SCOTUS: designer’s right to deny LGBTQ wedding websites

[NewOrleans]

Apparently we’re doing this again. Why are we doing this again? so you recall the baker / wedding cake debacle of a case in 2018, but at least that didn’t rule on a carte blanche right to discriminate.  So they took another case to finish the job. 

www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-12-05/supreme-court-religious-minded-business-owners-refuse-gay-weddings?_amp=true

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority sounded Monday ready to rule that a Christian website designer has a free-speech right to refuse to work with same-sex couples planning to marry.

Lawyers for Colorado and the Justice Department… said a refusal to work with same-sex couples planning a wedding is discrimination based on sexual orientation and does not involve speech.

They said a gay couple might ask Smith “to provide them with a website using a design she has already created for other clients and merely substituting the couple’s names and the logistical details of their wedding,” they said. Refusing them would be discrimination against the couple, not a speech restriction, they argued.

[seeyalater52]

I don’t want to do this again. Haven’t we had fucking enough for one year? Just let me live in peace.

[erbear]

I...have no real words. WTF. I cannot see the legal argument here and alas, I know how it's going to go. How can it possibly be legal to deny services to one group that you provide for another?

[penguingrrl]

This is sickening. They know it’s discrimination and they know there’s no constitutional way to do this, but they will anyway.

[estrellita]

Is there precedent for anyone denying services to Christian couples? Straight couples? White couples? I'm curious to know if those are acceptable too or if they'd cry discrimination (they would of course).

[StrawberryBlondie]

Dec 5, 2022 16:12:54 GMT -5 erbear said:

I...have no real words. WTF. I cannot see the legal argument here and alas, I know how it's going to go. How can it possibly be legal to deny services to one group that you provide for another?

I'm gonna be real honest here... I'm a lawyer and I don't understand their argument. And not in a "WTAF?" way but in a "huh?" sort of way.

[Velar Fricative]

One of the dumbest things I heard was about how the plaintiff’s lawyer said it’s all about the art being speech but also said when questioned that they wouldn’t consider a makeup artist to have the same free speech rights (even though a makeup artist is an ARTIST). And also, a chef wouldn’t have the same rights either as this website designer or the baker they previously represented. But, SCOTUS will still go the way we know they’ll go.

[NewOrleans]

Why is Alito like this? Why? 😭 Does law school not make it a point to teach false equivalence or what? This is terrible logic.


@@ example used

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first Black female justice, first brought up the mall Santa analogy, wondering whether a photographer who wanted to create the ambiance of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” might be able to exclude Black children.

Alito countered by conjuring up a Black Santa at the other end of the mall who wanted to be free to refuse a photograph to a child wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit.

Colorado Solicitor General Eric R. Olson said children wearing such outfits are not protected under the law. Justice Elena Kagan said that Santa could refuse anyone wearing such an outfit, regardless of their race.

There was nervous laughter in the audience when Alito replied: “You do see a lot of Black children in Ku Klux Klan outfits, right? … All the time.”

[estrellita]

Dec 5, 2022 20:03:22 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Why is Alito like this? Why? 😭 Does law school not make it a point to teach false equivalence or what? This is terrible logic.


@@ example used

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first Black female justice, first brought up the mall Santa analogy, wondering whether a photographer who wanted to create the ambiance of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” might be able to exclude Black children.

Alito countered by conjuring up a Black Santa at the other end of the mall who wanted to be free to refuse a photograph to a child wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit.

Colorado Solicitor General Eric R. Olson said children wearing such outfits are not protected under the law. Justice Elena Kagan said that Santa could refuse anyone wearing such an outfit, regardless of their race.

There was nervous laughter in the audience when Alito replied: “You do see a lot of Black children in Ku Klux Klan outfits, right? … All the time.”

I am absolutely dumbfounded at how someone can make this comparison. Refusing someone based on their race vs. someone dressed in garments associated with an extreme hate group? Like.. how? I can't.

[pumpkin]

Dec 5, 2022 18:52:34 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

Dec 5, 2022 16:12:54 GMT -5 erbear said:

I...have no real words. WTF. I cannot see the legal argument here and alas, I know how it's going to go. How can it possibly be legal to deny services to one group that you provide for another?

I'm gonna be real honest here... I'm a lawyer and I don't understand their argument. And not in a "WTAF?" way but in a "huh?" sort of way.

I am with you here.

