baker has lost 40 percent of his income because it isn’t respectable to be associated with anti-gay marriage sentiment.

    This is why I like the market. If taxpayers had never paid for all of these lawyers, commissioners, and judges, but this baker had been shamed on social media, he would have suffered a de facto “fine” of losing 40 percent of his income. How much more of a punishment has to be applied to discourage the next baker who might dare to express a reservation about a same-sex marriage? (as ridiculous as the concept of caring about a civil marriage in the age of no-fault on-demand divorce might be)

    As a practical matter is it possible to run a business in the U.S. that is seen as discriminating against any group other than white males? (see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/movies/zoe-lister-jones-all-female-film-crew.html for a celebration of an enterprise that refuses to hire men, for example; also http://www.businessinsider.com/how-can-hooters-hire-only-women-2015-9 )

  14. I’m wondering why a person’s beliefs should receive special protection simply because they are considered “religious”.

    Suppose someone sincerely believed that natural selection demonstrates that male-female pairings are uniquely advantageous to our species’ advancement, and therefore it’s appropriate to hold male-female marriages in higher esteem than same-sex unions.

    Shouldn’t that person’s beliefs receive the same protections as “faith-based” beliefs?

  15. Tough case, one that ultimately pits the rights of a “protected class” (the gay couple) against the free speech rights of the baker. The gay couple argues that providing a service such as baking a wedding cake can’t be construed as “speech”,that is, an endorsement of gay marriage as an institution. I don’t think this is necessarily obvious at all.

    Here’s an analogous, more lefty-friendly scenario: let’s say there was a tailor providing designer clothes to women. In accordance to her strong feminist beliefs, she doesn’t create clothing that she deems objectifying or unfeminist (miniskirts might be an example). A Muslim couple comes into her shop and asks her to make a burka for their daughter. She obviously refuses, and instead offers to sell the couple another article of clothing. If the baker wins his case, the Muslim couple (being a protected class) would I suppose have the right to sue her into violating her strongly held feminist beliefs and agreeing to make burkas. I think it’s wrong to coerce the feminist tailor to turn around and make burkas to appease a protected class; likewise, it’s wrong to coerce the baker into making a wedding cake (in violation of his strongly held Christian belief) .

  16. Karen: Thoughtful comment, as usual. I’m personally against the courts having any kind of rule or standard that requires fact-finders to look inside the souls of people who show up to courthouses, e.g., to decide whether or not they have a “strongly held belief” or, indeed, any belief at all. To me this is just a recipe for society devoting a larger portion of its wealth to litigation (unproductive by definition).

    We don’t do this even for murders, really. The question of premeditation is not settled by a jury looking into the accused person’s soul, but by seeing if the defendant purchased a rope and lye a week before the killing. The question of motive is not settled by looking into the defendant’s soul, but by asking “Could the accused have made a bunch of money off the death?”

  17. @Jack D

    “Should the baker have gotten a letter from his rabbi in order to establish his “sincere religious beliefs”? What about the gay couple – who do they go to in order to prove their sincere gayness?”

    The gay couple don’t have to go to a certifying authority to establish their gayness. They can just make out in front of me. I only ask to be allowed to bring popcorn, and invite friends who are allowed to squeal in delight and cheer them on.

    Come to think of it, then we can write a letter attesting to their gayness, and sign it as witnesses.

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