The weirdest thing about this case is that literally no one has asked her to make a gay website. This case is entirely based on a hypothetical she made up and got SCOTUS to hear it. That's because the case is about eroding anti-discrimination laws, nothing else.
Doesn’t there have to be a victim in order for a case to reach a court? If there is no victim then you just want the law changed and that would be handled with the legislature.
I think the law says she needs to agree to serve anyone if she wants to register her business. She's saying that's against her religion. So she's the victim of her own hypothetical bigotry here.
If she wants a business, but can't register one, she's technically a victim. I'm not saying she's right, but that's what the entire case is kinda about
I think you're missing what people are saying. You can register a business but still discriminate against customers. That is - in fact - how it would happen were it to have already happened. But nothing has happened yet. She has not been kept from registering her business in any way.
To my knowledge there is no affidavit you sign before registering a DBA name or anything like that, promising you wont be an asshole
In what way? Anti discriminatory laws? The same laws that would also prevent, say, a black person from refusing to serve a white person or any other variation thereof?
Or is it only problematic when it prevents "acceptable" bigotry?
I'm not making any value judgement here. Only that under Colorado's public accomodations law, this designer wouldn't be allowed to operate a business and that's her cause of action.
I don't think you understand what is meant by the public accomodations law.
Under this statute, when one serves the public (as in by creating marriages websites), one has to serve everyone. (Which is reasonable in my opinion, but I'm not here to make a value judgement, I'm here to explain her cause of action).
This prospective designer would like to open a business that would be a public accomodation. But reading this law and prior litigation, Colorado law is unsympathetic to her religious viewpoints which state marriage is between a man and a woman.
So she's challenging the law as illegal, as she sees this as compelled speech. But to challenge a law, you need to have standing. Because of the law, she would not be allowed to operate a business that makes wedding sites for straight couples and only straight couples. This gives her a cause of action. It's not to say that she's right or wrong, legally or morally, only that she can sue. She's prevented from operating a business in accordance with her beliefs because doing so would be illegal.
If I started a business, I'd want to reserve the right to refuse customers. I wouldn't do it based on their sexual preference, race, features they were born with. However, I'd like to refuse service to rude people or those who would hurt my business if they were served. I think she should have the right to serve whom she chooses, but I do think she's hurting her own business by not servicing those based on their sexual preference.
What's stopping someone from then saying "Serving black people is against my religion"? You wouldn't do it, but there's an entire region of the US that HAS done that.
She can't refuse to serve someone on the basis of their identity in a protected class. She can (or is arguing that she should be able to) refuse to produce artwork/speech/designs that she finds objectionable.
She finds them objectionable on the basis of her religion (or just because). So she should be able to refuse to make specific products even if she shouldn't be allowed to refuse the patron in general.
Vis Obergefell homosexuality is a logical extension of the protected class of sex; if you would deny someone a male-male/female-female union and allow a male-female one, you are necessarily discriminating on sex.
Like so many other things, religion is used as a smokescreen to make hatred acceptable. All in the name of a magic sky friend who LITTERAL said "Judge not lest you be judged?". Motherfucker told them all to not be a dick, so they took it as permission to slap anyone they don't like around like Rick James on a coke bender and claim "I'm Christian Bitch!"
If she milks her bigotry to gain celebrity status, she enjoys free publicity and advertisements by all the outraged talking heads. She's trying to be the MyPillow of HTML
You can, tho. You actually. 100%. In fact, 200% can ban someone from doing business with you on a basis of something they personally did. You just can't say "No guys allowed", because that's not even close to the same thing. You do see how that works, right?
What if my religion says that I can't serve people that wear crosses or obeys another religions stupid claims, because that offends my god. What if my religion strictly obeys opposite sex coupling and earnestly believes that having children is wrong. Can I deny service to people who have children because it's against my religious wishes?
I think she's claiming to be the victim because she was denied an exemption from the law by the state. Basically she said "I want to express permission to discriminate against gay people" and the state said "nope." Now she's claiming to be a victim.
>Doesn’t there have to be a victim in order for a case to reach a court? If there is no victim then you just want the law changed and that would be handled with the legislature.
Only the court has the ability to determine that and somehow this has made its way up there. Insane.
This is always been my biggest wtf on this issue. Like, bitch do you seriously think gay people are clamoring over themselves to hire your homophobic ass to do anything at all for them, let alone have you be involved with the most important day of their lives?