[erbear]

They are just so fucking shitty. This isn’t an evangelical Christian country. The people do not want this. Fuck.

[basilosaurus]

Fucking talibangelists.

And Jesus said unto them, "Go forth and spread the hate and bigotry."

[StrawberryBlondie]

Dec 5, 2022 20:03:22 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Why is Alito like this? Why? 😭 Does law school not make it a point to teach false equivalence or what? This is terrible logic.

I know this is more of a rhetorical question, but I'm going to answer it anyway.

No. It doesn't. But even if it did, it wouldn't matter for Alito. He doesn't care.

[neverfstop]

Dude - not only the black santa joke, alito made several others

Justice Alito jokes with Justice Kagan that, "You do see a lot of Black children in Ku Klux Klan outfits all the time," during oral arguments in a free speech case.
--------------
Alito: JDate ... is a dating service, I gather, for Jewish people.

Kagan: It is.

Alito: Maybe Justice Kagan will also be familiar with the next website I'm going to mention ... AshleyMadison.com.

 

[somersault72]

They've lost me at how this is Freedom of Speech. And the dumbass examples they're using?? I can't guys.@@ My 4 year old could come up with something better, and frankly that's not hyperbole. This is the highest court in the land???

[StrawberryBlondie]

If there's anyone else, like me, who was scratching their heads trying to figure out just what the actual argument in favor of discrimination is, Akiva Cohen on Twitter has a really good explanation.

Please note - I think he gets the analysis wrong on a couple of extremely pivotal points (he concludes plaintiffs should win) but it was really helpful to understand just WTF the argument was.

[NewOrleans]

Dec 6, 2022 10:53:32 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

Dude - not only the black santa joke, alito made several others

--------------
Alito: JDate ... is a dating service, I gather, for Jewish people.

Kagan: It is.

Alito: Maybe Justice Kagan will also be familiar with the next website I'm going to mention ... AshleyMadison.com.

What. The. Fuck. 

[basilosaurus]

Websites to black kkk to jdate to Ashley Madison? Wtf is in my water?! I fill it at the corner store, and I'm about to demand a filter change because surely I'm hallucinating

[NewOrleans]

Dec 6, 2022 12:37:46 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

If there's anyone else, like me, who was scratching their heads trying to figure out just what the actual argument in favor of discrimination is, Akiva Cohen on Twitter has a really good explanation.

Please note - I think he gets the analysis wrong on a couple of extremely pivotal points (he concludes plaintiffs should win) but it was really helpful to understand just WTF the argument was.

For anyone interested, I think this is clearer at highlighting the issues being debated than his point, although this isn’t specific to the case.  (I don’t know how I feel about the case boiling down to “is art different and inherently expressive or is it a mere product?” because i want to say yes to that premise and reject assigning capitalistic value to art, but in this context, affirming that art is different sides with this bigot.)

if there is an intent to convey a particularized message, and . . . the likelihood was great that the message would be understood by those who viewed it.3 Further, the conduct must itself be inherently expressive—merely combining speech and conduct is not sufficient to transform conduct into ‘speech.’4 Expressive conduct is evaluated under a less stringent constitutional standard than pure speech and thus more subject to regulation and restriction.5 Some expressive conduct may be forbidden altogether, when a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the nonspeech element of the activity justifies incidental limitations on the protected expression.6 The relevant test is an intermediate scrutiny standard that was announced in United States v. O’Brien: a government regulation is sufficiently justified if it is within the constitutional power of the Government; if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.7
constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-7-14-1/ALDE_00000760/

[NewOrleans]

I’m still mulling over expressive conduct and reading about it. So then I came across Coney Barrett leading the attorney because she knew she’d totally just admitted to discrimination. (With a rebound by Gorsuch).

Referencing a hypothetical heterosexual couple, Barrett said that what “they want to write under the engagement story page goes like this: We are both cisgender and heterosexual, but that is irrelevant to our relationship which transcends such categories. We knew we were soulmates from the moment that we met and on and on. Would your client publish that site?”

When Waggoner said yes and went on to explain further, Barrett stopped her before she could finish her explanation, asking pointedly, “Even though that narrative, I assume, is inconsistent with her biblical views about marriage?” Later, to make the point even more transparent, Barrett said, “So it’s about the message and not about the sexuality of the couple that asked her to express it that matters?”

With Barrett’s coaching, Waggoner corrected course, saying yes.

www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/rcna59800