What an incredibly depressing time to be an American. Perhaps we should limit the members of one religious sect on the court in order to guarantee fairness to all Americans.
3
This is an insidious argument, in truth it demands that one’s right to religious freedom supersedes another right to any independence whether religious or secular. Similar to saying that my individual religion demands that I follow the rules of Kosher, therefore you insult me by not choosing to follow the rules of Kosher. Unfortunately, in America, if one wants to wear a Habib that is not a welcomed religion here, so those individuals have no sway. Which makes the total argument hypocritical.
Specifically, Holly Lobby has no right to infringe on their employees right to freedom of their choice.
In regard to the cake baker, he should treat this as an individual hobby and should not maintain a storefront in a public marketplace.
The pharmacist in the public marketplace has no issue as well.
All these issues are being written to appease the Evangelist voting bloc. Which then results in one’s individual religious dogma becoming more dominant than all others.
It is very obvious that the conservative justices on this court don't believe in the Costitution. That is what makes them so dangerous
3
One can frame the baker case however one wants but what the baker is ultimately asking the Supreme Court to do is give him permission to "throw stones" at those he sees as sinners . . .
1
All these “Christians” so eager to demonstrate how dearly they hold their deep beliefs should go back to their Bibles:
Judge not, lest ye be judged. Remove the plank from your own eye before attempting to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
It is not your right to impose your religious views on others. And I can’t help but be irritated by Justice Kennedy. It is a fact that religious doctrine has been used to justify discrimination and worse throughout history. Simple historical fact, not bias. If the justices feathers are ruffled by being confronted by that fact, they are willfully in denial. Also, by their own logic, Hobby Lobby is completely complicit in their employees using birth control and getting abortions - the money for those procedures now comes straight from Hobby Lobby accounts via paychecks. At least insurance would act as a middle man, providing some moral cover! As it is, I guess the God Hobby Lobby’s owners worship will say: hundreds of your employees got abortions with money you handed them! You are guilty of their sin as well, since you paid for it! No Supreme Court to get them out of that predicament.
2
The baker was not asked to create a gay-themed cake...only to create a cake for a wedding between two gays. They never got to discussing the cake itself.
He objected to and refused to serve the customers, not to mis-apply his artistic sensibilities.
And if a wedding planner ordered a cake decorated with the names Chris and Pat, would the baker be entitled to summon them in to examine their private parts for his approval of the match before mixing up the eggs, flour and milk?
Just do your job and mind your own business. If you can't do that, then you can't serve the public.
2
Like it or not, SCOTUS may be a last bastion of defense for the notion that America is a white Christian nation where businessmen daddies should be in control. John Winthrop may roll in his grave that SCOTUS is composed of six old Catholic men (Gorsuch was raised Catholic) and three Jews, with nary a WASP in sight - but he's got to be tickled that due to the unholy alliance of conservative Catholics and Christianist evangelicals at least some of the most basic tenets of WASPdom and Puritanism are still manifest.
The "freedom of expression" really desired to be maintained by these conservative religionists - and it extends to the puritanical conservative elements of all three religions of Abraham, including Judaism and Islam - is the freedom to tell other people what to do and to control their lives. I had thought we disabused the British Crown of that notion 250 years ago.
1
"Justice Alito offered this observation: “I think there are 50 predominantly Muslim countries in the world. Five — five countries — five predominantly Muslim countries are on this list. The population of the predominantly Muslim countries on this list make up about 8 percent of the world’s Muslim population. So would a reasonable observer think this was a Muslim ban?” Justice Alito proceeded to answer his own question: “It does not look at all like a Muslim ban.”"
A) Why is Alito asserting his personal opinion on whether it is a Muslim ban from the bench? Frankly, it looks inappropriate because it appears that he's already made up his mind before oral arguments and conference. B) Clearly there are reasonable observers who think it is a Muslim ban based on the lower court rulings and the mountain of amicus briefs, so I'm not sure why Alito thinks his opinion is any more reasonable than the rest. C) Alito's logic is horribly flawed. Who said that a Muslim ban must cover all Muslim countries? It's basically a weak strawman argument. D) Based on the foregoing, how in the heck did Alito even make it on to the Supreme Court? His biases and weak rationalizations are not worthy of the institution.
2
So Heidi Jeanne Hess made a historically accurate observation (one the Pope himself has made!), and our "conservative" SCOTUS members want her to disavow it? They feel it shows her (and, by logic, the Pope) to be significantly hostile to religion? Oh my.
I guess this means they've followed their fellow "conservatives" down the rabbit hole to where facts are just opinions held by evil liberals.
1
A “reasonable, objective observer” might well demand some sort of reasonable, objective evidence that the religious beliefs of the people involved are somehow different from delusions.
The Obergefell decision is the start of the problem for the People of faith and any person who believes only in the traditional view of marriage. That decision is illegal in at least two ways. First, there is no authority for "same sex marriage" in the Constitution. The SCOTUS was disingenuous in Obergefell, perhaps to "create a world" where falsehoods are sanctioned as truth.
Second, marriage is a religious event. It is created and defined in the Bible, not the Constitution. (Genesis 2:24). To add insult to injury to Christians and other people of faith, Colorado decided to punish the baker because he would not create the ceremonial centerpiece for a religious event, where, in his belief, a man and woman perform there first act together as one, in the cutting of the cake. The Obergefell
So this is a religious event for which the baker has been punished. The SCOTUS will attempt to make up an authority to interfere and ultimately "redefine" Christianity. But we, the People of faith are not going to stand by silent on the sidelines and let them do it.
The only reasonable decision the Court can make is to reverse Obergefell, and Congress should write new legislation that holds SCOTUS justices accountable to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They are also accountable to the People, all people, including Christians.
1
What official doctrines of his faith does the baker present as bona fides for his actions? Does my personal reading of the bible, or the recorded dicta of my pastor from the pulpit, allow admittance to the constitutional protection of religious freedom for my secular actions, unmoored from formal ecclesiastical tenets of faith?
What Ms. Greenhouse is describing is the unequal treatment by the conservative justices on the Supreme Court of people of different religions. It's disturbing how solicitous the conservatives are of the feelings of Christians (e.g. outrage over the Colorado commissioner's comment, when she didn't even mention Christians) and dismissive of actual discrimination, as in the travel ban, when it affects Muslims. And they can't see it at all.
1
I have never understood why people engaged in commerce somehow think providing their wares or services to people with whom they have some kind of religious or philosophical disagreement means they condone the actions or beliefs of the purchasers of their wares. After all, this baker may well have provided his services to wife beaters, adulterers, prostitutes, thieves, or atheists - all people whose actions he likely would not condone. It seems as if the baker only objected when he could clearly discern the prospective clients were "engaged" in an activity he didn't agree with - that being a homosexual relationship. I suspect his religion would also object to stealing, wife beating, or not believing at all - therefore, should he quiz each potential client to assure they do not violate his religious tenets? Where do you draw the line? Maybe someone has a religious belief that prohibits inter-racial marriages - would the Supreme Court support denial of services based on that?
2
Like it or not, SCOTUS may be a last bastion of defense for the notion that America is a Christian nation where businessmen daddies should be in control. John Winthrop may roll in his grave that SCOTUS is composed of six Catholics (Gorsuch was raised Catholic) - five of whom are old men - and three Jews, with nary a WASP in sight - but he's got to be tickled that due to the unholy alliance of conservative Catholics and Christianist evangelicals at least some of the most basic tenets of WASPdom and Puritanism are still manifest.
The "freedom of expression" really desired to be maintained by these conservative religionists - and it extends to the puritanical and reactionary conservative elements of all three religions of Abraham, including Judaism and Islam - is the freedom to tell other people what to do and to control their lives. I had thought we disabused the British Crown of that notion 250 years ago.
2
Some Americans sincerely believe that life begins at conception and (therefore) that Plan B (the morning after pill) destroys life by preventing the fertilized egg from implanting itself.
No matter whether we agree with that belief (I don't), surely there is something we can ALL agree on -- that our laws should not force those Americans to subsidize what they consider to be murder as a condition of being allowed to run their own businesses.
Linda Greenhouse would like to see the law take away that right. It is wrong to tell people that they are not free to participate in our economy unless they violate their religious beliefs. That is why the Constitution includes the Free Exercise clause.
1
'Tolerance is essential and must be mutual in a free society'...does not the baker need to exhibit tolerance also? Such action by the baker would show christian understanding and faith. The commandment to love thy neighbor does not exclude anyone, Mark 12:31.
Under the First Amendment, I don't see any difference between the United States allowing each person to believe (or not believe) in a specific religion AND the Supreme Court of The United States NOT allowing itself to be used by a person or a group of people of a particular religion against a group of people with different beliefs, religious or otherwise.. SCOTUS is wrong to hear any case allowing discrimination of ANY kind based on religious beliefs by a baker or the racism of the "macho" pResident of the United States.
Using the power of the Government to discriminate against others, including women, is wrong on every level.
2
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case actually poses a very straightforward question. Had the shop owner, Jack Phillips, been approached by a heterosexual couple, he would have served them without hesitation. But Mr. Phillips refused to serve Charlie Craig and David Mullins because they were a homosexual couple, and Mr. Phillips believes homosexuality goes against his religious beliefs. So the question really is: Does an individual's expression of their religious belief allow them to discriminate?
Having watched this case closely (here in Denver) I expect the conservatives of Supreme Court will side with Mr. Phillips, but it will be a sad day to see the intellectual contortions they will have to posit to get around the Fourteenth Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; ...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." We will sadly be hurtling ourselves back to "separate but equal" which is exactly where Trump and his white Christian evangelicals want to take us.
4
The Supreme Court should rule that government has no business either endorsing or debunking religion and religious concepts, like "god" which is purely a religious notion with no basis in fact.
For that matter, for the same reason, it would be correct for us to remove the "in god we trust" slogan from the money and the courthouses.
5
When our species has only one god and when everyone agrees with the claims of that particular god, then the particular resulting religion will be the first to not threaten our democratic values with its imagined authority based on the claim or having a particular god's ear.
The liberty of man or woman is not safe in the hands of any religion. ( A near quote of Robert Engersoll)
3
In the State of California, we have the Jesse Unruh Act, which prohibits discrimination in the business place - and protects all, including economic classes - but just about any protect class.
This Supreme Court examination IS NOT examining how it would conflict with the Jesse Unruh ACT.
My legal comment is that the Baker and Hawaii hold them self out to do business with the PUBLIC. From that point on, the baker and the State are liable to anyone who wants services from them, including entry into the country.
My religion is not recognized by the United States. As a Buddhist, I would have to delineate the practices and norms, which are taught only by in-person lectures with a LAMA, a teacher.
My religion has a huge slew of prohibitions, most of which I cannot manage while living in the West.
I would never dream of imposing any of my religious precepts onto anyone.
Religious beliefs are private, and belong in the realm of all that is private. Once you step into the public domain, our country's laws take over. That's the deal freedom gives you. I think it is a great deal.
3
If I were a legislator or a judge, I would outlaw chaplains in the congress. I would outlaw government sponsored prayer days. I would make sure that places of business open to the public serve all the public. I would deny government funding for any religiously sponsored school or university. My wall of separation would be very very high!
6
What Ms. Greenhouse intimates but leaves us to conclude—apparently too polite to come out and say it—is that the conservative justices seem to have different parameters for judging Christian religious freedom and Muslim religious freedom.
Recent history is rife with examples of justices' writing opinions in conflict with their own previous decisions in the interests of expediency and a desired outcome. Can we dispense with the fiction that SCOTUS is an objective and even-handed venue, unsullied by the personal beliefs and political leanings of its members?
10
You are comparing apples and oranges. The US Government must respect the religious rights of citizens because that is what the Constitution requires. The religious rights of foreign nationals seeking to come to the US or Remain in the US are not addressed in any way by the Constitution.
2
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case and the SCOTUS Hobby Lobby decision highlight the capriciousness of how religious beliefs are defined by individuals. It leads the religious to define the parameters of their beliefs to a point that, on the surface, appear illogical and contradictory. The Hobby Lobby decision is a perfect illustration of this. The owners of Hobby Lobby didn't want to provide contraception to its female employees but apparently did not have a problem hiring women who did and certainly did not have a problem selling items to female customer who might use contraception. Why is providing a contraception benefit a violation but paying an employee a wage that can be used to buy contracetives okay? The real issue is how many degrees of separation can there be between a religious belief and some action that violates it. If the SCOTUS rules in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop it will reinforce the idea that any interpretation is legitimate. The majority opinion in Hobby Lobby quoted a prior SCOTUS decision in saying who were they to question the legitimacy of anyone religious beliefs. In other words, there are no parameters when it comes to religious beliefs. The irony of Hobby Lobby is that the SCOTUS had no problem questioning the logic of the lower court in deciding against Hobby Lobby. Apparently logic can be applied to logic, just not religious beliefs.
3
Nor can the laws force us to be guided by religion. The constitution protects us from religion as much as protect those who freely wish to practice religion. Constitutional originalism is a quaint, but ultimately fake idea. If the us constitution was supposed to be narrowly or originally interpreted, there would be no mechanism to alter or amend said constitution. This is clearly not the case and originalism is nonsensical on its face and misguided in its practice.
1
There's a big difference in 1-9 judges offering their personal opinion as a refutation of what the founders intended the Constitution to say on a given topic. The founders provided us with a process to amend the Constitution if we disagree with what was written or if we feel that the amendment is no longer relevant in modern times. This is the duty of the legislatures of the federal and state governments not judges.
Then amend the Constitution to say that freedom from religion is a right. Reinterpretation of the Constitution to fit the times or even the majority to mean some un-original is not respecting the rule of law.
1
If I am a doctor and a LGBT person comes into my office with life-threatening injuries requiring immediate medical intervention, and I am able but refuse to help this person, on the ground that it would be sacrilegious for me to help the LGBT person live because doing so would allow him or her to later continue a lifestyle against my religion, it is my constitutional right to refuse to treat him or her????
7
Or can a Christian doctor refuse to treat a Muslim or Sikh patient? Can a Muslim doctor refuse to treat a patient wearing a crucifix? Could a non-believer refuse to treat any patient who is a believer? Will the Supreme Court even consider these potential unintended consequences?
1
MB,
As the Constitution is written, yes.
Unfortunately yes, but yes.
1
As a practical matter, the customers the baker refused could easily have gone down the street to another baker. They didn't need court help getting a cake; they wanted their point of view, their religion, imposed on this particular baker. Do I sue a Chevy garage for refusing to work on my Ford? Do I want government spending time and money on cases like this rather than solving unsolved murders? Likewise for a pharmacy with scruples about certain drugs; there are lots of pharmacies. More problematic is Facebook; if it shuts anyone down, they can't go down the block to the next Facebook, so they should probably have to accommodate most anyone, however obnoxious or evil, not conspiring to commit violent crimes.
Not saying the travel limits are a good idea, but Islam and secularism do accommodate some truly nasty regimes: North Korea, ISIS, Taliban (even Saudi and red China)--guests from whom may need specially careful vetting. Christendom, worshipping the Prince of peace, hasn't been that bad lately, tho our track record includes plenty of sins to repent of, or steer clear of repeating bad history. I stress "regimes" with substantial (even if minority) support, not just the odd individual here and there. MAYbe this care needs to be taken in this case.
3
So, your argument on the cake is that they can go down the block and get the same service. The fact is that it is not true everywhere (some small towns only have one bakery, so if they're refused at that bakery, they can't just go down the block), and furthermore, it's immaterial to the argument, because that bakery just down the block has the exact same right (or lack thereof) to refuse the service. This would mean that in order for someone to exercise their right to refuse (if there is one), they'd actually have to keep track of all other bakeries within a certain radius, and keep track as to whether or not they are also exercising their right to refuse service. That seems like a very cumbersome process, that ultimately results in the bakery potentially not being able to refuse service if they can't find another bakery that won't.
Ultimately your argument is like telling the people at Woolworth's Lunch Counter that there's a black restaurant 3 blocks down, and they can go there, rather than forcing Woolworth's Lunch Counter to serve them.
Your argument could be used to allow discrimination against any group, ultimately. Because there's potentially another restaurant that will serve them within a certain distance.
Either you support the right to discriminate, or you don't. Don't cloud up your language by minimizing what you support by stating that there is another shop that would potentially serve them.
2
Not every little town has another bakery down the street.
. The baker cannot win a “freedom of religion” argument because his actions amount to trying to force his beliefs upon those who do not share them. Government prevention of such intimidation is what “freedom of religion” is about. It is NOT about freedom to force your particular beliefs upon others, historical examples being the Crusades and the War of the Roses.
The baker also cannot win a “freedom of speech” argument because he has many venues open to him to express his views, and the freedom to express views does not extend to coercion and arm-twisting - only to access to a forum for attempting persuasion,
So there is no quandary here other than some inventions of those Justices seeking a legal fig leaf to cover up their unconstitutional promotion of a narrow-minded “Christian” version of American culture.
6
One important question in regard to immigration overlooked entirely by Linda Greenhouse is whether members of a religion which teaches that non-adherents to that religion have no formal rights, but can be consigned to the level of servants, could possibly support the Constitution of the United States of America. The teachings of the Koran and hadiths, and the actions of the founder of the religion, are clear on this point.