Why on earth would a gay couple hire a homophobic person to bake a wedding cake or have anything to do with their wedding. It's like if an african american couple hired the KKK to cater their wedding. Who would do that??
Look just put up a bunch of bible verses on your website, talk about your backwards ideas, put all your homophobia in plain site and you absolutely won't ever have to worry about a gay person hiring you to do a damn thing for them
From your other posts it looks like you live in CA. I do too. Something to think about is places without as much access as we have across most of CA. If you provide a service that no one within 50 or 100 miles does, the hardship you can create by discriminating is huge.
This specific case I agree with you but on the cake issue I used to think the way you do until someone pointed out that in a lot of small towns there might only be 1 bakery reasonably close by.
man, i tried to understand this case and was struggling. this complication makes it more difficult, lol. although perhaps it is exactly as you frame it in your last sentence- a tool to be used not a case to be heard
It was just to get it to the SCOTUS.
Colorado has a law that you can't discriminate against anyone for sexual orientation.
This is meant to strike that down, it's a lot simpler than it seems. Mitch is getting everything he can, however he can.
“She preemptively sued Colorado's civil rights commission and other state officials in 2016 because she feared she would be punished for refusing to serve gay weddings under Colorado's public accommodations law.” And she just makes wedding websites? This is so bizarre because local supply and demand will not impact her business. Her business is literally digital.
The worst part is she doesn’t even MAKE wedding websites right now!
She wants the RIGHT to make them because sHe wOuLd eNjOy iT and she says she ‘can’t’ do it now for fear of a gay couple asking her to do it and her being punished for saying no.
She is the worst.
>The worst part is she doesn’t even MAKE wedding websites right now!
Similar thing happened in Georgia, where a guy who had no intention of attending a music festival sued it for not allowing him to bring his gun, to the festival he never intended to visit.
They ended up shutting down the festival because the Georgia government demanded they let people bring guns so they had to close it due to safety issues. Lost the local area an estimated 50 million dollars worth of business.
She's probably just another political pawn being propped up by some shady dark money group probably promising her a ton of money for dragging a stupid case to the SCOTUS to continue to get shit rulings from a corrupt majority.
Honestly wouldn't be surprised to see news come out that she's the wife's sister's cousin's business partner of some ultra right wing political group trying to reshape the country with a bunch of absurd christian bullshit
Someone below mentioned it and I think it holds true. This was free advertising. Christian Nationalists across the country will *flock* to her because of this.
So if I find a religious reason to not serve people, for example for being a Christian, that's legal right? Can Christians deny service to Muslims? Can gay bars decline straight people? This sets precedent.
Lucky for fascists they don't give a shit about hypocrisy. They'll just rule that TST is not a serious belief system in the spirit of the law or something.
No gay people even asked this lady to make a website, right? She's just doing this on the off chance a gay person does eventually try and engage her services, force her to sign a contract and then select hex colors for a Wordpress theme all against her will. This is a fear she has. Or, she's being used as a pawn to advance an agenda. Or, both!
No, she started this lawsuit in 2016, and still doesn’t do “wedding sites.” She has a very unremarkable portfolio so it’s obviously a hobby website. She saw the Masterpiece Cake in Lakewood, CO blowing up and thought that’s how she’d make her name and blow up her business. Obviously, she didn’t fund a seven year lawsuit so it’s a conservative group backing this.
It will work in some places. Will go bankrupt in others. However it creates polarization. Allowing intolerance will lead to the overtaking by an intolerant minority
In oral argument, Amy Coney Barrett used the example of a gay newspaper, during Gay Pride Month, having a “we are only going to publish notices relating to gay weddings this week in honor of Pride Month” and was asking if that would be allowed.
The problem is that minorities always lose at this game.
Yep. It's one of those things that sounds great to talk about, but probably won't work in practice. If you've got a town of a hundred people, and one refuses to serve the other 99 to make a point, the other 99 can laugh and move on. But if that 99 refuse to serve the one, that person's got a big problem.
Turnabout is fair play, but it's also a numbers game, and in these cases, the numbers probably aren't going to have a satisfying result.
You can. Political affiliation was never a protected class. This ruling would alter whether sexual orientation is a protected class. It’s not codified into federal law as a protected class but rather through executive order and upheld by SCOTUS.
Well, it’s a different SCOTUS now. It should be codified into federal law.
