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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Supreme Court's narrow ruling on a wedding cake is a step in the right direction -WaPo Editorial
By Editorial Board
June 4 at 2:27 PM
THE SUPREME COURT temporized on Monday on a major question of LGBT civil rights specifically, whether a state can require a wedding cake baker to sell his products to same-sex couples as he does to heterosexual couples. Avoiding a sweeping decision, the justices nevertheless laid the foundations for a more ambitious ruling in the future. Businesses cannot pick and choose their customers based on race. States should be able to extend that simple fairness to LGBT people, too. The court on Monday came closer to saying so.
By a 7-to-2 vote, the justices found that the state of Colorado, which has a strong anti-discrimination law forbidding businesses from discriminating among customers based on sexual orientation, impermissibly violated a cake bakers religious freedoms by sanctioning him after he refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple, of the same sort the baker routinely made for heterosexual couples. When the couple complained, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission referred the case to a judge, who agreed with the couple.
The case could have tested how far states can go in requiring fairness for LGBT people in the public marketplace. But the majority opinion dodged the question, instead condemning the states Civil Rights Commission for improper reasoning in applying Colorados anti-discrimination law. The government cannot act in a manner that passes judgment upon or presupposes the illegitimacy of religious beliefs and practices, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. In considering the bakers case, the commission was neither tolerant nor respectful of [baker Jack] Phillips religious beliefs.
The court cited statements that commissioners made that appeared to disparage the bakers religious views and suggest that they were insincere. It also pointed out that the commission embraced the notion that bakers could decline to create cakes with anti-LGBT messages because they are offensive, but that the baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple could not refuse on the grounds that doing so would be offensive to him.
Yet even as Mr. Kennedy insisted that the law must be applied in a manner that treats religion with neutral respect, he also indicated that Colorados law itself was valid: Colorado law can protect gay persons .?.?. in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public. In doing so, he wrote, the state could have legitimate reasons to forgive bakers who refuse to bake anti-LGBT cakes and punish those who refuse to bake a wedding cake for same-sex couples. As Justice Elena Kagan noted in a concurring opinion, cake bakers can be required to bake the same sorts of cakes they make for all other couples, but might not be required to bake special ones with specific messaging.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-supreme-courts-narrow-ruling-on-a-wedding-cake-is-a-step-in-the-right-direction/2018/06/04/8b1fcc32-6813-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html
Va Lefty
(6,252 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,735 posts)"The irony here is that by focusing on the expressed intent to discriminate on the basis of religion, Kennedy may give plaintiffs in the Muslim ban case a leg up. There, the plaintiffs challenge the ban based on Trumps numerous expressions of religious animus. That may not be determinative in that case (which may turn on entirely different constitutional provisions), but it should serve as a flashing red light to the administration." https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/06/04/in-bakers-case-neither-side-has-much-reason-to-rejoice/?utm_term=.41f5acaeea20
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,735 posts)The point is a good one, though.
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)in the majority and in the Presidency, she'll return to her old ways
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,735 posts)is quite enjoyable. I'm expecting her and most of the other anti-Trumpers to return to the GOP fold eventually, though - if there's anything left of it.
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)the whole lot will revert...