5
The famous Stonewall riots in 1969 took place because gay men were congregating. Not soliciting or having sex. But for being gay together.
Since then, year by year, gays have fought discrimination and cruelty.
In the 1980s the Supreme Court affirmed the jailing of a gay couple who were observed having sex within the confines of their own home: a cop mistakenly entered it, and arrested them. Gay marriage was only recognized 10 years ago.
This isn't about the rights of the baker.
It is about a group of people who have suffered every kind of hatefulness and discrimination, including imprisonment, and their rights to live like the rest of the citizens of this country.
11
The intent of the First Amendment was to protect people's ability to believe and worship (or not) as they saw fit. Expecting people to comply with public accommodations laws that are designed to protect the ability of citizens who have historically been discriminated against to participate in the public commerce of the nation in no way inhibits anybody's right to believe and worship as they choose. This should be a no-brainer.
If the baker in Colorado is permitted to so discriminate against gay people, what is to prevent some group from claiming they are exempt from serving African Americans in the public accommodations they operate, because they suddenly claim that accommodating them would violate their religious beliefs?
When one applies for and receives a license from the state to operate a business, they should understand they are doing so on the condition that they comply with the state's laws concerning who they must serve.
But apart from any of that, here's what it really comes down to: does this baker actually _knw_ that every wedding cake he bakes and sells is going to a wedding in which the relationship between the two parties conforms to his or her moral standards? How does he know if the couple aren't, say, swingers,, or that they don't have an open relationship? Answer: he doesn't, and he doesn't really care.
For Pete's sake, occasional added decoration notwithstanding, this is a consumable, perishable food product we are talking about!
7
No. You are entirely incorrect. The First Amendment prohibits any government imaginable in 1776, from creating A LAW which prohibits religious freedom. In no way does our Constitution endorse "believe and worship (or not) as they saw fit."
Similarly, the First Amendment's freedom of speech provision applies only to the prohibition of any government from restricting COMPLAINTS and grievances against the government. The Constitution does not allow for all speech, or all communication.
Maybe Justice Alito needs a class in remedial math; the travel ban only affects 8% of the word's Muslim population, therefore it's inconsequential.
However, the inarguably consequential Hobby Lobby decision was upheld because of a prior SC decision(WI v Yoder)involving a religion that, at best, comprises less than .003% of the American population.
6
Hobby Lobby actually had nothing to do with Wisconsin v. Yoder. Hobby Lobby wasn't actually decided upon the 1st Amendment Free Exercise clause. It was decided upon a statutory interpretation of a law that was passed in 1992 (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act).
1
This column explains in stark terms just how far to the religious right the SCOTUS is heading. It would be a major surprise of the Court ruled against the baker and the travel ban -- that is, if you accept the emerging idea that religious faith now has a central role in interpretations of secular law and generations of judicial decisions dating back to the early days of the nation.
It would be one thing, and just as wrong, if there were a clamor before the Court to allow all -- or any -- religion to enter the court and justice system. No religion has any place in the realm of Constitutional law. What's especially troubling is that this is a Christian-motivated and financed assault on the separation of church and state. It is not being undertaken by Muslims, Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, sun worshipers or Episcopals. It is solely the work of those in our midst who want the United States to be a "Christian" nation, with their conservative beliefs enshrined in law whether you agree or not.
You think Trump is bad. In terms of impact on our daily lives and interactions, a Christian theocracy will be much, much worse.
12
Religions can require their adherents to observe all kinds of rules. Could a Muslim baker refuse to sell a wedding cake because alcohol was going to be served at the wedding?
Can a business person of any kind refuse service because the customer does not subscribe to certain moral strictures?
I frequently shop at an independent grocery store owned and operated by a Catholic family. Could they refuse to let me shop in their store if they found out I use contraception?
And, on the Muslim ban, if the ban primarily impacts Muslim’s, it is a Muslim ban. Why does it matter that it doesn’t impact every Muslim in the world at once. The Holocaust began with discrimination against select groups of Jews and expanded from there. It’s the principle that’s objectionable, not the scale on which it is applied.
These so-called conservatives are filling up judicial benches at a great rate. Thanks, uneducated White people!
9
Freedom of religion was a big deal to the founding fathers who gave extraordinary protections to the religious. Today, many of us think of religions as just one more interest group with no greater or lesser rights than countless other groups, including gay couples. Hobby Lobby suggests that the view of the founding fathers regarding religion continues to rule the day. This is one more sign that the Constitution is badly dated. The most fundamental issues of the day are whether McConnell improperly tampered with the Supreme Court appointment system and whether a terrible President can be removed on that ground alone. It would be nice if there were a document that addressed these matters rather than so many issues that are obsolete.
4
You might want to actually read the Hobby Lobby decision, because it wasn't actually decided on the First Amendment, but on a law that was passed in 1992 called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
That law was declared to be unconstitutional as it applies to the States, so the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has absolutely no effect on this case. The case law with the Free Exercise clause is still the case of Employment Division v. Smith (which was written by Scalia), which actually said that a neutral law of general appliciability would withstand a Free Exercise challenge.
2
michjas,
The Senate is free to carry out its business
as it sees fit.
That McConnell did not want to hold a hearing
is the business of the Senate - but why the grudge
no Democratic nominated Judge would have been
approved that last year of Obama's presidency.
As for Trump - hmm - North Korea is coming around,
China is starting to mind its "P's and Q's" the
European Union is learning it is not all wise,
and the economy is growing...
Trump may well be impeached but only on
Constitutional Grounds, not that you don't like him.
2
“'Counselor, tolerance is essential in a free society. And tolerance is most meaningful when it’s mutual. It seems to me that the state in its position here has been neither tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips’s religious beliefs.'”
Specious at best, disingenuous at worse. Solomonic reasoning is sorely lacking in this iteration of SCOTUS.
1
My own wedding included various Christian rituals. If our cake baker had told me our desert was a statement on the religious sacrament, that would have been a bizarre statement.
4
"Supreme Court majority displays amazingly perfect pentagonal crystalline snowflake structure"--late June headline when decisions come down.
Do I believe Justice Roberts should recuse himself from all cases involving discrimination because of his long history (going back to the early 1980s when he worked in Justice Department and minimized need for Voting Rights Act) of ahistorical amnesia regarding unconstitutional and racist voter suppression? No, I don't, because I believe it is up to Democratic-leaning voters to wake up and treat the federal courts as a high-priority voting issue.
5
The potential horror of this case is that any charlatan "business person " can claim to be following "God's law," then be allowed to discriminate, eschewing society's laws.
This would be inviting anarchy.
16
Between “Citizens United” and the “Hobby Lobby” decisions, the current Supreme Court seems intent on “politicizing” and “religifying” itself out of existence. Our much lauded system of “checks and balances” is beginning to look more and more lop-sided.
13
SCOTUS has become just one more political body and the "justices" should have limited terms and face elections. Three or four very un-judge like if not nasty personalities. The 2018 three branch/ring circus of the executive, legislative and judicial.
10
Our Conservative Supreme Court will carefully deliberate to ascertain which decisions will ultimately benefit the Oligarchs the most, whether directly or by fanning the flames of division to keep the peasants at each other’s throats.
7
Judges are political animals, no more and no less than all of us. It remains striking that the question of who prevails in courts depends on which party affiliation the judges come from. Was that what the founding fathers intended? Is that what the law makers intend when they produce law after law, seemingly without consideration for possible interpretation of their intent?
5
The Constitution was never written to give
the Supreme Court/Federal Courts so much power
of the lives of Americans.
2
With this line of reasoning one could say that the writers of the Constitution did not intend for "non-militia" citizens to own firearms...
We were created as a secular nation with Freedom from religion by founders who held religion in low regard. They were well aware of the witch burning Puritan nut cakes and the unholy matrimony of church and crown in Europe. Thomas Jefferson admired the philosophy of Jesus an created the Jefferson Bible by taking scissors to the four books of the gospel and cutting out all of the supernatural nonsense. I admire Jesus and Albert Einstein as having brilliant minds. Would I admire Einstein more if it was believed that he was born of a virgin? Of course not.
4
JSK,
Please go back an read the State Constitutions
and how the Constitution was interpreted in the early
decades of the Nation.
Religion is very present and the Founders did not
hold religion in a low regard.
1
Did it matter that the Stormans family, owners of the drugstore, were “devout Christians” who, according to Justice Alito’s approving description, “seek to run their business in accordance with their religious beliefs" Sounds pretty much what Alito is trying to do.
7
The justices are exposed as hypocrites, but unmentioned is the fact that terrorism, not religion, is the main reason for the travel ban. This isn't so much a distaste for Islam as for terrorists. I'm not in favor of the ban, or to a bakery turning away a same-sex couple, but there is an apples vs. oranges aspect to this.
5
It should be simple, no one can discriminate against another no matter what their religion beliefs are, period.
7
The baker has every right to refuse to serve gay people. Restaurants have every right to refuse to serve gay people.
Landlords have every right to refuse to rent to gay people.
Businesses have every right to refuse to hire gay people.
In Kansas, South Carolina, and more.
Not in Colorado, New York, and more.
If you want your business to be able to discriminate against gays, go move to a state where it is legal to do so.
5
Shouldn't the Supreme Court members who are so hostile to secular society disavow their comments and recuse themselves from religion cases?
As usual, Ms. Greenhouse highlights the Court's desire to impose Christianity on America as if the first 150+ years of forced Christianity State religion wasn't enough...then there's the outright hypocrisy and desire to discriminate against Muslims and secularists.
2
The ‘No Religious Test’ clause in the Constitution was specifically written to allow public officials to bring their deeply held religious moral code with them to guide their public decision making. The Founders wrote extensively on the desire for a State to ever be guided by a just and Christian morality. To the Founders ‘a moral code’ was not Religion, but an intimate and inseparable part of a person’s identity.
3
You can't deny the role of freedom of speech in the cake case: it's fundamentally different than refusing service at a restaurant, for example, based on customers' protected class, which would be undeniably discriminatory. Because the cake could have been devoid of the religious connotations, it may not pass the entanglement prong of the lemon test
2
The State of Colorado is the clear winner in this case. That may be exactly what the SCOTUS will decide...let each state decide unless Kennedy is consistent and votes, once again, for Civil Rights for all!
1
All this just reinforces my belief that the more America practices Freedom FROM Religion, the better off society will be. Religion, all religion, is basically mythology and superstition and has no place in a modern, secular country. The most moral, ethical people I know are non-religious.
9
Regardless the cake folks and businesses like Hobby Lobby, how can you create a legal barrier between you and your business by incorporating, and then turn around and say that legal entity (your business) shares your religious beliefs? It's just nonsensical. I've never heard a good answer to that question, and I believe in God.
7
The first question in a freedom of speech case is, "what is the speech? " Here, the only speech that I can see is the baker wanting to express his contempt for gay marriages by refusing to take their money. We've already got lots of civil rights laws where the basic concept is that refusing service isn't speech. Otherwise, you'd have people refusing service because they want to emphasize that races shouldn't mix.
Freedom of religion is even less applicable, thanks to precedent written by Scalia stating that laws of general applicability....a law against peyote use in that case....don't violate freedom of religion.
4
The First Amendment is to serve the protection of minorities in a democratic republic built on electoral majorities [sort of]. Christians are not a minority. Muslims are.
To a Christian Socialist like me, the need to protect Muslims is so clear that I don't even pray for it -- just for the ignorance of us all but most of all those on the Supreme Court.
5
Perhaps when your religious community is the most rock solid set of supporters of Trump and his pro-war, pro-rich, anti-poor, anti-science, anti-women agenda, you don’t get to parade your “values” before the rest of us as if they were an actual thing.
8
Apparently, the Supreme Court is preparing to rule it legal to discriminate gay people.
This is fundamentally unconstitutional and anti-American.
7
The Constitution explicitly protects only one human behavior/lifestyle choice, Religion.
You certainly can make laws to protect other lifestyle behaviors from discrimination, but those laws enshrineing the newly discovered Liberties cannot limit the free excercise of religion. Trading away some of the old to allow more new is an infringement upon the Constitution. That does not mean the infringement isn’t a net good for society.
Constitutional originalism doesn’t allow for the Constitution to be reinterpreted to fit the culture. The Constitution only changes to fit the culture when you get 76% of the Population to agree with the definition of Liberty.
3
"You certainly can make laws to protect other lifestyle behaviors from discrimination,"
Not if the Supreme Court buys the guff about selling cakes being an exercise of religion. As you said, the only protection is for exercise of religion, so obviously the baker is trying to fit the square peg of a job into the round hole of an exercise of religion.
But the protection is for religion, not what someone says is a religion.
Back to Originalism. Freedom of Religion was understood in the 1780’s to mean living out the tenents and moral values of your religion in every aspect of your thoughts, speech, and behaviors both in private and in public... and even when holding pubilc office.
If you open a public business it goes with the territory that all kinds of people come into a public business and ask for services. If your going to qualify your service to the public based on the customers compliance with your moral code or religious beliefs, where does that start and stop? Do you start handing out a questionnaire for approval before you serve them? A gay couple is the one on the black list. What if it is discovered that a customer is an adulterer, a wife beater, an alcoholic, a drug addict, etc. Where does it end? Hindus believe in hundreds of Gods. They believe Animals are sacred. Do you refuse them? When Jehovahs Witnesses go in their ministry and offer Bible studies, they meet people of all kinds and religious beliefs, including Muslims. JW have studied with many Muslims and they have changed their faith to Christian. JW also meet LGBT people and study with them too. Drug addicts, thieves, people incarcerated, adulterers, fornicators, women who have had abortions, and athiests too. They don't know who they will meet at the door. It's about a tolerant, kind approach and love.
4
With the WACKO GOP Supreme Court, why do you ask? This isn't a Supreme Court, it's a GOP Conservative lovefest. There isn't anything that they will not rule against.
4
I am really confused that the statement claiming religious rationales have been given for racist and sexist behavior is considered a bias. It is simply historically accurate. I have never understood how it is that religious belief -- or any deeply held belief, for that matter -- removes the bigotry from otherwise bigoted behavior. "It's not that I do not like X," the rationale goes, "but that God does not." Yeah, well, you are still a bigot.
13
Ms. Greenberg couldn’t be bothered to mention that Heidi Jeanne Hess also is a field organizer for Colorado’s latgest gay rights group, which leads one to wonder why a supposedly dispassionate deliberstive body would have let her vote on the Masterpiece case.
5
"Ms. Greenberg couldn’t be bothered to mention that Heidi Jeanne Hess also is a field organizer for Colorado’s latgest gay rights group, which leads one to wonder why a supposedly dispassionate deliberstive body would have let her vote on the Masterpiece case."
The commission isn't supposed to be dispassionate about enforcing Colorado civil rights laws, which forbid discrimination against gays expressly. And the Colorado appellate courts that affirmed the ruling....also supposed to be enthusiastic about enforcing the law. People from Connecticut, maybe not: nobody thought to ask them.
1
Any deliberative body that isn't sworn to consider a case objectively and, yes, dispassionately, is little more than a kangaroo court, even in Chicago.
Religion doesn't need to enter into the baker's case. He's violating a law that he agreed to obey when he opened his business. That's what is required when you open a public business, to obey all laws pertaining to that type of business. Religion is, in this case, beside the point and the defendants ought to be making that point. If your religion prevents you from running a shop under the law, don't enter into that kind of business.
In fact, a very simple sign at the bakeshop could have forestalled this entire case. "Commissions for custom wedding cakes will be accepted at our discretion."
47
Your point about the message on the sign is well-taken, but that's already implied by the nature and essences of the baker's job? Is that what this whole argument is about - whether he's allowed to exercise discretion and what the terms and parameters for discretion are?
For me, any baker can refuse to make a cake or other baked good that is symbolic of or expresses a message that is in conflict with his or her beliefs. He's as free to reject Neo-Nazis who request a Swastika cake as he is to reject two men who want gay wedding cake.
What he can't do is refuse to SERVE Neo-Nazis -- or gay men who are engaged -- that come into his bakery and want a pastry.
3
"Commissions for custom wedding cakes will be accepted at our discretion."
Rubbish. "Discretion" doesn't include breaking discrimination laws. Sorry.
13
Religion most certainly does enter into the baker's case, because a central issue is whether Colorado's public accommodations law, as applied to the baker, is constitutional under the free exercise clause. How on Earth do you fathom that religion does not factor into this question??
4
Who does freedom of religion apply to?
3
It is just so laughable that "Christians," especially white Christians, have this idea they are being persecuted and discriminated against. They own just about everything (literally 90% of the wealth, and have made sure non-whites have gotten almost nothing thru political maneuvers over the decades). Compared to all others they have infinite advantages simply due to institutional biases that allow them to get most of what they want. But, just to be sure, anytime anyone who does not fit their mold pokes their head up, they raise the hue and cry and get the government to knock those erstwhile usurpers back down to where they belong. What a bunch of whiny, sore winners they are!
6
Robes and words covering bigotry and panic.
7
It seems that we should be dealing with questions that won't be asked by the courts.
If, in this instance, a baker refuses to make a cake for a gay wedding because his chosen god requires that he not, shouldn't that same baker be required to show proof that their god doesn't like people making gay cakes and that that god exists.