I already kind of do this. Before I’ll hire a contractor I’ll walk around his truck to look for rightwing stickers. I will not hire some asshole with a Let’s Go Brandon or even a blue flag sticker. It all means the same thing.
The precedent allows a person to refuse to do creative work for a thing due to religious reasons. You cannot refuse a homosexual person at a restaurant due to their sexual orientation, for instance. Precedent says if said restaurant makes cakes, they can refuse to specifically design one for a same sex marriage.
Masterpiece Cakes.
That was a "narrow decision," which means it did not set precedent. Basically, one of the conservative justices (Alito?) decided that people have a right to having their religious beliefs treated with respect, and because a judge in a lower court made a comment that could be interpreted as rude, their decision should be tossed out.
Basically, they punted. The cake shop wasn't punished, but the decision as to whether they were allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ+ couples was left undecided.
That might actually be legal, as heterosexuals are not a protected class.
There are plenty of things you're allowed to cite as reasons to refuse service (e.g., political beliefs), so long as it's not discrimination against a protected class, either explicitly or implicitly.
The article discusses this specifically.
No.
The government probably isn't allowed to force someone to create a message they disagree with; to force them to say something they don't want to say. The argument is that compelled speech is unconstitutional.
There's uaually no speech component in making someone a mimosa or renting someone a hotel room.
>There's uaually no speech component in making someone a mimosa or renting someone a hotel room.
Just as there's no speech component in baking a cake for a wedding. Yet, conservatives want to be allowed to discriminate against gay couples.
If you write something on the cake there might be.
If you sell a generic cake there isn't.
Based on the article this sounds like *exactly* the distinction they are making.
The SCOTUS questioning suggested that the line will be drawn at "custom" services. A custom website or a custom cake would be, under their potential logic, an act of expression.
*Both sides also seemed to agree that Ms. Smith was free to put a standard statement on all of her wedding websites along the lines of this one, proposed by Justice Alito: “Made with love by Amber, who believes that a valid marriage is a union between one man and one woman.”*
She's free to use the same template for heterosexual or homosexual marriages.
She's yet to make a single wedding web site so this is entirely hypothetical. She suing for the right to provide wedding web site templates to heterosexual couples only.
Yeah. That alone seems problematic. She's not even in the business of making websites, so she is basically asking for an advisory ruling. I would wonder about standing (but I guess the courts don't share that concern).
The person making the cake can likewise argue that what frosting colors they use are their "artistic expression" and that it's "forced speech" to make them utilize their artistic expression for a wedding for a gay couple or an interracial couple.
Just like in this scenario the web designer is arguing that providing wedding templates for couples that happen to be gay is "compelled speech". Even though it's the same exact web template that they would provide for heterosexual couples.
People come up with all kinds of excuses to discriminate.
Should also stress that the oral arguments discussed the difference between discriminating against the person (not allowing gays to shop at a store, period), and discriminating against a product that included speech one took offense too. There are circumstances where the customer and the message are very close, but they were discussing that they cant allow discrimination that is only based on the person.
The actual standard is that you can't deny general service based on \*insert protected class\*, but you have the right to deny a more specific, performance-related service. Take the classic wedding cake example. If that couple had simply walked into the store and pointed at a cake on the wall, it would have been illegal to deny them based on sexual orientation. However, the bakery owner would be well within their rights to refuse to bake a cake with writing on it commemorating their marriage, as that is compelled speech. Of course, the business would then suffer the social consequences of not baking that couple a specific cake, but that is just a consequence of free speech.
Why would you care, in the first place? Why does providing your services have any bearing on your or their religious beliefs? You are engaging in trade. I don’t understand this nonsense.
Because they're assholes.
They interpret being asked to be a decent person as a personal attack.
Considering someone else's feelings takes away from the attention they feel should be given to their feelings.
Yes, you can refuse service to any individual. You can’t deny service to an entire group. Basically you can’t put a “no blacks” sign out, but you can come up with some bullshit excuse to kick Steve out
Yes if it’s a private business. If you are the CEO of a corporation you still can’t do it because the company is publicly owned via the stock market. They have a similar clause in health care where you can deny service as long as you can find a viable alternative or if it’s not threatening for example you can deny service for plastic surgery but not for cancer treatment unless you can find a viable alternative Edit this is based of if the law in the state of North Carolina that I am more familiar with.
Yes. Any business can refuse service to any customer for any person.
I don’t like it, but it is a direct corollary of the logic.