6
I continue to be amazed by the intolerance and ignorance infecting U.S. society. Taking into account what I witnessed as a youngster in the deep south as black citizens fought for their civil rights while business owners asserted their rights to treat them as subhumans, I can't believe America continues to struggle with the same types of questions.
Evolution and intellectual progress are disgustingly slow occurrences.
8
It's easy to see how these cases, particular the wedding cake one, lead to the Supreme Court needing to define what a religion is. Not providing cakes to gays and justifying it based on religion leads right to not selling cakes to latinos because something something bible.
2
Does it matter whether they’re citizens/legal residents of the United States, or people who “might want to visit”?
1
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure there is something in the Bill of Rights that states the government should stay out of these bear-traps. If I go to a Catholic Church, I can't take confession. So be it. Move on.
2
If you did go to confession, ironically you'd have to mention your comparison of a religious sacrament to selling a cake. Truly religious people recognize that there is a level of sacrilege in bringing the exercise of religion down to the level of discriminating in the sales of baked goods. But most of the conservatives claiming to be religious, aren't.
2
How many religious bakers have refused to bake wedding cakes for divorcees, or those of other faiths, or ex-felons, or usurers (bankers), or atheists? None that I can recall.
2
Many. One of the first questions our florist asked us was if this was our first or second marriage. As a devout Catholic she would not have done our flowers if either of us was a divorcee.
She has always refused divorcees, atheists, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, and Gays. This is not intolerance. Tolerance is holding your nose and dealing with behaviors you dislike in other for social peace when doing so is no reflection on you.
When you must deal with someone in a situation directly, whose behaviors you judge as abhorrent, then you must ask yourself: ‘If by dealing with this person now, could it appear that I am showing acceptance for their behaviors tha I judge as wrong?’ If the answer is, yes, then you should have every right to follow your conscience and not deal with them.
3
I was going to say that I don't believe a word of it, but instead I'm going to say that she wasn't really checking to see if their behaviors were unacceptable: she just had such a wide ranging set of bigotries that it seemed fair in the sense she hated just about everybody. If you fit in one of the hated categories, you lose. If you just cheat on your wife, never go to church, defraud in business, and break all the commandmetns daily, she is blissful.
And that's what today's conservatives call "religion".
2
Separation or intersection of State and Church?
http://members.efn.org/~hkrieger/disestab.jpg
from the series, "Churches ad hoc",
http://members.efn.org/~hkrieger/church.htm
In John 13, Jesus says: My commandment to you is to love one another. As I have loved you, you must love one another.
Biblically speaking, these bakers should have made the cake.
62
Jesus also admonished the sinner to go in peace but sin no more. Not go in peace and take pride in your sin.
4
David,
No one should be expected to contribute in any manner to what they hold to be a moral mistake.
Loving someone does not preclude you disagreeing
with them and being loved by someone does not mean you can demand that they do whatever you think
should be done for you.
Mr. Phillips has been consitent in his beliefs.
That he wishes to live out his beliefs is what the
Constitution protects and provides for.
2
Your interpretation of scripture may be fine in your church and in your home, but does it work for a nation composed of diverse beliefs, many of which are not grounded in your interpretation, are not Christian at all perhaps? You may want answer 'yes," that what is right and good for you is essential everywhere in this nation, but--no disrespect intended--that is exactly the definition of "theocracy," and that is not what America is all about.
Hobby Lobby was a "turning point" in this area of the law. Its owners gained legal protection of their personal fortunes by incorporating this for-profit business. So, their fortunes are immunized by law from folks who are injured by the corporation they own. But, they jam their personal beliefs into their corporate structure and its money.
The SCOTUS let Hobby Lobby have it both ways. Hobby Lobby's employees can't sue its owners for the company's acts but the owners can impose their religious beliefs on the company's employees by refusing to follow the law. SCOTUS refused to impose a "bright line" test differentiating profit companies from churches, religious orders and colleges. Dumb and likely to provoke many test cases. And, by the way, I have never witnessed the baptism of a for-profit corporation. They get "chartered" to do business as separate entities. They are not people and they don't go to church.
I don't doubt the baker's beliefs, but he's not a huge for-profit corporation employing thousands. Still, if he refused to service blacks or Muslims, claiming religion as his shield, he would lose in a heartbeat.
3
The Robert’s Court is one of the most extremist activist courts in history, one ready to not only interpret the constitution but also to add new amendments that fit the Republican agenda—think Helle which threw out two hundred years of court ruling to make personal gun ownership a totally new right, or Citizens United which gave new rights to corporations that the constitution never intended.
We have a predominantly Catholic and Jewish Court, one dominated by hand selected Republican zealots. The Constitution will be no obstacle to their decisions—Robert’s will add new amendments with impunity.
3
Greenhouse conveniently dodges Justice Alito's simple arithmetic. Of the 50 Muslim countries in the world, 5 are on the list. Indonesia and Pakistan are not on the list. In fact, more than a Billion Muslims are free to apply for legal entry into the United States to visit Disney World, tour the Statue of Liberty, study at Berkeley, visit family or become citizens. And, of the 5 Muslim-majority countries on the list, ALL citizens of those countries are covered - not just Muslims, but all religious adherents. As Justice Alito said, "It does not look at all like a Muslim ban."
5
Here's a simple test. If the activity at issue does not involve religion - bakeries, pharmacies, visas, refugees, medical decisions involving their family - you are not allowed to treat people differently based on their religions or yours. If the activity at issue involves a religious activity - church attendance, prayers, communion, proselytizing - you can treat people differently who are not of your religion. Anything else is simply discrimination based on religion and unlawful. And so this ban, based on nothing more than religious discrimination, treating all Muslims as terrorists, is unlawful.
4
I had a neighbor many years ago who tried to convince me, in his words: "The Bible teaches that Blacks are inferior and the races should be separate!" If he owned a business, a lunch counter for example, could he have a sign in his window saying, "No Blacks" or "Whites Only"? He would just be following his religious principles.
Another former neighbor was a Muslim man from Pakistan who owned a store combined with a gas station. Could he claim religious beliefs and put up a sign saying: "No Jews or Hindus Permitted"?
I've encountered people during my 75+ year lifetime who have attempted to use quotes for various scriptures, taken out of context, to justify their prejudices against other folks who have different skin colors or religious beliefs.
One would expect that the Supreme Court would reject claims by anyone who tries to use the Constitution to endorse their bigotry and hatred for anyone different than themselves.
7
What is objectionable about the commisioner's comment regarding how historically religion has be used to justify oppression? That is simply a statement of fact, and tells us nothing about the person's attitude toward religion in general.
2
In private life, one can hold to whatever (bigoted) beliefs and internal guidance he or she wants, and while some may think is wrong (and morally most likely is), that freedom is what many think is one of our country's strong foundations.
The obvious point to someone who's not steeped in the law but in common sense, is that as soon as you offer a service to the public (rather than your own little clique of similar minded folks) then the burden of being fair and equal to all kicks in. Yes, you might want to run your pharmacy according to whatever religion you profess. But there are not always other bakeries or pharmacies, so how can the justices determine anything other than complete openness to serve all who enter their business door?
To allow such chicanery as this argument allows every restaurant owner who does not want to serve blacks, Italians, Polish, or native Americans the court-sponsored excuse to once again discriminate.
This is pretty clear when one removes all the overburden.
3
Reid,
Suppose a pharmacy only carried high priced drugs.
Too high for your to pay for them.
[ I needed some Hay-Fever Medicine yesterday
the Pharmacy had 10 tablets for $ 16.00,
I went to the local grocery and got 50 for $ 6.00,
probably not as good, but all I could afford.]
Must a pharmacy carry cheaper drugs ?
Must a pharmacy carry drugs that it thinks
are not healthy ?
Must every hotel have rooms for the poor ?
I think so, but few others do.
1
I would think that the very act of opening a business means you are going to serve anyone and everyone who comes through your doors. To deny service, especially on the grounds of your religious views, is shaming the other, and how, in the name of what we believe is holy and true, can we justify shaming anyone?
2
Religion is faith-based between one individual and the deity of that faith. Religion is not beween individuals. That is evangelism not religion. This distinction is clear. Equally clear is the intent of the religious right to obfuscate and eradicate it.
3
The same people who preach tolerance are the ones who are offended when other ideologies are not the same as theirs. Hundreds of other Bakeries ,and you want to cause trouble because one does not share your values. Also saying that the bakery did not "want to serve" them is purposely twisted. They would have been served, but the baker did not want to specifically decorate a cake for the wedding. Facts.
6
There's no need to overthink this. The "conservative" majority on the court believes that freedom of religion applies to Christians, or some flavor of Christianity (Jehovah's Witnesses, for example). Others need not apply. The bafflement of the Court regarding the travel ban is telling: they simply do not see Islam as on the same level as Christianity. If I were a betting man, I would bet on the decisions coming down in the contradictory manner: protect the allegedly Christian baker, and refuse to protect the Muslim would-be visitor.
1
Suppose I was to proclaim that I did not like Wiccans because they are all <something bad> - and that I intended to teach them a lesson - and then went off and firebombed several shops selling charms. Would the court deny my religious animus simply because there were several other charm shops and/or covens I had not directly attacked?
1
I don't understand how Kennedy can consider someone's opinion that using one's "religion" to hurt someone is hostility to religion. It seems more hostility to MISUSE of religion.
The problem with Justice Kennedy's arguments against hostility to religion is that the First Amendment invites government hostility to religion so long as it is a uniform and unbiased hostility. The Constitution says that government may not act to establish a religion. It does not say that government may not use its power to limit religious freedom when it conflicts with legitimate secular interests protected by law without regard to religion. Were that not so, laws against, say, animal sacrifice, honor killings, genital mutilation, compulsory education, or polygamy could not stand.
And speaking of polygamy, it turns out that the point made by Heidi Jeanne Hess was not just her "personal point of view," but a well articulated ruling expressed in Reynolds v. United States (1878) when a Mormon entity tried to place its marriage conventions above the reach of federal law by arguing the supremacy of religious freedom. The Court quashed that argument on the following basis:
"Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances."
Later rulings allowed for exemptions to laws to accommodate religious rites that do not result in harm or infringement of rights. The case of the Colorado baker does not meet that standard.
1
It is no infringement of rights to force a person
to violate their conscience, when he exercises
that conscience in a peaceful manner ?
1
The four ultra-right-wing, activist Justices, and the right-wing Justice Kennedy, have an agenda to insert Christianity in government. The only consistency they have is to always find for the Christian, in the same way they nearly always find for big business, the wealthy, prosecutors, and White people. They have made corporations people with religious (Christian) rights, money speech (to benefit Republicans), and they have re-written the 2nd Amendment after 200+ years and against all precedent by ignoring have of that amendment. Republicans are installing judges with these same activist views at every level at a record pace. Justice Kennedy occasionally shows some sense, but if he or any of the other four Justices leave the Court before we have a new President and a new Senate, it will take generations to restore the Supreme Court to any semblance of justice. We had our chance to make a correction in the last presidential election, and we blew it. Hopefully, it won't happen again.
2
I question the Supreme Court’s decisions to grant cert as to Hobby Lobby and the cake baking case. In the end, 24 companies applied for a Hobby Lobby exemption. Because of the wording of the Colorado statute at issue, ordinary retailers have no right to discriminate, only those whose services amount to an artistic creation. I suspect that about 24 artistic retailers oppose gays as a matter of religion.
Not many cases are granted cert and they are all supposed to be important. The religious beliefs of 24 small companies and 24 artistic retailers are pretty much trivial. Granting cert. demonstrates a Court bias in favor of trivial religious claims. Let the Colorado Appeals Court have the last word. And let the Supreme Court decide something more important, like whether there is an exemption to the Fifth Amendment barring the President from claiming that right.
1
These are not black and white issues. I happen to be non-religious (one cannot say atheist in this society without backlash) and oppose the Muslim ban. However, the very freedom that I enjoy is based on a framework of protections that allows a parent to instruct their children on gender preference, on the concept of marriage, creationism, and on any other topic that many of us would disagree with. It also allows us not to create a state religion (small "r") that imposes behaviors and beliefs consistent with a religion. Should everyone be forced to say the Lord's Prayer? While I understand this is a case on issues of "expression", should a priest, who has a commercial interest in providing weddings be forced to marry to gay people? I happen to disagree with the positions the NRA takes and if I ran a tee shirt company would want the freedom to reject doing business with someone who wants to promote the NRA on a tee shirt. That is purely a commercial interest. Were I religious, I would want the right to reject business that serves to promote beliefs contrary to my religious beliefs, a standard higher than a commercial interest alone
2
"Classically, the Supreme Court invoked the religion clauses of the First Amendment — the protection for free exercise and the prohibition against government “establishment” of religion — on behalf of minority religions."
True, but to some extent the old ideas of religion have become the current minority. Do they get protected now?
I am not religious. I do value some of the basic teachings of religions, such as the Golden Rule, charity, love thy neighbor, protect the vulnerable, guard against the usury of great wealth.
However, I choose my values from a menu, not taking the whole list of any one religion. For example, I also value sexual and gender freedoms, and consider them to be far more an expression of those same basic values than do most established religions.
I think I am far less a minority for thinking so than I would have been 100 years ago, or even in my lifetime. It may be those following an organized menu from an organized religion who are now the minority. So, does that minority get protected? From me and those who agree with me?
2
My assumption is that, legally, a baker could refuse to provide a wedding cakes because one of the couple is divorced, but not because the couple is from different races. The same "religious objection" argument would apply - but in that latter case, racism trumps doctrine.
Federal laws prohibit racial discrimination - and this precedent establishes that laws can be made that overrule the first amendment defense. Colorado, the State, has laws that extend protection to homosexuals. And so the real question for me is why the Court should consider these laws less constitutional that Federal laws on race? Why does the State not have that right to extend the categories of protected differences within the State?
2
Think of it this way: The baker did not refuse to sell a cake to the Trump supporters. He offered to sell them any cake in the display case. Due to his personal beliefs, he declined to create an I Love and Support Trump cake for them.
2
The primary activity of Masterpiece Cakeshop is to create one of a kind cakes that are designed individually for each client and occasion. Wedding cakes are not among the items that are kept on the rack for immediate purchase. In fact, by his own telling, before Jack Phillips offered to sell the gay couple anything on the racks, he told them he could not provide them his primary service by creating a custom wedding cake because his religious ideals were in conflict with state law recognizing same sex marriages.
2
BW,
I could be wrong but I don't think Colorado
had laws allowing Same Gender Marriages at
the time of the incident.
The bakery case is simple. If you want to run business controlled by state license or other form of state law, you can not discriminate based upon sexual orientation. Period.
The travel ban is also easy. Those countries, in the opinion of the Pres, can not properly vet potential visitors to our country. The potential for dangerous persons to enter the US exists. The Constitution gives the Pres the right to make that call. (Even a broken clock is right 2x/day.)
1
Then I presume you also would support suing Dick's for their discrimination based on age by not selling ammunition to those under 21?
2
A non-sequitur. There is no discrimination drawing a line between minors and adults and whether certain things may be available to all adults and not to any children.
Notwithstanding the arguments that may have have been made in the case, the Masterpiece Cakeshop case is not about discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The proof? The baker in that case would have refused to make and sell a cake celebrating a male same-sex wedding even if the person intending to buy the cake was a heterosexual woman who wanted to give the cake as a gift to her gay friends. However you feel about the baker's policy, it does not constitute discrimination on the basis of the sexual orientation of the baker's customers and therefore is perfectly lawful.
5
So much of the justices comments about tolerance reveal their intolerance for beliefs other than their own about Christianity (often biased toward Catholicism). While our constitution is supposed to protect all religions from excessive governmental interference and protect all of us from excessive religious interference in government, some justices act as if some religions, such as theirs, are "more equal" than others. Someday, maybe we'll have Supreme Court justices who come from faith traditions other than Christianity and Judaism. A few Unitarian Universalists on the Court would help. I am not holding my breath for Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists to be confirmed.
5
I agree that getting UUs on the court would provide beneficial perspective, but good luck getting even them confirmed.
1
I suspect this case would be resolved immediately if Congress passed civil rights protections against sexual orientation discrimination. With the pending Supreme Court decision, however, and recent precedents, like Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, I expect that Congress will increasingly perceive such legislation as infringing upon the religious rights of Americans. And I fear that such a perception will open the door for repealing other civil rights protections.
2
It seems odd that a Colorado baker can decline to bake a cake with an anti-gay message on it, but cannot decline to bake a cake for a gay wedding. That appears pretty close to a double standard.
In general, I believe individuals should have maximum freedom to do what they want as long as they are willing to accept the consequences. Thus if the baker wants to refuse certain customers, he/she can do so, but citizens are also free to organize a boycott of the bakery. Similarly, in the prior decade, the Dixie Chicks were free to say whatever negative comments they wanted to about GW Bush, but they had to face the consequence that some of their fans might abandon them over that issue. Using the government to enforce your preferred outcome is usually a bad idea.
3
The baker cannot refuse to bake a cake for anyone who wants a cake because the merchant transaction is not about what the customer wants to do with it but the exchange of money for product. imagine how the NRA would react if gun makers and merchants became responsible for what is done with their products once the transaction is made.
however, a message that is offensive to the seller on a cake because that is not a buyer/seller transaction unless you advertise you will write anything and then refuse to write anything. Buy the cake and write your own message.
2
It's not a double standard. A "message" is speech. A cake is not. Cake is food. You eat it. Tastes very good.
So simple.
"Similarly, in the prior decade, the Dixie Chicks were free to say whatever negative comments they wanted to about GW Bush, but they had to face the consequence that some of their fans might abandon them over that issue."
And similarly, in a prior decade, whites were free to refuse service to blacks. Huh, the "free market" didn't really take care of that. We passed some legislation for it. You might recall. It's called the Civil Rights Act. Pretty big one. Kind of important. Lots of protests about that, too. People marched. Ringing any bells?
P.S., being George W, while certainly a handicap in many ways, is not a protected class.
1
The travel ban has nothing to do with religious freedom or US security.
Saudi Arabia is not on the list and the 9/11 terrorists came from SAudi Arabia and not from countries in the ban..
With his travel ban Trump is just throwing red meat to his base.
Some of the Justices share Trump's economic agenda.
They may vote to uphold the ban [even though they know the ban is irrelevant to US security] just to bolster Trump by giving him a 'win".
3
“They know that the court, short-handed in 2016 following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, would have had the votes to take the case had Justice Scalia — or his successor, Justice Gorsuch — been on the bench when it arrived on the court’s docket.”
The outcome would have been far less certain had Mitch McConnell not outrageously and unprecedentedly held the Supreme Court vacancy hostage to partisan ends, and Justice Garland had been confirmed and seated. Nor if McConnell hadn’t abolished the filibuster rule for Supreme Court votes: Gorsuch would not have received (and did not receive) 60 votes.
4
This baker in Colorado gets the benefits of living in a community where he gets taxpayer supported city services and state services, like police, fire, property records, laws protecting his business, and others.
That gay couple also pay taxes to the city and state, they contribute to his being able to operate in a safe and legal manner. He has no right to discriminate based on his religious views, notice those religious views do not keep him from rejecting all the benefits paid for by the taxpayers.
4
Probably other commentors have raised this question.
Suppose a baker believes inter racial marriage is a terrible sin.
May the baker refuse to bake a special cake for them.
Jehovah Witnesses believe blood transfusions and medications made from blood may not be used.
May a druggist who is a Witness refuse to sell a medication [especially a life saving one] made from blood.
2
If it is any consolation to Jack Phillips, recent Supreme Court cases have been voted in favor of those who have strong religious beliefs. Mr. Phillips is not forcing his beliefs on anyone but does not want to go against his. The tide seems to be changing for those who do not want to go against their principles. It is a new dawn and a new day for religious folks. I think Mr. Phillips will be able to continue to do what he does best and that is bake his cakes. They certainly look delicious.
3
The primary issue in these cases is that these religions believe they should not be required to observe the civil laws that apply to everyone else. They have appointed themselves as superior to the rule of law.
12
JB,
Rather, because the Constitution protects following
one's conscience in a peaceful manner.
Apples and oranges here?
Yes, there is a common thread of religion in both cases, but the baker is an American citizen who was asked to make a customized product that was to displayed and eaten at a celebration that does not coincide with his religious beliefs. and so he refused, offering the plaintiffs the possibility to buy a standard, off-the-shelf product which the plaintiffs rejected. The travel ban, instead, is basically a challenge to the president's authority, and it does not cover, as far as I can determine, any rights of U.S. citizens; the plaintiffs are merely asserting that it is religious discrimination, but not within the boundaries of the U.S.
3
Religions generally intend to control behavior, and history is rife with examples of conflict between faiths trying to extend their control beyond their own believers. This activity is exactly why “freedom of religion” is a “thing”. It is about government constraining the strife between religions for control of those who aren’t their believers. It is not about letting religions have free reign.
So the bakery issue comes down to whether denying service is an attempt to push homosexuals around, a form of intimidation intended to extend the force of a religious belief beyond believers, or is only an attempt to convey a point of view.
It seems improbable that the baker expects to impact the views of the homosexual community with the correctness of his own views by denying them service. It seems more probable that he is engaged in intimidation, expressing his hostility to homosexuality and intending to inflict pain on the opposition, not simply awareness of his views.
The Supreme Court has a simple choice here: to expand “freedom of speech” to allow overt intimidation beyond simple speech and leaning toward intimidation of others, or to limit “freedom of speech” to proselytizing without impacting the liberty of others.
We know already there are those on the court who view discrimination as justifiable where promotion of a narrow-minded “Christianity” is at stake. The question is whether there will be enough of the Justices persuaded they have found a legal fig leaf.
2
In America, religious freedom comes from the secular liberal state, not the other way around. Thus, your religious beliefs are fine unless they go against the values of the secular liberal state -- no Hijabs or Burquas, no bans on blood transfusion, no polygamy or suchlike. Your religious beliefs are, essentially, the same as what sports team you like -- very important to you and what you do on a Sunday, irrelevant in the public sphere, and no reason whatsoever to treat someone who likes a different team poorly and differently.
Banning people from a nation that's harmed the United States is a clumsy tool, but understandable; with that said, it's fascinating that the 'muslim ban' affects a great number of countries but not, of course, the nation that funded the 9/11 attacks & provided the attackers, Saudi Arabia. It's easy to note the hand of the Trump admin in this -- if they can do the meanest, most cruel stupid thing possible that also does nothing to resolve a concern, they will -- and it's right for the court to strike the ban down as nonsensical and xenophobic.
As for the issue of a baker who won't make a cake for a gay marriage, I don't know what to offer other than find another baker; as David Sedaris said of the phrase "can't we just have fun?", you can't really expect that to work, nor can you expect quality service and a nice cake by yelling at a homophobe "FIND ME EQUAL AND MAKE ME A NICE CAKE!"
Religion is private, not public. Sorry, but that's what it is.
2
I'm just curious; what would you say to the elderly gay man in Mississippi who was refused service by a funeral home that would not pick up and cremate the body of his deceased partner because the home didn't "deal with their kind," even though the arrangements had been previously set up? I'm pretty sure he wasn't having any fun.
This case is about so much more than cake; focusing on that aspect overshadows the larger point, which is that it has everything to do with being treated as a full and equal citizen of this country. If someone's religious views prevent him or her from providing a service called upon by the job description, then he or she need to find another job that doesn't offend arbitrary and capricious moral beliefs.
5
I do not think the Founders saw the Bill of Rights that way. They saw the rights listed as already existing since creation. The rights preceded our independence. Their purpose in adding the amendments, debated in their day about being unnecessary, was to simply recognize the rights existed, just in case a chowder head 200 years hence came to an inane conclusion.
2
Charles C,
I would call it very sad.
However, Mr. Philipps conscience does not
allow him to make Wedding Cakes for Same
Gender Couples.
It is not an arbitrary or capricious moral belief
for him, it is his Constitutional Right.
Religious intolerance is the last bastion of bigots. We either have a multicultural society in which people can live together respecting and SERVING each other, or we don't. It seems the fanatically ultra right wing SC justices prefer we have a religiously segregated society. Pathetic. They would have been right at home in the Jim Crow days. Indeed, Justice Roberts is doing everything he can to bring those days back - his pet project since his days in the Reagan administration when he focused on gutting voting rights laws. He got his wish on that with his position on the court, now he is gunning for eliminating any semblance of gender equality.
4
I see how the Supreme Court may take the side of Christians. The Court's conservatives are part of the culture war like everyone else. The cases are quite different though. The baker runs a business. He may do as he wishes with that business as long as he does not infringe on the liberty of others. By refusing business, he infringes on no ones' liberty, thus the refusal is constitutional because a cake can be purchased somewhere else. The travel ban, while clearly racist, is legal because the president can limit immigration from certain countries. Although Trump has made plenty of horrible statements toward Muslims, the ban is not against all Muslim nations. It will be too difficult to make a connection between Trump's words and the ban.
2
What is clearly racist about the travel ban? What race - or races - is being targeted? Muslim is not a race.
2
If I disprove of how someone votes, can I turn them away from my business? When you are in business, you are in business to sell product and serve customers. You please them and they reward you with money. When you deal with a customer you don't like for whatever reason, you keep quiet and do the best you can.
Religion ought never to play a role in business other than how wellyou treat your fellow human.
4
There are multiple, sometimes opposing, ways to frame this case persuasively. I can hear the reason in both sides. I don't discern reason, though, once people start likening the baker to holocaust perpetrators or slave owners. The world can hold people of different beliefs. It can hold people who believe in the sanctity of gay marriage, and people who don't. There can be happy cake bakers and eaters in both camps.
6
The above was once called pluralism. Tolerance, without necessarily acceptance, used to be a virtue. Now it is bigotry if you don’t 100% agree with a Progressive Secular Humanist viewpoint on morality.
3
Evangelical religions and other Protestant religious zealots believe that they are the "real bonafide" Christians. They believe also that America is a Christian nation, despite the first Ammendment clearly stating "no establisment of a state religion". They have little toleration of differing religions, most especially Muslims. Hindus, Buddhists, Judaism, and other non-Christian Religious people reside in this country. Due to the 911 attack by El Questa terrorists brought on the suspicion, and paranoia of Muslims. They fear Sharia law taking hold in the country, which is ridiculous because that would mean superseding the Constitution. That would take an enormous effort and not likely to succeed. Tolerance of others beliefs is part of the fabric of the History of the country in its best iterations. I am a Jehovahs Witness and we are definitely a minority religion. JW have over 30 Supreme Court decisions in our favor protecting our free exercise of religion, and we greatly appreciate it. In recent times Christians have said they aren't allowed to say Merry Christmas anymore. Who has stopped them? Nobody has. If we respond that we don't celebrate Christmas they are offended. Why? Do we not have that right as well in this country? Legally we do. However, my point is tolerance. When I hear that during the Holiday season, and that's a lot for several weeks, I'm not offended and I say thank you, and have a good evening. Tolerance and manners.
4
The First Amendment does NOT clearly state "no establishment of a state religion". It states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." You don't appear to be very tolerant of 'evangelical religions and other Protestant religious zealots'. Those 30 SC rulings apply to them as well as to you.
1
Albert, first of all yes it's clear that in my comment I paraphrased the first Ammendment. The point was we have diversity historically in this country, and the Congress doesn't legislate any religion as the appointed American Religion, not even Christianity. Unlike Russia right now which has appointed the Russian orthodox Church as as the declared religion Russia. they also have vand Jehovah's Witnesses and all their activities even meeting together as Christians and seized all properties Kingdom Hall and the administrative Center. That's a declared religion by the government. is that the kind of viewpoint Americans want in this country, because not being tolerant of diversity in religion including by the Supreme Court is where That could go. Secondly I would like to say I grew up in the Baptist face and are very familiar with Evangelical Christians I have relatives who are such. So I fully realize the mindset and as they do my beliefs. I am just as tolerant and open to talking with Protestants and evangelicals as I do I do need some in going in our ministry. and Leslie I fully realize that the Supreme Court decisions won by Jehovah's Witnesses do fully protect religious freedom for all religions absolutely. And I'm very happy that it does that's tolerance.
The travel ban involves non-citizens. Non citizens do not have a right to visit any particular country. Pretty simple.
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case involves American citizens trying to practice their religion as the see fit. Since that religion is a conservative form of Christianity, of course Linda Greenhouse and the Times are opposed to the practice of their faith. The New York Times is not concerned about their rights.
3
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case also involves American citizens trying to arrange their wedding celebration. You seem to think they have less rights as citizens than the cake baker. Is this because the gay couple does not apparently practice a conservative form of Christianity? So now conservative Christians are to have more constitutional rights than everyone else? They can judge their fellow citizens and find them undeserving of service? How magnanimous of you to confer those “rights” - and how completely unAmerican.
Jack Phillips bakeshop is in Lakewood, Colorado. There must be other bakeries in town or in a nearby town that would be willing to make a speciality cake for the gay couple's wedding. Colorado is a rather progressive and large state. There must be someone who is not opposed to gay marriage due to religious beliefs that would gladly comply to this couple's wishes. Why make someone go against their religious principles when others are able and willing to do the task.
Also, would the gay couple want to patronize a shop that did not want to make their cake but was forced to anyway?
17
I don't think the standard should be "if you face discrimination in one store, just go to another." The store is a place of public accommodation. It should serve ALL the public.
31
And what would your argument be if in fact all bakeries in Colorado refused to make a cake for a gay wedding? "Well, there must be many bakeries in the USA that will make a cake for a gay wedding, so why not just keep driving until you find one?" Discrimination is discrimination whether it is a single example of it or a broad-based demonstration of it.
24
So then, should we have bakeries for gay couples and bakeries for straight couples? This is reminiscent of the water fountains in the segregated south
22
Justice Kennedy asked:“Suppose we thought that in significant part at least one member of the commission based the commissioners’ decision on the grounds of hostility to religion. Could your judgment stand?”
Why is hostility to religion NOT protected as "freedom of speech" but hostility to gays and Muslims is protected by the first amendment? Oops, I forgot. We don't call it "hostility" in the second case.
2
If the baker were required by law to sell his products to anyone who wished to buy them, then how can Dick's, for example, refuse to sell ammunition to those under 21 who have a legal right to buy it?
Are they not guilty of discrimination on the basis of age, a protected category under the law?
1
Justice Alito's missed the point of Mr. Katyal when the latter one highlighted [what a “reasonable, objective observer” would make of the situation as a whole].
The five countries in the list are not just ’slightly’ predominantly Muslim ones. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country (where it can be checked that there are 51 countries in which Muslim percentage of total population in above 50% - Alito seems to have taken his numbers from this source), these five countries are actually very strongly predominantly Muslim countries: 99.7% in Iran, 99.0% in Yemen, 98.9% in Somalia, 96.6% in Libya, 82.9% in Syria.
Thus, the actual point is the fact that Muslim population in each one of these five countries, taken separately, is strongly dominant, rather than the fact than when combined together, the Muslim population of all these five countries make up 8.1% of the world’s Muslim population. Using the ‘combined population’ view as Alito did, is a wrong interpretation of statistical data as well as a demagogic manipulation from a political perspective.
1
It is difficult for me to understand how Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric cannot be given significant weight when considering the Trump v. Hawaii travel ban case. Placing that rhetoric on the scales of justice would certainly tip them toward the conclusion that people of a certain religion are persona non grata in our country. If Trump had kept his mouth shut and abstained from twitter then there could possibly be another conclusion.
2
We all know how these decisions will come down and the exact number of votes. This entire discussion is nothing more than an exercise in masochism. I don't pretend to understand Thomas (who has an abiding hatred for his own identity), nor Kennedy who more and more appears to be a confused old man, but Roberts, Alito and Gorsuch are highly intelligent hypocrites of the highest order.
1
Ban case...
There may be another deeper Constitutional issue in this case than Religion. Specifically, is the government forced to apply the constitution beyond the US boarders to non-citizens or not.
Can the government pick and choose when and which tenets of US Liberty they will extend to non-citizens, especially those not on US ground already? Also, can the Executive grant some Liberties/Protections in one administration via policy and then, snap!, just take them away in the next?
I know many would say that we are violating what America stands for if we do not extend our Liberties into foreign policy and immigration, but there are just as many that would say (via their Nationalistic lens) that American Liberties are for Americans only.
Instead of examining Commissioner Hess's 'personal opinion' remark, the Justices demanded disavowal? “Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, ..." Suppose that remark were true, which it is. Why is disavowal of a relevant fact a requirement of American law?
In some states slaves were not allowed to marry or attend churches. Hence the 'jumping the broom' ritual. Married slaves were often sold separately to different owners. All this was justified from pulpits and with reference Old and New Testaments like the Epistle to Philemon.
Consider the Mormons' early history, and why they fled to Salt Lake. Consider that Grant had to be convinced to not ban Jews from states under his military authority. Why do the Justices censure Hess's free speech, her 'personal opinion' about the facts of the case merely because she sat as a commissioner. These Justices clearly have opinions in both cases. Why must Hess's be disavowed, but not Kennedy's or Alito's?
3
Just to be practical - there are 7.5 billion people on this planet. This means there are 7.5 billion personal beliefs on religion. The line needs to be drawn somewhere.
I do not think that the baker is engaging in free speech when he is baking. The very conception of the thing is ridiculous. He is quite clearly and even says so (I think neither he or is supporter's realize it) that he is discriminating against these men because he does not approve of gay people getting married. The cowardly veil of "my religion says" is just that. While someone might be mindful of their faith as the work they most certainly are not imbuing it with their religion.
He knew when he opened a bakery that he was meant to serve all of the public, he chose this fight to make new law, possibly for some GOP religious group, NOT to stand on his "beliefs".
About those "belief's"; Jesus would joyfully bake the cake, throw the party, cater the reception, be the best man and act as the minister to do the ceremony. Whatever this guy's religion is it is most definitely not Christianity and yet I think he claims it is. Can they rule on that? Sure seems like lying about what your religion is in this circumstance disqualifies his entire argument.
The "Muslim Ban" is clearly a Muslim ban. The fact the standards for vetting immigrants has not been changed or made pretty much proves this. If his administration had instituted "extreme vetting" it would make the ban unnecessary and the case moot. His failure to do so proves he never meant to "fix" the standards but rather to base an action upon the fake fear he was creating about Muslim immigrants and refugees to Ban Muslims.