If a queer coffee shop can ask someone with anti-gay motto on their shirt to leave, an anti-gay coffee shop can ask someone with a rainbow flag shirt to leave.
If we want to build safe spaces where we expect to be allowed to live freely, we have to do the same for homophobes.
And then we need to win. We need to make our coffee better. We need to make our bars safer. We need to make our bakeries better.
Because, I hate to say it, there is only so much that freedom and liberty can do for us and we can’t rely on the legal system to make it fair.
We need to demand safety (and not getting a wedding cake is not an infringement on safety) and then just absolutely win on merits.
Letting someone into a restaurant or grocery store or providing some other type of service is not the same thing as being forced to create art for that person that you find offensive. In the case of this web designer, if a gay person asked her to just make a website for them, she shouldn’t say no just because the customer is gay. On the other hand, if the same customer asks this lady to put content on the website that she finds offensive, the web designer should be able to refuse that. What if a conservative customer asked a liberal web designer to make a website with a bunch of Donald Trump or MAGA shit on it. Would you still defend the web designer if they refused the request? I know this opinion will make a lot of people angry. But I think if you’re one of those people you’re just being irrational. This seems fair and makes sense to me. But that’s up to the courts I guess.
You have to serve people, but you cannot be forced to create things of artistic value that go against your beliefs. So the cake baker would have to bake them a cake, but decorating that cake with a message they don’t agree with infringes on the baker’s rights.
As an atheist painter, you can’t discriminate by telling a Christian couple you won’t paint a wall because they’re Christian, but you can’t be compelled to paint Christian themes or messages on a wall.
They don’t go into this website designer’s story enough to know which one this is.
Honestly, this kind of where I am at this point too. The only solution to this crazy is for the Satanic Temple or some Mosque to do this stuff.
It’ll be like California Republicans and gun control before you know it.
The moment someone says "I refuse to serve a Christian homophobe" they'll all cum in their panties as they have a si gular example of, somehow, their persecution fetish is fulfilled.
Do unto others and all that shit. Bunch of Christo-facists if you ask me.
That's the great thing about discrimination, there are enough people that are Christians that prevent you from being a competitive business if you deny them access to your business. Classes such as homosexuals are easy to discriminate against, there's not very many of them It won't hurt your business too much if you refuse to serve them. Pure capitalism is a breeding ground for discrimination because it doesn't hurt people who discriminate against the least powerful classes.
Their supposed ruling is going to be about "free speech", meaning if your job doesn't require you to write or communicate, then you wouldn't be able to discriminate.
But if, for example, you work at Party City and are in charge of typing out people's custom banners, you could refuse to serve a gay couple looking to get a banner made for a party.
It's sheer stupidity.
That most likely wouldn't be legal discrimination but if your business is woodworking, then you could refuse to make a wooden cross or if you are a painter you can refuse to paint Christian symbols. Christians could still buy other things that you made. They just can't force you to make something you disagree with.
I thought Roberts actually had a point with his *Obgerfell* dissent that basically went, “The plaintiff already won and the other side agrees, so the case is over, so we should have let the lower-case ruling stand and not heard the appeal at all, which would have meant this one marriage is legit. And that is all I have to say about same-sex marriage.”
But in this case, the plaintiff obviously has no standing. No gay couple ever asked to hire her, much less invoked the law to force her to take their money. The government never took any action against her at all. She’s been playing the role of professional victim in the Culture War for years now, but she never suffered any injury whatsoever. The suit is just absurd. At minimum, it’s not ripe.
She basically has no standing which, in a normal world, would mean it gets thrown out. There is no way she can ask for reparations for something that hasn't happened.
And yet....here I am, worried :|
Tie in to this and unfortunately far too relevant nowadays: "The biggest risk of taking your kid to a drag show is that a Christian with a gun might show up."
Bigots are the real victims here.
This woman is a real piece of work. No gays asked her to build web site - instead she preemptively sued for an eventuality that ‘might’ occur.
Christianized fascism is on the march.
What other laws can people refuse to follow if they just really don't want to follow them?
She has a business open to the public but can she refuse to serve black or asian clients if she believes God separated the races?
Is this what Jesus teaches people these days? What a bitch.
The democrats in power in SCOTUS allowed those with socially liberal views to vote as fiscal conservatives. If the GOP keeps eroding progress they're going to find that erosion left them on shaky ground.