3
I would argue that I am a victim of Christian persecution through my government. I am just a basic white married man for decades.
I have an absolute Right to Freedom FROM Religion.
Please keep your Religion in your Church, not in my government.
5
Yes. The only defensible interpretation of the First Amendment in the modern era establishes a right to Freedom OF and FROM religion.
If a vendor is open for business, then he or she cannot discriminate against a customer based on their desire to celebrate a lawful act.
3
Anyone still naive enough to thing the SC is not a political organization only has to read the decisions of the past 40 years. Rehnquist made it his goal at Chief Justice to cherry pick cases to roll back as many decisions as possible from the Warren and Burger courts. Roberts is just continuing that work and putting in his own biases - recently the decision gutting the voting rights act , which was Roberts pet project when he was in the Reagan administration. Scalia and Alioto were only too eager to rule on any case that would promote their ultra fundamentalist religious views. Gorsuch, an ultra right wing political fanatic AND and ultra fundamentalist religious fanatic, will do even more damage. Pity all the non-white, non-Christians of the country if Trump is allowed to appoint another SC justice. We will then have a fanatically extremist right wing court majority for 3 or 4 DECADES. Total disaster for the American People.
1
These are not matters for courts this is the essence of liberal democracy. The chasm between authoritarian governance and democracy is too deep and wide and the GOP has done too good a job in discrediting democracy.
The Supreme Court majority is too involved with protecting power and privilege to consider justice. It is time to consider starting over in the 21st century. The enlightenment is too far in the past for your "conservative" jurists and legislators,
1
I suspect that the "Born Again Baker" is going to win his case. Since cake is not an essential service and since most of us own an oven, I don't see access to cake as having a lot of immediate consequences. But I fear the dangerous precedent that may be created if the Baker wins. If bakers need not serve the lesbian and gay community, how long will it be before clever restaurant owners argue they need not serve the Black or Hispanic community so long as the restaurant owner can prove he is a fervent believer in the Klan and the Southern Baptist Conference?
84
Counter service at a restaurant isn't "essential" either. C'mon. Try harder than that.
5
I agree with your worry that the justices are going to bend over backwards to allow Christians to discriminate but they will open a very ugly Pandora's box if they do. For example, in my medical laboratory can I refuse to test a patient (say, President Trump) whose ethical behavior violates my moral and religious views since there are other labs around the state? Is their answer really going to be yes? A very sad day is coming for the separation of church and state.
18
You are mistaken in your conclusions. He isn't not refusing service to the LGBTQ community. He has serve them many times before. He just refuses to endorse events (the wedding) that go against his conscience. The beauty of the freedom of conscience is that it enables us to have beliefs and act on them.
3
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case seems to ultimately be about free speech, regardless of the reasons the baker had for not baking the cake--i.e., his conscience telling him that he should not do so or religious beliefs promoted by a organized religious community. Someone of no religion could possibly have reached the same conclusion by following the dictates of his or her conscience and protested in the same way.
2
The significant difference concerning religion between the two is that Trump's travel ban does not in any way impede the practice of religion nor would it comparatively advantage those affected by it to switch religions. Is Syrian Christians or Sudanese people who practiced animism were being waived on through into the country, it would be rational to conclude that the ban was based on religion, but that's simply not the case.
Now it's perfectly reasonable to question the effectiveness of a ban that would have allowed all the Saudi 9/11 hijackers into the country. However, the Constitution unfortunately does not prohibit "very stable geniuses" who evince neither stability nor intellect.
2
In response to Judge Alito's question, I would have responded: What percentage of Christian nations are on the list? A reasonable observer would conclude the ban is explicitly targeting Muslims.
2
An earlier op-ed piece discussing this wedding cake controversy made the distinction between selling an off-the-shelf cake and creating a uniquely designed cake. That seemed a reasonable distinction.
As for the Justices’ questions about the state commission member being antagonistic to religion in general, perhaps that demand to ‘disavow’ that view was designed to really ask about judicial prejudices in general. So...can a Supreme Court Justice with one religious preference ever rule in a case dealing with another religion or atheists? Sometimes what a question appears to ask isn’t what they are really asking. (But then, sometimes a chair is just a, chair.)
Again, if we out here could actually see, hear these arguments, they might be a little less obtuse, intricate, deliberately obscure. We can’t respect what is hidden. In the meantime, this court observer’s columns are the best substitute. Thanks.
1
The issues here are complex. Just me, but I hope the baker wins and Trump loses. What I feel even more strongly is that the gay couple who brought the suit against the baker are doing a lot of damage to the full acceptance of LBGT people by the demographic they need to bring around. This is a nightmare case that will result in precedents that we will regret regardless of the outcome. A little forbearance would have been more helpful.
2
"What I feel even more strongly is that the gay couple who brought the suit against the baker are doing a lot of damage ..."
--------
They brought an administrative complaint, not a suit, to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. It is the baker who brought suit against the Commission when the Commission ruled against him. And he's lost every subsequent step of the way, in the trial court and on appeal. He's the one prolonging things by refusing to accept the decisions, not the gay couple.
3
OK, glad to know that. Still hope he wins. Still think the case is a horror.
The baker brought this case, funded and shaped by conservative christian think tanks. It's called "impact litigation." Google it. Educating yourself before yelling at The Gays would have been more helpful.
1
Will an emergency room be able to turn away an ambulance because the person needing help is not the 'right-type' of person.
4
So your argument is emergency medical services rises to the same level as a cake? Spare me your slippery slope arguments. It's quite obvious that "liberals" quit being concerned with liberty when Christians are the penalized party. Under what moral code can the government force someone to bake a cake for someone? Come on, just use common sense.
1
Will the Catholic/Evangelical/Corporate justices of OUR United States Supreme Court try to take us back to the 5th/15th centuries of constant religious warfare?
Looks like it.
WE THE PEOPLE will not go back. Women will not go back. Blacks will not go back. Other minorities will not go back. Those who value OUR constituional right to worhsip as we please - or not - without governmental interference will not go back. WE will not allow the radical catholic/muslim/evalgelical power brokers - and the Robber Barons who have taken over OUR government - to take us back.
Not now. Not ever.
3
This is why elections matter. If Trump were not the president, Neil Gorsuch, a sure vote for many features of an emerging theocracy, wouldn't be on the court. And Anthony Kennedy can't have it both ways. It is a compromise of society that businesses can't discriminate. If they can, we will have separate entrances again. After all there are those who still say God put different races on different continents for a reason. Isn't that the same kind of reasoning as Adam and Even, not Adam and Steve?
5
At least in part, this case arises under the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, an enactment of worthy intent but perhaps of less than perfect drafting.
As has been pointed out in other comments, my I discriminate based on a person's race if my religion teaches that people with green skin and orange hair should be kept separate and their money may not be touched?
Mr. Justice Marshall, speaking in Marbury v. Madison, held that proposition to absurd to be considered. So with the current argument.
One may, perhaps, argue that the SUPREME Court needs a few members less schooled in the art of legal sophistry and more schooled in the art of what is, for want of a better term, menchlekite. That is, schooled in how to be a decent person.
To change the subject a bit, the matters that Ms. Greenhouse discusses come down to our understanding of common carriers and the common law. When one opens a business and seeks the public's patronage, one is obligated to serve whoever walks in the door whether king or serf.
6
I would bet my entire savings that you would not make that argument if a black shop owner refused to serve a person who entered their store wearing a confederate flag shirt. Your premise is completely false. Liberals are supposed to start from the premise that the government cannot interfere and then only allow government interference when ABSOLUTELY necessary. In what universe is a specific wedding cake ABSOLUTELY necessary to one's pursuit of life, liberty and happiness?
2
• ...that same year marked the court’s emerging view of Christians as victims of an overbearing government and, by extension, of an insensitively secular society.
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" ~ JOHN ADAMS
1
The axis here is precisely a "Progressive"/Conservative split: Progressives, otherwise allergic to the presence of religion in public life, esp. mainstream Christianity, can apply some of their favorite tropes to the travel ban: "discrimination," outcomes, no worries about peaceful Islam, diversity, etc. Christianity, however, has played too basic a role in shaping our culture and institutions to be allowed to make its claims full-throated, or allow its adherents freedom of religion to dissent from the Progressive agenda. This has nothing to do with a principled approach to religion and everything to do with the outcomes based approach to judging that has bastardized the judicial role for decades under "Progressive jurisprudence" (a real oxymoron).
1
Seems to me that Ms Hess thinks more clearly than Justice Kennedy.
1
Her language is certainly more loaded and tendentious.
Unfortunately gender is not as clear cut as what you see when your britches are dropped. This type of discrimination ignores reality because it services is trying to serve a different narrative.
The far right believes that the world MUST BE their narrow minded image: straight, christian and white in order for christ (reportedly a single celibate non-white jew) to come again. A wrong decision be the court just helps them down the road towards the destruction of millions. Murdering blacks, latinos, jews and other "undesirables" has already begun.
It is worthwhile to note that the far right of islam, while a different religion and with a different outlook on race, has a similar belief that everyone MUST BE their narrow minded version of islam for god's paradise and they have already started murdering people with government help.
Can we get rid of this weird fantasy - everyone MUST BE ---- that god would ... This is paradise and devilish men are screwing it up by deciding what others must be and killing those not included in the fantasy or trying to convert those that could be at the point of a sword...Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, the US does not have to be one too.
Tortured logic, as usual...
You know, these high and mighty justices can sit in their ivory tower and pontificate and ACT judicial - but any reasonable person knows that it is a Muslim ban. It is!! What makes me mad is that it is first, an imperfect Muslim ban, i.e. it basically ignores many countries where terrorist seem to originate; and second, that they keep saying it isn't a Muslim ban as if we're all idiots. Quit equivocating! Please just admit that it is what we all know it is!!
As for the "cake baker". Give me a break. THIS is the kind of thing the supreme court takes time to hear?! One thing I cannot seem to fathom is: when did Christians all of the sudden, in a predominately, overwhelmingly Christian country, become so burdened with discrimination? I'm sorry, but in my 44 years on this planet it seems like Christians have done fairly well in this country. But in the last few years, as people with different views and lifestyles have come to the fore it seems Christians don't want to share the good fortune.
Here's a quick test: whenever someone complains that their Christian beliefs are being infringed by some gay person or some atheist person or whatever kind of person, ask this: if it was a black person, would it be okay? I mean, according to Christians, black folks are the sons of Ham and surely we shouldn't bake them a cake either!
It's the hiding of the discrimination that bugs me. Be brave - at least FLAUNT your disgusting beliefs. I'd at least respect that.
1
For some Justices some religions are more equal than others.
6
Rupugnant religious hypocrisy is about to win in the Republican Court of the United States. The baker is choosing to discriminate against homosexuals. Does he bake for civil marriages? Does he bake for Muslims, Hindus, Jews? What about people married by a “minister” ordained online to do marriage? Does he ask for a refund when half the people he bakes cakes for get a divorce? Does he bake for Catholics on their second marriage?
If you want to live in a theocratic Christian nation, you can’t stay here. We have a constitution that is incompatible with theocracy.
6
Before we can enjoy freedom of religion we need freedom FROM religion
8
All these "religious liberty" ideas are just cans of worms opened to mean anything.
The founding fathers knew this.
Now we have a treasonous president who walks all over the constitution to enshrine discrimination into law.
3
Someone needs to edit Ms. Greenhouse's column for bias. The Judges ultimately have the law as their guide regardless of their questions. Ms. Greenhouse who writes at the pleasure of the New York Times is free to make her bias against religion more personal and unacceptable.
5
Religion has always been the biggest source of conflict since time immemorial.
How is religion involved in the baker's case? He should be free to bake cakes for whoever he chooses for any reason or no reason at all.
2
There is no empirical evidence that god exists. There is no empirical evidence that Jesus Christ existed, even as a man, let alone the "son of god." Yet here we are in 2018 in an allegedly secular country more often than not victimized by the whims of Supreme Court justices and members of our society who believe in mythology. I met a retired school teacher in Mississippi who told me she was told by her pastor that it was an abomination to god if blacks and whites swam in the same pond. I'm a white man married to a black woman. If a justice of the peace or some other official had this religious mindset, would he be within his constitutional rights to deny a marriage license to an interracial couple?
5
We know for a certainty that the “Vatican Five” will rule in favor of the baker. The infuriating thing is that they go through the process, pretending that they haven’t already made up their minds.
1
The problem is with the legal privileging of religion over other worldviews. I recognize that this stems from the Constitution itself but so what? The Constitution is not sacrosanct and can (and has been) amended. Undue protection of religion gives rise to endless distortions and injustices. Religion is protected but not political ideology. Nazis and Communists are banned from the US but radical Muslims should be allowed in? Why, exactly? Refusing to bake a cake for a Jewish customer would not be not tolerated but we should tolerate a baker discriminating against gay customers because in the second case the offender could point to a passage in the Bible? Well, but a Nazi could point to a passage in the Mein Kampf. People have martyred themselves for political ideologies, so the intensity of faith is not a good way to distinguish between religion and non-religion. What makes a religion, anyway? Is Confucianism a religion? Is Buddhism? Both have no concept of a supreme deity such as found in Christianity or Islam. I would love to have a Confucian Institute claim to be a church and receive tax exemption, because then I can follow with my own Church of Ethical Ontology (not sure what it is yet but it sounds good). Instead of splitting theological hairs, how about protecting all forms of speech until they become calls for violence?
I want freedom FROM religion. All religion. Is that too much to ask ?????
7
To the 5 right wingers in Congress, religious liberty exists to allow “Christian” discrimination against gays, birth control, and Muslims. The Muslim Travel Ban will be upheld 5-4, and the anti gay baker will be allowed to refuse to serve gays by the same vote. In short, right wing “Christians” have religious rights; no one else really does.
In countries that are theocracies, the religious view is also the political view. Where that view is "taking up the sword" against others based on the fact that they hold to a different religion, they are a constant threat to those others around them.
In the U.S. where there is separation of Church and State, and religious groups are charities, their is a conflict if the religious group conducts political organizing/campaigning, i.e. uses its charitable status to get around campaign finance laws.
1
These cases are so hypocritical in presentation by the Plaintiffs and the Court. The owner of Hobby Lobby and his so called Christian beliefs, obviously forgot the part in the Christian religion where it says "Thou shalt not steal". He was the guy who tried to smuggle into the country Ancient Antiquities, pretending that the shipment was for his Hobby Lobby stores. And he was caught. Sure sounds like a man of great religious beliefs to me. He was just to cheap to pay for additional insurance for his employees, most who earn minimum wage.
These Justices are unwilling to uphold separation of Church and State. This fact is an essential to our Constitution. So I consider them as hypocritical as those who pretend that these cases are about free speech or religious discrimination. They are really about trying to have the Court bend the Constitution to one or two people's beliefs. If the Supreme Court is there to uphold our Constitution, they are doing a poor job . I give you the example of Citizens United. Free Speech, I don't think so.
1
About 52% of Americans are Protestant, 24% are Catholic, 10% are agnostic /atheist and 2% are Jewish and 2% are Mormon. But five of the Supreme Court justices are Catholic, three are Jewish and one is Protestant. The Supreme Court is the least democratic and representative branch of our divided limited power republic.
While the ethical obligation of the legal profession is to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, the law is gender, race aka color, ethnicity, national origin, faith, socioeconomics, politics, education and history plus arithmetic. The law is not fair nor just not moral. African enslavement and separate and unequal African Jim Crow were both legal.
Justice Kennedy may possess the coveted "swing vote" on the Supreme Court, sought by litigants in close cases. However, he apparently fails to possess a sense of irony.
The essence of the complaint against the baker, and others who seek to impose their religious beliefs on others, is a lack of tolerance for beliefs and behaviors rejected by particular religious doctrine. Does baking a cake condone an act the baker has no other nexus with? Does the baker ask if a wedding is between an abuser and a victim? Or a gold digger and her mark? Or is of the "shot gun" variety? Furthermore, does an employer know that employees are using birth control.? Is it even legal or appropriate to have such personal knowledge? Isn't the employer imposing his religious doctrine upon non-believers exercising their legal rights?
The baker can exercise his religious doctrine and oppose same sex marriage. Religious beliefs may underlie behavior, and such behavior, with some limits, is constitutionally protected. Conducting a public business, on the other hand, is a commercial enterprise which must remain available to the public on a non-discriminatory manner. And that is how our Constitution fosters tolerance.
155
No shirt. No shoes. No service....Is that unConstitutional?
Wrong wrong wrong wrong.
No, the Baker is not a religious institution. He is an individual and his business is a public one.
Ban will be upheld.
Baker's religious right will be re-affirmed.
And you'll have to deal with it.
3
Christian good. All else bad. Welcome to America.
As usual, your insight is greatly appreciated, Prof. Greenhouse.
2
I‘ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the cake fiasco was a massive miscalculation. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to challenge same-sex discrimination over a WEDDING CAKE on the heels of Obergefell, a polarizing, 5–4 ruling that infuriated a significant minority of the country which WARNED that this would happen? I don’t even care if the plaintiffs are right (and there’s a compelling argument that they’re not). Anyone with an iota of political competence should have known that this would happen. Conservative Christians would OBVIOUSLY cast themselves as victims of religious discrimination—a defense they have increasingly relied on—and a divided Supreme Court that always errs on the side of the First Amendment would OBVIOUSLY sympathize with them. Not only that, reluctant supporters of SSM were bound to see this as greedy gay overreach. That it’s happening during one of the worst culture wars we’ve experienced in awhile only compounds the challenge. I have no doubt that it also contributed to the backlash that put Trump in office.
The country always needs time to process big changes. Now we’re (likely) getting a ruling that will legally cover anti-gay discrimination for who knows how many years. I hold the ACLU and any gay rights organizations that encouraged the plaintiffs (not to mention the plaintiffs themselves) responsible. They forgot that incrementalism worked for legalization of SSM. Cakes and bathrooms are too much too soon.
2
"I hold the ACLU and any gay rights organizations that encouraged the plaintiffs (not to mention the plaintiffs themselves) responsible."
-------
They AREN'T the plaintiffs. The plaintiff is the baker, who is suing the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. (The name of the case is: Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission).
And the baker has lost every step of the way. He's the one pursuing the case, not the gay couple. The gay couple is not a party to the court litigation.
This is an error made frequently by people who seem to be opposed to equal treatment under the law. It's called "blame the victim."
108
Wrong. The people of Colorado democratically produced this result, when its legislature passed a law to include sexual preference with race, gender, etc.
Wasn't too fast, too far for Colorado. Or my home state of Illinois.
Notably, the Supreme Court is asked to rule out all change, ever, in the future, whenever someone makes up some guff about their work, services, rental units, restaurants, golf clubs, being "religious" in nature.
4
The Baker has also lost most GLTB future customers and their families, he is the sole person to suffer the full consequences of his actions and no one else.
Where did this "20 Muslim countries" come from? What countries are they and what portion of their population is Muslim? Does the fact that Trump didn't know enough to name all the countries he hates, or gave a "bye" to Saudi Arabia because they cater to his ego, mean that exclusion or people from the countries he did name based on their religion is legal? And what a silly argument about a "statute of limitations" on Trump's announcement of the basis for this ban. He was clear in his purpose and his hatred of Muslims was demonstrated only a short time before the oral argument in this case. The fact is that there is no reason for banning visitors and refugees from these countries other than their religion. People from those countries have not engaged in terrorism in the US while people from countries that have engaged in terrorism in the US are allowed to enter. This actually supports the position of the commissioner, that religion is often used to discriminate in actions which are unrelated to religion. The blatant and unlawful discrimination which is the sole basis for this ban should be soundly rejected and the ban overturned.
1
The "law-making" by conservative justices is patently hypocritical. It is as shameful as Bush vs. Gore. In law school, decades ago, we were taught that the court was above the political fray, Gore put the lie to that notion, and today the conservatives continue there pretense.
Good column Linda, it is a dark day indeed!
3
Come on Linda. We all know that when these theocratists say "Religious Freedom," what they really mean is the domination by the an extreme, minority, "Christian" religion to which they belong. They do not care one bit for any viewpoint or identity beyond their own. They do not fight for freedom, but rather the subjugation of all others to their will.
1
The worst supreme court since the early 20th century.
2
The more religions try to push their beliefs on the general population, the more those beliefs will be resented and resisted.
Ban birth control? Ban divorce? Criminalize same sex relationships? Deny interracial marriage? Force continued medical care on the terminally ill? Demand physical punishment for children? Ban sexual content in tv and movies? Ban books?
This is a much shorter road to a theocracy than most Americans realize. All but one item on that list (divorce) were banned in the United States less than one hundred years ago.
3
If you go about claiming that the Government cannot ban
anyone from a country because of the religious beliefs of the people in that country - then what country can the government ban - only largely atheistic ones ?
Suppose Trump, in his remarks, had just listed the countries
and made no remark of the majority religion in those countries.
Would Hawaii have a case to make ?
Many of the countries have words from the Koran on their flags and have Islam as their State Religion, the New York Times commonly refers to theme as Muslim countries.
As for the Baker in Colorado, it is his business, he suffers
economic loss by choosing to whom he will sell Wedding Cakes - via his religious beliefs - is that not his Constitutional
Right ?
2
He has a Constitutional right to prosper as his business model permits.
We the People have a Constitutional right against discrimination.
1
"As for the Baker in Colorado, it is his business, he suffers economic loss by choosing to whom he will sell Wedding Cakes - via his religious beliefs - is that not his Constitutional Right ?"
-------
Incorporation gives a person benefits under the law. So by incorporating under the laws of Colorado, he has to comply with state law. State law forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation.
If he doesn't want to be subject to those restrictions, then he shouldn't incorporate (and then he'd be personally liable for all the debts, etc., that his business might accrue. That's the main benefit of incorporation.)
1
If the baker can refuse to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, can he also refuse to do so for a wedding sanctified in a Christian church including one partner who is divorced? "Oh, I wouldn't if I knew. After all, the Bible does not condone divorce and remarriage. But how would I know that the bride or groom was divorced?" Why not do some research on line to find out, or simply ask every couple that walks in the front door if either or both has/have ever been divorced? If the baker is too lazy to do that, then why would the baker choose to discriminate against one set of sinners and not another, unless he just doesn't like homosexuals, and it's easy to identify a same-sex couple and not a divorced bride or groom? (Kind of like it was easy to identify an interracial couple back in the day.) Other sinners are just fine as customers because it's more difficult to determine if they are sinners or not. Is that the depth of the baker's religious beliefs? How about this? A man and a woman walk into his shop, one holding a three-month old baby. "We'd like a wedding cake that shows a bride, a groom and a baby on the top tier," they say. And the baker's response?
1
Fainting spell.
But a Groom and a Groom with a Baby would cause an absolute foaming at the mouth melt-down.
1
"we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination"
Maybe the growing number of non-believers should start using this same freedom to discriminate against believers and refuse to server them. We could, but that would be morally wrong. Thank reason we don't have to follow such discriminatory edicts.
1
A travel ban that doesn’t ban Muslims isn’t religious discrimination. The Trump ban doesn’t ban Muslims. It bans travel based on residency.
A travel ban that applies to citizens of five overwhelmingly Muslim countries doesn't amount to religious discrimination if it is not imposed due to religion. The Trump travel ban is imposed on countries that refuse to provide identity documentation for its visa applicants or that are in such disarray they are unable to furnish documentation.
A travel ban that applies to some Muslim countries is not religious discrimination when it also applies to a country that is predominately Christian and a country that is predominantly Buddhist. More than a third of the people affected by the Trump travel ban are non-Muslim.
Virtually all countries have a religious minority. The United States restricted travel from Germany, Italy and Japan during World War II. Most of those affected were Christians, but this did not make the restrictions religious discrimination.
5
I believe in no god or any religion. Are the members of the court taking my beliefs into and under consideration? I certainly hope so, yet there are times that I wonder if that is so. I am an American citizen, yet more and more, I despair that my desires and beliefs are disregarded because of religion. We are all equal, or so we are told.
4
Most of the comments focus on the specifics of the two cases, which I agree are important, but I find Ms. Greenhouse's larger point--the shift in the Court's understanding of the First Amendment insofar as it concerns religion, from its general perspective in the 1960s and 70s to the one we have seen over the past 35 years--to be more significant. Broadly speaking, the Court's reading of a "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" has shifted from emphasizing the first clause to focusing solely and in a very peculiar way on the second. The classic cases in the earlier period all sought to adjudicate the intrusions of specific religions in the public sphere; they left the free private belief of the individual unrestricted. The more recent cases have largely been governed by the conservative backlash that extends private belief into the public sphere, so that exercise of religious belief isn't limited to one's private thoughts, or public worship, but every aspect of one's life, even those that are intimately entwined in the lives of others. In doing so, the justices have actually forced the government to violate the first clause of establishment of religion, by making the government enforce the narrow religious views of evangelical Christians against the wider public that embraces other faiths or none at all. And it is no accident that this has come during a period when conservative Christians have seen their presence diminishing.
15
The Justices need to understand context when they speak on these things. Ms. Hess appears to understand that, so should they. 'Hostility to religion' is a common attack used by those who feel that whites are under attack, i.e. the white supremacists. Using those words, accepting that argument, without explicitly changing the context, is letting the tip of the iceberg of the white supremacy movement enter into the Supreme Court's rulings.
10
It appears from the position of this court observer that "religion" has entered the discussion on the immigration case solely because the liberals don't want Trump exercising the authority that the Constitution and the Congress has given the federal government and the executive.
Ms. Greenhouse knows full well that this is the case, and yet she continues to couch this argument as one of religion as opposed to statutory executive authority.
Unfortunately for the Times' readers, this is a typical construct for Ms. Greenhouse in her arguments for her agenda.
It, however, does a great disservice to the concept of rule of law by favoring the rule of equity, a legal system that was set aside at the time that the Magna Carta was signed by the Crown,
5
After reading this article, my first thought is that the conservatives on the court are up to their old tricks. They love to talk about constitutional principles and great legal reasoning. But what they often do is decide cases on the basis of their biases and political feelings then dress it up as being based on great principles. They love to talk about "originalism," "textualism," "strict construction," etc. The conservative justices start out biased in favor of Christianity and biased against non-Christian religions.
It might seem that the "evangelical" or right wing, republican Christians are "winning" or coming out ahead. But I think that in the long run real damage is being done to religion and more particularly Christianity by this involvement in politics and court cases. They are beginning to look like just another political interest group that is out to raise money and gain worldly power.
87
The justices' comments on the Cakeshop case are right on the money. Now they just need to take the same logic and apply it to the travel ban case. If they did, the ban wouldn't stand a chance.
1
It is curious (or maybe frightening is a better word) that conservative Supreme Court justices and their supporters believe that the "free exercise" of religion includes the right to deprive complete strangers of their lawful medications. What if my religious beliefs were offended by the presence of Church or mosque in my neighborhood? Could I stop their offensive (to me) behaviors by claiming that my "free exercise" of religion was being violated by their transgressive acts.
27
They are not 'deprived' of anything. They are still free to take the cash they are paid by their employer, and purchase any lawful medication.
Why are employers even in the middle of this? If they just paid their employees cash, and nothing else, we wouldn't have these problems.
2
No, lawful patrons wanting their medication are definitely deprived of "something." They are being denied service and inconvenienced because a licensed individual doesn't approve of their behavior. And when you take this principle to the venue of the Hospital Emergency Room and give physicians the right to withhold treatment from patients whose necessary treatment offends their religious convictions? Slippery slope indeed.
In baking a cake for a gay wedding, the baker is not making a statement that is against his religious beliefs. The statement is only that of the buyers of the cake. This is a case of refusing services to peoples based on their sexual status. If the Supreme Court sides with the baker, that anyone can refuse services for any reason they want and cloak it in "Religions Freedom."
5
The most disappointing part of reading the comments of the justices in these two cases is that they highlight the fact that the court, which should be the only apolitical branch of the government, has become a political institution. We can now, unfortunately, predict how the court will decide a case, even before briefs are ever filed, based more on who the justices are than on respect for the law or past precedent. No one expects a judge to ignore his or her life experiences, but the hypocrisy displayed by the court's conservative members, who arbitrarily pick and choose the evidence that best supports their prejudices, has sadly crossed the line between impartial justice and partisan politics.
56
I am afraid, Mr. Hasen, that you have an incorrect view of the Supreme Court.
It is, and always has been a political institution. It was intended, throught the lifetime appointments, to be the most conservative element in our governance by keeping the mindset of the court rooted in the historical and social precepts of the time during which the justice was appointed.
The court is the great damper on the swings of political whim that waft through the legislative and executive branches of the government. The set the edge that makes legal...and social...change match the willingness of The People to accept the differences.
And as for justices selecting facts to promote their arguments, that is a function of judges being judges, and the accusation that you level at the conservatives on the Supreme bench can just as easily, and just as accurately, be leveled at the four liberal justices who seem only rarely to be able to vote out of lockstep.
3
Sorry to disagree with you, but the best judges put their prejudices aside and follow the law and precedent. Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia in the past, and now Gorsuch do not do that, the best examples of that being the Shelby and Heller cases. Roberts decided, without any basis in fact, that all of the problems of the past that had formed the foundation of the Voting Rights Act had magically been resolved and that the protections of the act were no longer necessary. And look what has happened since key provisions of the act were trashed. And Scalia, in the Heller case, decided that the opening phrase of the Second Amendment, which refers to a “well-regulated militia,” had no meaning or relevance. The best judges grow in the job — and I’m thinking of conservatives like Blackmun, Souter and Breyer — as they grew to understand that respect for law is more important to the integrity of the court than following a purely party line.
I did not say, Mr. Hasen, that judges shouldn't put their prejudice aside and judge on the law.
To suggest that I did is an overreach and typical of the way that the liberal approaches discussions...assume that someone is saying something even though it was neither said nor intended.
If you think some more about what I said, you will begin to see that by using lifetime appointments as a check, the Supreme Court reflects the body politic at the time of their appointment. As a result, both the conservative and the liberal viewpoints have voices on the court in proportion to the ebb and flow of political fortunes in the Congress and the Executive.
The Supreme Court IS a political institution whose members are nominated by POLITCALLY motivated presidents and confirmed by the POLITICAL representatives of the Several States in the Senate.
The decisions that the Supreme Court renders are by CONSENSUS of a majority of the court as it is constituted at the time of the hearing. The rulings represent the sum of the discussions of the legal issues as filtered through the prisms of each and every sitting justice and as agreement as to how the case is to be viewed under the law.
Justices Goldberg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor are no less "political" than Kennedy, Roberts, Thomas, Alito or Gorsuch.
Indeed, the accusation of a "political" court is more rightly leveled at the liberal wing as they rarely vote other than a pack.
An argument contrary to that statement would be absurd.
I find the observation by Mrs. Hess to not be hostile to religion. It is hostile to those who abuse religion in order to justify the evil that they do. That two of the Supremes appear to not understand that is at the least very distressing.
Mr. Phillips whines that providing a cake for a gay wedding is condoning what he considers to be an invalid ceremony. No, he is not. He runs a business open to the public and is providing his service. Whether he approves of one wedding and not another, no one cares and is irrelevant. I bet he will do a wedding cake for frequent fliers even though his source authority says those marriages are not valid either.
49
If there were an appeal from a final decision of the present United States Supreme Court to a higher court – the court of public opinion of people who truly respect the American values of our Constitution – the result would be clear.
That 'higher court' would decide that the majority in the Roberts Court has a strong bias in favor of Christians and against Muslims.
This is a shameful descent by five justices into bigotry and hypocrisy. Past justices of the Supreme Court, both conservative and liberal, must be rolling over in their graves.
So much for the rule of law in Donald Trump’s America.
20
The issues before us are not 'what' but 'who'. Which tribe wins and which tribe loses will be determined by how each justice decides to which tribe he or she belongs.
After that decision gets made, some high minded justification will be found.
7
If the court supports the baker, they will have contradicted their own inappropriate guiding principal "The business of America is business", and substituted the wholly unacceptable "The business of America is idiosyncratic interpretations of religion".
The door they're opening will soon enough come back to haunt them when, say, a Muslim doctor refuses to save the life of an Evangelical in a roadside emergency.
In the meantime, given their sensitivity to religious sensibility, I wish they would consider removing the regime of law allowing churches of whatever variety to purloin my tax dollars to further their nefarious political ends. My God says that's a bad idea. Its in the book.
And I do wish SCOTUS would admit their bold hypocrisy in supporting the Hobby Lobby tantrum over providing their employees the option of birth control while continuing to profit mightily by way of their business with the greatest enforcer of birth control and abortion on the planet, China.
Hobby Lobby has no religious conscience, they just want to get their way and to force everyone else to fall in line.
46
These justices with their ridiculous questions and politically motivated conclusions have earned my contempt. I think that is bad for the court.
23
The Robert's Court, especially in the wake of the Unconstitutionally stolen Gorsuch seat, is on a perilous path that will only result in the delegitimization of the court. The problem is that this delegitimization has been the explicit goal of the radical right for decades. These reactionaries and theocrats know that their political ideology and leaders are extremely unpopular with the American people, and they would never hold power under a fair electoral system. As a result they have realized that the best way for them to attack the system from the inside is through the radicalization of the courts. They goal has been to hijack the concept of Judicial Review in order to invalidate the democratically achieved accomplishments that make our nation a free and fair society.
32
It is a shame that the pro-Christian justices can only see this in terms of anti-religious bias. I am an atheist who refused to say “under God” when the federal government pushed that betrayal of beliefs on us in the 50s. I am a lesbian who has fought prejudice my whole life. I say leave the poor baker alone. He is not selling widgets. He is selling his creation. Apply that exception thoughtfully and we will not be executing witches or depressing Christian expression.
4
"Does a travel ban that applies to citizens of five overwhelmingly Muslim countries,"
Yes Linda but you need to take account of - and POINT OUT - the fact that the ban does not cover the countries with the largest Muslim populations, namely Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In other words, the vast majority of Muslims in the world are NOT affected by the ban.
I consider it a duty of NYT commentators, like you, to present ALL relevant facts rather than leave some out.
5
She did, read the article.