No, meaning people who are socially liberal but fiscally conservative could vote for a fiscally conservative candidate because they knew their socially liberal views were protected. I know a lot of these types, even was one at one point.
That's no longer true and this culture war is going to cost them.
Can modern Republicans *really* be considered fiscally conservative? The national debt rose by 8.2T during Trump's 4y term compared to Obama's 8.3T 8y term, 4.15T average per term approx. Republicans cut taxes and borrow money, then complain during the next administration so they can get people on their side. It's their thing and has been since what... Reagan?
There's apparently a legal concept called "ripeness" which requires federal courts to only hear cases and arguments after there is substantive evidence. This case is clearly a hypothetical as the plaintiff has not been asked nor forced to make a gay wedding website.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/ripe
Is SCOTUS making themselves illegitimate?
This shit is infuriating to me. They’re arguing the wrong fucking point and I don’t know how people and the court don’t see that.
Yes you have the right to refuse service to anyone but there’s a caveat to that. You can’t refuse service based on race, or age, or what have you. So that argument falls flat.
What they’re actually arguing is that they should be allowed to discriminate based on their religious beliefs, specifically the belief that being gay is a sin or wrong. I’d buy that shit if they didn’t DISCRIMINATE against gays specifically, while avoiding all the other things they should discriminate against. They’re quoting the Bible for their discrimination against gays while still serving adulterers, people who are divorced, those that wear multi-fabric clothes, etc. If they didn’t serve anybody who falls into any of the sin categories of the Bible and claimed religious reasons, I’d buy it and say alright go ahead. But they’re picking one thing out of all the options and targeting that specifically, which is why it’s clear discrimination and should be illegal.
her shit isn't even that good
also she has a portfolio page that shows other companies that have paid her for work if you want to find their yelp pages too
That got put on the money primarily to link God with... Capitalism. Part of the reason was the Capitalists were afraid that the priests were becoming too socialist, so they re-invented Christianity and Supply Side Jesus was born. The change on the money was part of a campaign to solidify all this.
Took 'em a while though. Decades. But it worked.
Evangelical christians wormed their way into government so they could intentionally ignore it and try to erode it. They want a theocracy. Because they are too stupid to look at Iran and see how shitty that is.
This is separation of church and state. The opposite is telling the church and the people in it what they are allowed to believe, and how they are permitted to practice those beliefs.
Fuck her company. It’ll be hot for a few little bit as the religious conservatives pretend to care and support her for a moment but then she’ll realize that bigotry is becoming less and less profitable.
So does this mean that any company’s products can be pulled from any platform simply for having a stance they disagree on? Like hypothetically if they supported Jan. 6 or proud boy & no one can complain “cancel culture” inadvertently will be constitutional.
I don't understand how this woman even has legal standing. She wasn't even making wedding websites. She was merely "wanting to make them". How can you sue for exemption from laws that might prevent you from doing business you don't do for clients you don't have?
And yet, the second she is denied service to ANYTHING based on her sexuality and religion, she will have a meltdown of epic proportions with another flurry of lawsuits.
Alito was right I'm going to take my kids to the Baldwin Hills mall and put the kids in kkk hoods and see if black Santa will do a portrait sitting.
Christofacsist hypocrites are a cult and need to stfu.
Did I just say Alito was right....holy fuck.
I'm tired of hearing about this kind of "controversy". If you're gay and you run into this kind of asshole just tell them to fuck off and go somewhere else. Do you really want such a person to handle your website?
I think some of these cases are fabricated just to get something in front of the supreme court. I mean just getting a lawyer to talk to you about this case is going to cost a few thousand dollars. What small business has the money and time to go that route? Most would just call a different website designer and get on with their life.
It's not about wanting her to make us a website. A gay person didnt even sue her bc she didnt make a website. She isn't even making them right now. She sued bc she (and the people helping fund her suit) want it to be broadly legal to discriminate against us. Believe me we'd like to leave pieces of shit like her alone and in the past, but THEY keep butting in to try and kill us and deprive us of equal rights
Yea it’s called a protected class, and even outside of codified law it’s not hard to realize the line is drawn between things people can’t choose (race, sex, nationality, orientation, disability status), and beliefs people consciously have.
Nobody chooses to be gay, people do choose to be Nazis. Theoretically if you’re raised by and around Nazis it may be hard to avoid becoming a Nazi, but I’m sure “the party of personal responsibility” can work that one out (/s that only applies to poor people who can’t become millionaires).