3
Reread the article, those facts are there. The ban bans Muslims. It doesn’t matter how many.
2
"One thing that's disturbing about the record here... is what appears to be a practice of discriminatory treatment based on viewpoint". - Justice Alito
Well, if that doesn't take the cake. Looks like our highest court might need a healthy dose of its own medicine.
Thank you, Professor Greenhouse, for (once again) exposing hypocrisy.
7
I am baffled that commenters here (and in many other places) offer the argument that the same-sex couple in the Masterpiece Bakeshop case could simply go to another bakery that was willing to serve them. This contention has NEVER been accepted in contemporary civil rights law. Never. No defendant accused of refusing to hire women would consider arguing that "there are other employers that female applicants can apply to." No landlord accused of refusing to rent to African-Americans would think for a second about telling a court that "there are lots of apartments out there that blacks can rent." The only possible justification for the "just go to another bakery" argument is that one believes the rights of same-sex couples are less valuable than that of other protected groups. [And to head off another specious argument: Federal civil rights laws (generally) do not protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, at least as currently interpreted. Masterpiece Cakeshop, however, concerns a Colorado state law that explicitly provides such protection.]
During the civil rights era, those accused of discrimination on the basis of race often asserted First Amendment defenses, arguing that they sincerely believed God intended races to be kept separate. The federal courts regarded these arguments as so frivolous as to be barely worthy of discussion. Religious liberty is not a warrant to violate the rights of others.
93
Thank you,
Nor should it be a legitimate road map to legislate their version of morality on me.
6
Obscure but fascinating conceptual arguments here.
One wonders how these would go if the author replaced "religion" with the equally nebulous "white male cultural values". Because that is what is really under attack these days. White male cultural values are ebbing - after 400 years of domination on this continent - and "they" have been grasping at any number of straw man arguments and forcing the Supreme Court to take a stand.
Naturally those that believe in such values are GOP voters/politicians and they want to save those values for as long as possible. Thus the rush to nominate judges that can deliver reliable results rather than looking out for all citizens of the Republic. Gorsuch is the prime example.
5
The Shield of the 1st Amendment “free exercise” clause and the Religious Freedom and Reatoration Act, to protect minority religions and nonreligions from an oppressive majority, has been appropriated into a Sword by the religious right and a complicit Supreme Court, similar to the way the “free speech” clause has been turned into a Sword for the powerful and moneyed (e.g., Citizens United). The Supreme Court, by abandoning its role a protector of civil rights and liberties of the unempowered to become the facilitator of the majority and the powerful, represents the greatest threat to our democracy.
11
I am surprised that to my knowledge, no one has required religious discriminators to legally justify how the discrimination they purport is required by their religion is actually supported by religious texts of the religion they purport to follow. Where in the Christian Bible, assuming the discriminators claim to be Christians, does it say it is a sin to bake a cake for two gays getting married, or to permit women to get birth control pills under their health insurance? Are devil worshipers allowed the same "religious" freedoms?
It seems to me that these people are given free range to claim that something is against their religion when the religious texts they claim to follow state exactly the opposite thing. These people must be required to show how logically their positions flow from the texts they claim is controlling.
10
On questions of free speech, I agree with former Justice Hugo Black's view that free speech is, pretty much, ALL speech for everyone. I do believe that, hateful though some speech might be, that the only way to maintain a free society is to support speech in all it's forms EXCEPT when it might cause harm to others (yelling fire in a theater). I see the issue of this baker differently, however. Let's substitute "gay" with "black" and consider our history. Many arguments were made supporting segregation because it was deemed "unclean behavior" to share a fountain with a black person. What's the difference here? A public business should be required to serve every law abiding customer that requests service. Unlike a private religious institution, this is a public place of business. It is unfathomable that any presumed "freedom of religion" argument could trump my right as a gay man going into a bakery and asking a baker to make a cake for my wedding. Of course I'd rather eat sawdust than a cake made by a bigot, racist or homophobe but that's not the point. If he decides to become a "Christian baker" then yes, he's made his distinction and as a gay man OR JEW I'd not go to him for my cake but as an average baker making cakes? Outrageous that we're even having this discussion in 2018 but of course I know that I'm STILL a second class citizen in many parts of this divided and conflicted country.
11
It boggles the mind how refusing to sell a product to another person based on your religious views can be seen as violating the Establishment clause. This would open the door to all kinds of mayhem. What is to prevent someone from claiming that their religion prohibits them from selling to African Americans? or to handicapped people? Or Jews? If your behavior in the marketplace discriminates against constitutionally protected groups, then your rationale for doing it is irrelevant. If your religion is violated by selling a product to anyone who wants to buy it, then sell something else. Or even better, question the values of your religion.
5
The diminishing wall that separates church and state is showing up with these cases.
Replace "gay wedding" with "black wedding" and you see the conflict. If you have bakers refusing to make cakes for minority patrons and saying it's my choice to do this because it is my business, I can serve who I want and I claim religious exemption - this is an issue.
Hiding behind a book written 2000 years ago (and then rewritten tens of thousands of times) is a ridiculous argument. What about the Koran or Buddhist scripture? Why not those? All of these "enlightened" works are what we need a thick wall between.
7
It remains essential, church and state, remain independent of each other.
4
"...the court’s emerging view of Christians as victims of an overbearing government and, by extension, of an insensitively secular society."
This also just happens to be a classic right-wing victimhood trope used to whip up voters by telling them they are being attacked. Even though Christians are the dominant religious group in this country and most elected officials make a point of publicly declaring their faith, including how it influences their decision-making. But somehow they are the helpless victims.
9
Litigation is over folks and the increasing politicized court will decide along political lines similar to the other branches of government. Next stop, abortion.
5
This ever partisan court will rule as it always does in the Roberts Era - in the best interests of the GOP. Since the GOP base is overwhelmingly populated by political evangelicals, like the baker, and Islamophobes, like Trump, the ruling will be for the baker and against the Muslim. And no one in the majority will care about the hypocrisy...and the legitimacy of the court will take another hit.
5
There is no such thing as "religion." People have opinions; if you feel same-sex marriage is a bad thing, don't enter into one. If, however, you offer services to the public, you do not get to deny those services based only on your liking or not liking someone or their marriage. Bigotry does not get excused because the bigot goes to church on Sunday; doing that does not give her or him the right to discriminate.
8
A majority on the court clearly see christianity as a religion worthy of special, unique, protections.
It is sad to see such gross hypocrisy.
Those who choose a religion cannot subject society to their, personal, standards.
5
Although it probably will be decided as such, I don't think the bakery case is properly a "religious" freedom case. It should properly be a "freedom" case, that is, the freedom to be left alone. I am 100% for the couple's right to marry - to be left alone themselves, to buy anything they want, etc., but not to coerce someone else into participating in any way that to which they are opposed. I don't care that this particular baker was - and the evidence shows this - all about his artistry. The most unartistic by-the-numbers baker should not be required to participate in that which he/she does not wish to for any reason, whether I agree with him or not, short of selling existing items offered for sale to the public.
As to the travel ban, I do not see religious infringement. It is a statutory right of the president to exclude people from certain countries from our country. The idea that it bans "Muslims" can't be squared with the fact that order does not permit religious discrimination and that the countries under consideration make up a tiny portion of the Muslims in the world. A president might even have the power to ban a foreign religious group for legitimate security reasons. I don't think the order was necessary or particularly wise. But nobody elected me or the Dist. Ct. judge president. Nor can an executive order be valid for one president and not for another. That was purely political and about the "resistance." The Court should slam the door shut on it.
3
Jack Phillips, the baker, is a devout Christian who is being asked to sacrifice his religious beliefs when he is forced to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. His religious liberty as are all Americans is at stake. He is not against homosexuals but does not what to take part in an event in which he does not approve. He was very willing to sell a ready made cake to this couple but they refused.
No one should be forced to act against their religious principles. We still have religious freedom in America but it is on shaky ground. Mr. Phillips livelihood is at stake and he may even be forced out of business. Is this fair? Absolutely not. Those of us who cherish our religious beliefs are hoping Mr. Phillips wins this very important case. Our freedoms are at stake and we should all be afraid if he loses. Let's hope the Supreme Court votes in the bakers favor to preserve our religious rights. This will affect millions of Americans everywhere.
1
When one opens a business to provide a public service, then the law is one must provide that service to all comers.
That was the Common Law of England in 1776, that was the Common Law of the United Stated in 1789, and that is the law today.
Until the Court provides exemptions to permit discrimination.
2
Actually, I don't think that's accurate. Wal-Mart, for example, has refused to make Nazi birthday cakes. I think the issue with the wedding-cake situation has to do with 'protected groups.' Homosexual couples are a protected group. Nazis ain't. People keep saying that a business has to serve everybody, no matter what, and that's just not true.
The guarantee of freedom of religion in the First Amendment has a corollary in that Americans also have a freedom from being coerced into observing the religious beliefs of others. Religion has been used to justify various sorts of social mischief over the centuries, including slavery and racial segregation. Now we are seeing religion once more used to denigrate and refuse business services to paying customers. Such persons must think all people are created equal, unless they are LGBTQ, standing the concept of freedom of association on its head.
Religious fundamentalism has achieved a new deleterious prominence around the globe. Whether it's Muslim zealots in the Middle East, Jewish fundamentalists' settlements in the West Bank or spitting on women on NYC streets, Christian extremists who murder doctors and bomb family planning clinics, or Hindus and Buddhists using protection of their religion/culture to mask their nationalism and hatred of the "Other".
It will be a sad day for the American Republic if the SCOTUS decides America will join in a lemming-like rush into accommodation of the worst among us. Jurists cut from the Federalist Society cloth, such as Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, et. al., likely would have ruled against the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of the Sixties, as depriving swimming pools and restaurants of their right to refuse service to certain customers.
Sexual orientation has been added to race and religion justifying bigotry and discrimination.
2
It is my understanding that the Court has already ruled that you cannot gain exemption from an otherwise applicable law on the grounds of religious belief. This is quite sensible; think of all the outrageous behavior that would be allowable under such a doctrine. Rather the cake shop owner is arguing that his freedom of SPEECH is being infringed. So the real question is whether cakes are speech.
The proposition that cakes are speech is absurd. The idea that this is anything but discrimination against gays is absurd.
That said, the plaintiffs clearly have absolutely no chance of prevailing against the so-called Christians on this stacked court.
3
Justice Kennedy's questions are seriously disappointing. To characterize the commissioner's statements of undeniable reality as "hostile" to religion reveal either disturbing ignorance of human history or an equally disturbing theologically-based mischaracterization of those statements. Either possibility is sobering in its implications for how this court appears to be willing to go in lowering the wall between church and state and allowing, at least for fundamentalist "Christians," their right to discriminate (with state approval) against those who do not share their beliefs.
4
“Freedom of religion” is about regulating strife between religions and keeping the government as a neutral arbiter. Unfortunately most religions contain a presumption of being the one and only true faith, which has led time and again to violence between them and attempts to force their views on the entire populace. Government’s role is similar to parents counseling “calm down” to battling siblings whose rationality is not in evidence.
When the Supreme Court contains brainwashed adherents of a particular faction of a particular faith, sound decisions about such strife is improbable.
3
At the center of this tempest in a teapot is a statement attributed to commissioner Jeanne Hess, in which she noted that ". . . . we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination . . "
This is not an opinion; it is a fact sitting in plain view. Unless you are one of the conservative members of the SCOTUS. The early Christian crusades that were launched in the propagation of a religion to the Taliban calling for the death of all non-Muslims because they are infidels form nice bookends to a history that is replete with examples of religion being used to stifle the "other."
As far as I am concerned, this statement does not show an iota of bias; rather it shows a deep knowledge of history. That is something I cannot say of Justice Alito or Justice Roberts.
6
All Justices who share religious beliefs with plaintiffs or defendants should they recuse themselves? Do the beliefs of Justices skew the their decisions?
Sex and ensoulment are the means of manipulation of people everywhere. Women are the cause of suffering in the Abrahamic faiths. Women are subordinate, and subordinated by pregnancy among these faiths. The presence of a “soul” at conception contradicts the Bible: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” For the purpose of reducing the personal worth and choices of women, ensoulment occurs at conception.
In a nation forbidden to establish any religion, the beliefs of any religion can’t govern.
A business cannot refuse to bake a cake for women? Muslims? Blacks? Justices have clearly brought their own religious prejudices to their decisions.
Abortion must be limited to women who want to end pregnancy and no one else. Restricting abortion on the grounds that a fetus is a person is a fraud. Restrictions on abortion, birth control and sex education are all Religious restrictions. The existence of a “soul” is not proven or provable. How can the state intrude on the choice of a woman? Forcing a woman to undergo invasive procedures and religious instruction is onerous. Is there any such imposition on men? Are Women equal to men or subordinate to men and fetuses?
Recuse if your religious beliefs diminish women.
2
Many churches used to justify racial hatred as God-based, and the conservative Supremes seem about to make it possible again for hateful business owners to refuse service to people they don't like because of who they are.
4
“Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust ... we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination.”
This is not a statement of "hostility to religion." Rather, however inconvenient for a religious believer like Justice Kennedy, it is an INDISPUTABLE FACT, and it is curious that Justice Kennedy would press the Colorado Solicitor General to "disavow" such an evident fact.
The Supreme Court made a grievous error in Hobby Lobby. Though a corporation may be a "legal" person, no corporation has a "soul." There aren't any corporations in "heaven." A corporation cannot be "saved." Imputing the religious beliefs of corporate owners to a corporation conflicts with the notion of separateness that underpins the legal liability protections available to corporate owners. If Hobby Lobby embodies the religious views of its owners, then the "veil" has been "pierced" and those owners should bear legal liability for the debts and obligations of Hobby Lobby.
As for Masterpiece - so, it's okay to block freedom of religion for Native Americans using peyote but not for white guys who want to keep gays on the margins of society? No. The Constitution does not require that. So long as Mr. Phillips receives the protections of society for his public accommodation, he should serve ALL of society. Or he can find another line of work.
8
Denial of service on religious grounds fundamentally begs the question what is religion? Is religion only the Abrahamic-based belief systems (the SCT appears to think it is only Christianity), does it have to be founded on the belief in some deity, and if so, what kinds of deities? What values are inherently religious to justify denying service to people? Can they be abhorrent? If my "religion" is atheism, can I deny Christians the opportunity to buy my cakes or eat in my restaurants because I so strongly believe that organized religion is counter to my beliefs and cannot be encouraged? As an atheist, I am certainly more discriminated against than religious groups in the United States. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing to disavow in the statements made by the CO commissioner: it is true, religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history and the use of it to discriminate against others is despicable. Looks like the conservatives on the SCT will want to eat their cake and have it too.
3
Thank you for the author having the journalistic integrity to lay out the facts of the cases fairly. There's a clear difference in this piece between her statement of the facts and the statement of her opinion, and she did not set out the facts in a way that made another opinion feel ridiculous.
1
This baker is just another salad-bar "christian", using his so-called religion to discriminate against those he has judged and found to be "sinners".
He refuses to sell his product to "icky" gays while apparently doing business with other biblical "sinners" including: the rich; people with tattoos; people who eat shellfish; men who cut their hair; women who speak up in church; blasphemers; liars; those who covet or judge, eat fat, drink alcohol in holy places (more communion wine, anyone?), work on "the sabbath", yada, yada.
How can these religionists so blithely distort Jesus' message of love, tolerance, acceptance, non-judgement and "doing unto others"? Apparently, they've successfully removed the log from their own eyes?
4
I'm going to establish a religion that as one of it's primary tenets professes that the Caucasian race is superior to all others, and there should be no intermingling. As a restaurant owner, I will use my religious beliefs to justify separate sections of my restaurant for Caucasian vs non. Oh wait, we've crossed that bridge before.
The supreme court could just tell religious folk that they can sell to only who they want. Then customers, armed with their own beliefs (and dollars), can choose to patronize a certain business or not. How would that work out?
1
When do the burnings at the stake begin?
Even if we agree with Mr. Wild's statement that the 1st Amendment refers to state sponsored vs. private religious action, these recent opinions look to me like the State putting its thumb on the scales in favor of not just religion, but a very specific religion.
9
It is a sad observation that SCOTUS decisions are often lagging indicators of social change which is based on an unbiased view of the Constitution. Whether it be the Dred Scott case or the Plessy v. Ferguson one, the justices are blinded by their self-imposed and incorrect view of the fundamental freedoms contained in the Constitution. It's a sad irony that so many justices have mastered the skill of arguing, legally, some point of law, but in doing so, reveal their blindness to the truth of the Constitution which they are sworn to uphold.
6
dkensil,
Dred Scoot and Plessy vs Ferguson were correctly decided via the Constitution. The Constitution was
not written as document in favor of Slaves having any
rights, or demanding integration of all aspects of public
life.
That the Constitution treated humans immorally,
and still does, is another matter.
The question I have for those who argue for allowing people or corporations to deny services based on religious beliefs is who decides whether or not the religious beliefs are truly religious and are deeply held. If it is only the person or corporation wanting special treatment, then anyone who wants to deny service can claim religion as the basis. If not, then the government has to provide a path for religious persons and corporations to get approval for their denials.
It does not seem that the current court cases have addressed this issue.
8
A corporation is a fictitious entity. It is incapable of holding ANY religious beliefs, never mind 'deeply held' ones.
The Hobby Lobby decision makes sense only in Alice and Wonderland.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm just a regular person. When I heard the Justices' questions about the travel ban, I was gob-smacked.
It's not a Muslim ban if people are banned from "only" five Muslim countries? What is the tipping point? Twenty Muslim countries? Or do all Muslim countries in the world have to be banned in order for it to be considered religious discrimination?
As for the "statute of limitations" on Trump's anti-Muslim statements during the campaign.... We're not talking about taxes. If a candidate promises to lower taxes and then changes his mind once in office, no one is going to take him to court. This is about maligning an entire group of people based on their religion!
Why didn't any of the Justices ask what the justification is for the travel ban if it's not religious discrimination? No acts of terrorism in the U.S. have been committed by people from these countries. What is the reason for excluding them?
It is surreal to live in a country that is 95% Christian and see Christians worry about being discriminated against.
135
hk:
The Court and the opposing counsel DID address the justification for the travel ban.
The ban affects people from eight countries (6 of them predominantly Muslim) that do not share adequate information with the United States or that present other risk factors. The ban is subject to exceptions and case-by-case waivers.
Trump first raised the possibility of a travel ban after a Muslim couple who had immigrated to the US killed 14 people and injured 22 others in a mass shooting in San Bernardino. The Trump campaign said that the suspension would be in force "until the problem was better understood."
I am agnostic about the ban myself, but it is ridiculous to suggest that it is motivated by animus against Islam.
4
But when white men commit mass murder it's always "too soon" to discuss remedies.
Good post but 95% Christian? Where in the world does that number come from? My sense is that at least 30% of the country is agnostic / atheist. Actual Christians (aka Evans) are a loud and active minority - and often an ugly one that bears a striking resemblance to radical Muslim fundamentalists
14
"But the opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., with its solicitude for the business owner’s far-fetched claim that he would be complicit in sin if his employees were to make use of their federally mandated benefit, clearly reflected the majority’s First Amendment sensitivities."
At first reading, I thought you wrote that Justice Alito thought that he would be complicit in sin but then I realized that the business owner thought that he would be complicit. The title of this op/ed piece is more fitting for my first impression.
1
Denial of service on religious grounds infringes the equal protection rights of those being denied service. Marriage has a religious dimension. So denial of service to a marriage can infringe religious freedom of those being married. The Founding Fathers were clearly sensitive to the problems arising from state entanglement with religion. It is difficult to imagine them siding with those who propose to limit the freedom of others based on religion.
7
No. Constitutional equal protection law applies against government,not individuals. The question is whether Colorado's law infringes the baker's freedom of religion.
6
The effort by several justices to use Ms. Hess's comments to prove that the Colorado commission harbored hostile feelings toward religion reflects a misinterpretation of what she said. She cited examples of people using their religious beliefs to justify discrimination, a statement fully supported by the historical record. Then she denounced that perversion of religious doctrine, an opinion echoed by many current religious leaders, especially when the victims belonged to ethnic minorities. At no time did Ms. Hess attack religion.
With equal lack of justification, Justice Alito then claimed the Colorado commission had not punished a baker who refused to bake a cake attacking same sex marriage. In that case, however, the individual wanted a message displayed on the cake to the effect that homosexuality was a sin. In the current case, the two young men never got a chance to describe the decoration they wanted. Phillips apparently knew the cake would celebrate a gay wedding only because the customers were both men.
Justices may be excused for not always knowing all the facts in a case. Distorting the facts they know, however, always raises questions about their objectivity.
93
You make the mistake of assuming there is any objectivity in the conservative majority, when the obvious result is that these Justices will dispense injustice against gays and non-Christians. Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Roberts wish to impose a state religion in line with THEIR Christian views. Christ only knows how Kennedy will square this judgmental discrimination with his so-called respect for the dignity of the individual. When the Injustices rule against gay couples and Muslim immigrants, their harsh state-sponsored Christianity will be enshrined forever in US law, but it should be in ignominy instead--a fitting place for most of their discourse, and their eventual decisions, here.
17
James Lee, you say Ms. Hess "denounced that perversion of religious doctrine, an opinion echoed by many current religious leaders, especially when the victims belonged to ethnic minorities. At no time did Ms. Hess attack religion."
The fact that we agree with Ms. Hess can obscure for us the fact that making a judgment that anybody's religion is "a perversion of religious doctrine" and therefore undeserving of protection under the First Amendment is itself a religious judgment that cannot be allowed to sway a government decision. Hess was in fact attacking a religion by characterizing it as "a despicable form of rhetoric."
A judge is disqualified for pointing out that religion is used to oppress and discriminate against people? That's an argument? How primitive and hateful are we willing to become.
Wow! (Yes, I knew it all along, but honestly, does anyone know history any more?) Members of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) have killed more people than all the other religions combined. Killing people in the name of religion has been common throughout history. This is not OK.
Justifying hatred and exclusion is not, in my opinion, Christian (yes, I studied the Bible for years, and tried to live by it, and in the end it became all too easy to see that people, not their so-called God, were using religion to further their own interests, whether compassionate or hateful). Try the Gospels.
Pride is said to be the deadliest sin, but it's a good list to eschew:
pride
greed
lust
envy
gluttony
wrath
sloth
With this list, you could say that Trumpian bullies are gluttons for evil. Unborn babies are not more precious before they are born. Scientists are truthtellers.
Don't let your so-called faith blind you. Those voices in your head and pastors stealing the widow's mite are not from god. Quite the reverse, if you are a believer. Try the Sermon on the Mount, for example.
13
The headline is a wonderful teaser!. The so-called "conservative" part of the Supreme Court does seem to be grasping. They are grasping in favor of power and wealth, in a kind of reverse Robin Hood way. This is exactly backwards; the courts should protect the powerless, not the powerful. Criminalizing freedom, poverty and Democracy in the name of their so-called Constitution seems to be all the rage. The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. Rage and grasping indeed!
I have come to believe that people's susceptibility to so-called religious arguments is part of our problem with "post-truth". People are so gullible, especially if they are told what they want to hear. Voices in the head promoting self-righteousness are one of humanity's great evils.
5
Hopefully less that a century from today the majority of the population will reject altogether the idea that theistic religions, which are social fantasies devoid of any basis in objective fact or science, should receive any special protection in law above or beyond normal free speech rights. Scientific research should receive the highest level of free speech protection; at the same time, the public institutions of an enlightened society such as schools and universities have a moral and intellectual obligation to actively discourage the growth and dissemination of religious fantasy when it is detrimental to the well-being of society. That obligation exists at this very moment in spite of the constitution, which must be judged defective to the extent that it affords special protection to religion (and in spite of the historical facts surrounding how this protection came about).
40
This path has been trod before by both the Jacobins in the French Revolution and the Communists.
In both instances, it ended in disaster for all concerned.
Furthermore, the scientists of yesterday would have described the science of today as fantasy.
Let's say we did and don't.
1
I saw no hostility to religion in Hess's comments, merely a self-evident reference to history. The problem of drawing a dividing line between the prohibited establishment of a religion and the protected free exercise of one's religion should be the central question here.
While longstanding state and federal guarantee that public accommodations will not discriminate on the basis of religion, federal and state RFRA's have mischievously succeeded at turning the rejected customers into the alleged agents of a prohibited government denial of free exercise. If there is any truth in such a claim, then it requires the Court to question whether the statute has also accomplished the prohibited act of turning the proprietor into the establisher of a religion.
The distinction between a public accommodation versus places of religious exercise is critical to maintenance of the balance between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.
38
The ridiculously named "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" MUST be overturned. The premise in this stupid, stupid law is that the state must show some sort of "overwhelming" interest in order to even bring up separation of church and state.
Well, the overwhelming state interest - and easily understood by reasonable citizens - is exactly that : separation of church and state. No support by the state of ANY religion.
We MUST go back to zero public dollars going to faith-based organizations for ANY reason, no citizen/business allowed to discriminate or in any other way, impose their religious beliefs on others in the public sphere. If not, then full taxation of all churches and religious entities.
This insidious creep of establishing religion in the public forum HAS to stop.
10
The Commissioner expressed her hostility toward discrimination, and the claimed use of religion toward that end. Justice Kennedy and the others saw what they wanted to see, not what the Commissioner was expressing. Can anyone deny that historically religion has often been used to discriminate, and much worse?
178
Until the Supreme Court becomes totally blind to religion as a pretext for interpreting laws we will never be free. In the 1600's and 1700's civilization finally through off the heavy cloak of religion and we now benefit from all the medical and technological benefits that resulted by freeing the human to think unencumbered by religious philosophy. All religions are based, all or in part, on myths, legends, and superstitions. Very little of what is contained in religious texts can be verified therefore the whole philosophy becomes suspect. Court decisions should be made on rational thinking (the Constitution) and the mores of our current society.
37
The SC must go back to supporting the Constitution: separation of church and state. Clear interpretation: the state's overwhelming interest is to maintain this separation and stop religion - any religion - from interfering in the public life of citizens.
12
Bluerose, while I agree with your general premise, I must point out that the Constitution did not create a separation of Church and State; it merely prohibited the Federal Government from establishing a state religion. Massachusetts, for instance, retained its state religion until the year 1833.
The phrase Separation of Church and State is Jefferson's, and he was in Paris when the Constitution was being framed. He was in written contact with Madison, who was of similar mind, but the separation as we imagine it was only firmly established by a majority Supreme Court opinion authored by Hugo Black in the late 1940s.
If we are to keep the First Amendment as it is, we will need the Supreme Court to rule that it protects both freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
bleurose:
The Constitution says nothing about separating church and state (look it up), least of all make it an "overwhelming interest."
As Greenhouse notes, the Constitution bars Congress from establishing a religion. It also guarantees the free exercise of religion.
Can the court make a distinction between "hostility to religion" and strong disagreement with actions that some people claim are motivated by religion?
26
I am always impressed by our 'double standard' in trying to insert religion into the Constitution, that clearly says that there must be a separation of state from religion...not only to protect any and all religions from themselves (as they are ruled by dogmatic belief in a deity; and discrimination of one religion towards other religions is a 'fact') but to protect those of us non-believers from religious discrimination (the 'baker's case and the drug store's case). It doesn't matter how devoted you are to your religion; if the law allows, or even dictates a certain course of action (the selling of birth control pills for instance), for public's interest and benefit, then it must be available. If a religious person feels 'pressured' into doing something he/she 'can't do', then he/she must find another job compatible with his/her belief; but please, do not impose your belief on others (belief means not knowing, and not based on facts, and requiring suspending 'reason'). Let us remember that this country's immigrants came, often, escaping religious persecutions elsewhere. Let's not stir things up towards intolerance of the rule of law, and subjugate the majority to the whims of any religious belief, especially if harmful to our well-being.
99
"[C]learly says that there must be a separation of state from religion." The constitution does not say that, clearly or otherwise.
1
As I argued above, the Constitution originally stipulated that the Federal Government could not establish a state religion - as the Brits had done with Anglicanism. It did not establish a Separation of Church and State (Jefferson's words in the Danbury letter).
IMHO, if we are to successfully argue these points and carry the day, it would help if we actually had the facts straight!
4
Semantics. If the State is not allowed to ESTABLISH (create, organize, sanctify, promote, require) a religion, then the State is also SEPARATE from any religions that may exist under the jurisdiction of the State. And any religions that exist under the jurisdiction of the state are also SEPARATE from the State. In England the State and the State religion are not separate from each other.
In the gay marriage case, the baker’s freedom of religion claim stands in opposition to the gay couple’s equal protection claim. If the baker wins, anyone claiming a religious belief against others can claim a right not to serve them. The scary part of that is that religions have a long list of sinners, including members of other religions. A decision in that case in favor of the baker could give power to all kinds of religious prejudice.
In the Muslim immigration case against protecting free exercise of religion is fundamental. But protecting ourselves against religious based terrorism is likewise fundamental. The question is what is the purpose of Trump’s regulation. I can’t say i’m sure.
It seems to me that the Constitution requires a
decision against the baker. In the immigration case, the question is whether the ban is about security or religion. If it’s about religion — and I am not certain— then it has to be struck down. If it’s about security that’s a whole different matter.
24
Perhaps we should consider the religious considerations that this largely Catholic court is willing to impose on all others? What would ISIS do? As atrocious and horrifying as ISIS and Saudi beheadings appear one must recall what Catholics and Protestants did in Europe for centuries. Beheadings, drawing and quartering, strangling, burning at the stake, torture of every kind were done by “both sides” with moral certitude.
Until religion is purged from all aspects of government we are doomed to be hobbled by superstitions that enable anyone to assert moral superiority and elect politicians willing to exploit beliefs and judges and justices to enforce their beliefs on others.
8
Even the security aspect of this case rests on questionable assumptions. As the Washington Post's Philip Bump observed, "Of the 24 [terrorist attacks on US soil] listed above, only two might have been prevented had the perpetrator been subject to the full travel ban Trump has proposed. One would have had to have been rejected at the age of 2. No deaths would have been prevented."
The worst terrorist attack on American soil was largely planned and conducted by citizens of Saudi Arabia. Yet rather than condemn an actual source of terrorism, President Trump reveled in the parade given in his honor by the Saudi princes.
8
When both sides of a religious discrimination case claim their main argument is based on tolerance, one of them is misusing the term. Everyone does not have to tolerate everything otherwise there would be little purpose for most laws and judicial punishment. Tolerance is not legislated; it is a mindset. Discrimination is an action subject to judicial review. We do not have anti-tolerance laws, do we?
16
"Is it a difference that matters?"
It shouldn't; the First Amendment, in addressing the establishment and free exercise of "religion," makes no distinction among various beliefs or sects. But thanks for letting us know how it might. The whole world is watching.
11
The analysis in this op-ed conflates entirely unrelated issues. The baker in Colorado is being compelled to take an act which he does not wish to take - bake a cake endorsing a view of marriage which is contrary to his religious belief. He's not asking anyone else to endorse his religious belief, and the couple in question have multiple other avenues to pursue to obtain their wedding cake (they could even buy an off-the-shelf cake from this baker). The President of the United States in authorized by statute and the Constitution to take certain steps (which he takes 'voluntarily') to protect the safety of the inhabitants of this nation. There is nothing ridiculous about Justice Roberts' question: if steps taken to further national security are subject to challenge from the courts based on various theories of equal protection, then the hypothetical airstrike on Syria illustrates why such an approach is impossible and contrary to the Constitutional duties of the Chief Executive. Every American citizen is entitled to fair treatment under the law; but the baker is not acting 'under the law' as if he were a judge or a police officer - he is a private citizen. It is law which is being used to compel his conduct. If five Muslim countries are subject to a travel ban, many dozens of Muslim countries are not (the vast majority of Muslim countries suffer no such ban).
6
There is no conflation here. Ms Greenhouse stated that the decisions on these two cases would give us all an idea on how our increasingly conservative Supreme Court will trend in the future. Not that the decisions would follow related paths.
2
Um. No. The baker in Colorado is not being "compelled" to do anything. They are, rather, choosing to dress their discriminatory behavior in a cloak of religion. Much like the segregationists in the South used claims of religious belief to justify their refusal to provide hotel rooms and lunch counter space to African-Americans. The clearly more enlightened Supreme Court of the day struck down such discriminatory behavior by noting that anyone *choosing* to enter the marketplace is obligated to serve all customers on an equal basis. Ruling in favor of this baker's claims will open the floodgates of religiously-based discrimination of all sorts.
12
The baker is being asked to provide services to the public- without discrimination.
He need not support the life choices of his clients to do his job.
4
When a business serves the public the religious beliefs of those who either own the business or are employees end at the door to work. You must serve all of the customers who enter your establishment or none of them. The civil rights movement established that businesses were no longer allowed to deny service based on race and those rights should be extended to those facing discrimination based on their gender or sexual orientation. In a free country you cannot allow discrimination towards one group without opening up a slippery slope towards further discrimination.
We make all sorts of accommodations for religious beliefs. But separation between church and state exists for a reason. We're not a theocracy. If the religious right continues to discriminate against people based on their religion the time may come for an expanded equal rights amendment that recognizes that we are all equal regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
224
Freedom of religion applies to individual beliefs, not to "separation of church and state." Lots of other bakeries could have made the cake. This is just another example of citizens of a democracy demanding that their rights supersede the rights of other citizens. Respect for personal rights goes both ways and cannot survive if individual citizens demand their rights at the expense of other citizens who also have rights. It is called respect.
A wedding cake? Give me a break.
30
It's a business, open to the public, and cannot discriminate against anyone who simply wants to purchase its product. Why should I have to travel across town to the Presbyterian baker when the Methodist baker is around the corner from my house?
"Lots of other bakeries could have made the cake." Yes. Until each bakery is given the "right" to refuse goods to others based on "religious" beliefs. At that point, the number
of available other bakeries, particularly in smaller communities, could be drastically reduced or even eliminated. The ones here who seem to be demanding that "their rights supersede the rights of other citizens" are the religious fundamentalists who are now claiming that their beliefs should be given precedence over all other rights. A wedding cake? How about a hotel room? A seat at a lunch counter? A house? Access to contraceptives? Yes, please, give me a break.
98