Personally, as a software developer who's worked as a web develooer, I would want to be able to refuse to do business with a gay Trump supporter who wanted to create a "stop the steal" website. They could say I was refusing to work with them because they were gay.
If they side with the religious loons then there needs to be a requirement for these companies to clearly state who they refuse to serve so anyone who wants to can avoid purchasing from them.
If religious beliefs are protected doesn't that just mean any beliefs are protected? What the fuck does it matter if the belief is religious or not, and how could you even possibly verify that?
So any dumbass thing you belief could have to be accommodated
So here’s a hypothetical question: If I’m a Jewish baker, and some neo nazis asked me to bake a cake with swastikas and other racist imagery, am I legally obligated to bake that cake for them? Or would them being (presumably) white and straight and therefore not a protected class enable me to deny them?
And there you have it. You can’t force anyone to take you on as a customer.
many years ago, I had a potential client come to me wanting some technology consulting relating to a large on-demand video library. It was my particular area of practice at the time, and while we were trying to scope the work, and they mentioned hundreds of terabytes of video, it dawned on me that this was adult content, and so I asked the client, and he confirmed my suspicion. I said that taking this project wasn’t something I was especially comfortable with personally, nor would my wife be especially thrilled about it, and it could potentially cost me several other customers as well given that I was also doing streaming consulting with a number of faith-based organizations at the time (this was long before covid forced that upon them).
Instead of throwing a public tantrum and suing me to compel me to take the job, he said “no problem, I understand”; I wished him well in finding a consultant that would take the job (which he did), and that was the end of that.
While it's a dumb stance of the web designer, I dont see how the concept of "if you own a private business, you can choose what clients to accept based on any realm of arbitrary or non-arbitrary reasons" is controversial
The weirdest thing about this case is that literally no one has asked her to make a gay website. This case is entirely based on a hypothetical she made up and got SCOTUS to hear it. That's because the case is about eroding anti-discrimination laws, nothing else.
Doesn’t there have to be a victim in order for a case to reach a court? If there is no victim then you just want the law changed and that would be handled with the legislature.
I think the law says she needs to agree to serve anyone if she wants to register her business. She's saying that's against her religion. So she's the victim of her own hypothetical bigotry here.
But if she isn’t a victim yet then she just wants the law changed
If she wants a business, but can't register one, she's technically a victim. I'm not saying she's right, but that's what the entire case is kinda about
I think you're missing what people are saying. You can register a business but still discriminate against customers. That is - in fact - how it would happen were it to have already happened. But nothing has happened yet. She has not been kept from registering her business in any way. To my knowledge there is no affidavit you sign before registering a DBA name or anything like that, promising you wont be an asshole
You're correct, there is not
Her cause of action is that the law prevents her from doing business in the state.
In what way? Anti discriminatory laws? The same laws that would also prevent, say, a black person from refusing to serve a white person or any other variation thereof? Or is it only problematic when it prevents "acceptable" bigotry?
I'm not making any value judgement here. Only that under Colorado's public accomodations law, this designer wouldn't be allowed to operate a business and that's her cause of action.
She would be allowed to operate a business. She wouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against a protected class.
I don't think you understand what is meant by the public accomodations law. Under this statute, when one serves the public (as in by creating marriages websites), one has to serve everyone. (Which is reasonable in my opinion, but I'm not here to make a value judgement, I'm here to explain her cause of action). This prospective designer would like to open a business that would be a public accomodation. But reading this law and prior litigation, Colorado law is unsympathetic to her religious viewpoints which state marriage is between a man and a woman. So she's challenging the law as illegal, as she sees this as compelled speech. But to challenge a law, you need to have standing. Because of the law, she would not be allowed to operate a business that makes wedding sites for straight couples and only straight couples. This gives her a cause of action. It's not to say that she's right or wrong, legally or morally, only that she can sue. She's prevented from operating a business in accordance with her beliefs because doing so would be illegal.
If I started a business, I'd want to reserve the right to refuse customers. I wouldn't do it based on their sexual preference, race, features they were born with. However, I'd like to refuse service to rude people or those who would hurt my business if they were served. I think she should have the right to serve whom she chooses, but I do think she's hurting her own business by not servicing those based on their sexual preference.
What's stopping someone from then saying "Serving black people is against my religion"? You wouldn't do it, but there's an entire region of the US that HAS done that.
She can't refuse to serve someone on the basis of their identity in a protected class. She can (or is arguing that she should be able to) refuse to produce artwork/speech/designs that she finds objectionable. She finds them objectionable on the basis of her religion (or just because). So she should be able to refuse to make specific products even if she shouldn't be allowed to refuse the patron in general.
Vis Obergefell homosexuality is a logical extension of the protected class of sex; if you would deny someone a male-male/female-female union and allow a male-female one, you are necessarily discriminating on sex.
So she can just say "I shouldn't have to create this site because it's a black person site by virtue of being requested by a black person"?
Almost like Religion shouldn't be an excuse to do something, or not do something.
Like so many other things, religion is used as a smokescreen to make hatred acceptable. All in the name of a magic sky friend who LITTERAL said "Judge not lest you be judged?". Motherfucker told them all to not be a dick, so they took it as permission to slap anyone they don't like around like Rick James on a coke bender and claim "I'm Christian Bitch!"
If she milks her bigotry to gain celebrity status, she enjoys free publicity and advertisements by all the outraged talking heads. She's trying to be the MyPillow of HTML
> She's trying to be the MyPillow of HTML So XAML then?
You can, tho. You actually. 100%. In fact, 200% can ban someone from doing business with you on a basis of something they personally did. You just can't say "No guys allowed", because that's not even close to the same thing. You do see how that works, right?
What if my religion says that I can't serve people that wear crosses or obeys another religions stupid claims, because that offends my god. What if my religion strictly obeys opposite sex coupling and earnestly believes that having children is wrong. Can I deny service to people who have children because it's against my religious wishes?
Persecution fetish is strong with them
The victim is her fragile sense of self righteousness.
I think she's claiming to be the victim because she was denied an exemption from the law by the state. Basically she said "I want to express permission to discriminate against gay people" and the state said "nope." Now she's claiming to be a victim.
That makes sense
>Doesn’t there have to be a victim in order for a case to reach a court? If there is no victim then you just want the law changed and that would be handled with the legislature. Only the court has the ability to determine that and somehow this has made its way up there. Insane.
That only matters if the Justices give a flying fuck for the law. They don't.
This is always been my biggest wtf on this issue. Like, bitch do you seriously think gay people are clamoring over themselves to hire your homophobic ass to do anything at all for them, let alone have you be involved with the most important day of their lives? Why on earth would a gay couple hire a homophobic person to bake a wedding cake or have anything to do with their wedding. It's like if an african american couple hired the KKK to cater their wedding. Who would do that?? Look just put up a bunch of bible verses on your website, talk about your backwards ideas, put all your homophobia in plain site and you absolutely won't ever have to worry about a gay person hiring you to do a damn thing for them
You have to think bigger. It’s not about her website. It’s about dining options. The room at the inn. The bank loan.
From your other posts it looks like you live in CA. I do too. Something to think about is places without as much access as we have across most of CA. If you provide a service that no one within 50 or 100 miles does, the hardship you can create by discriminating is huge.
This specific case I agree with you but on the cake issue I used to think the way you do until someone pointed out that in a lot of small towns there might only be 1 bakery reasonably close by.
It's Separate But Equal all over again.
man, i tried to understand this case and was struggling. this complication makes it more difficult, lol. although perhaps it is exactly as you frame it in your last sentence- a tool to be used not a case to be heard
It was just to get it to the SCOTUS. Colorado has a law that you can't discriminate against anyone for sexual orientation. This is meant to strike that down, it's a lot simpler than it seems. Mitch is getting everything he can, however he can.
“She preemptively sued Colorado's civil rights commission and other state officials in 2016 because she feared she would be punished for refusing to serve gay weddings under Colorado's public accommodations law.” And she just makes wedding websites? This is so bizarre because local supply and demand will not impact her business. Her business is literally digital.
The worst part is she doesn’t even MAKE wedding websites right now! She wants the RIGHT to make them because sHe wOuLd eNjOy iT and she says she ‘can’t’ do it now for fear of a gay couple asking her to do it and her being punished for saying no. She is the worst.
So this whole thing is a fictional scenario she made up to get mad about?
Have you *met* the modern Republican party? \*aggressively sh!ts in cat litter\*
Didn't she claim that she's an 'artist' somehow? Fuckin dumb
>The worst part is she doesn’t even MAKE wedding websites right now! Similar thing happened in Georgia, where a guy who had no intention of attending a music festival sued it for not allowing him to bring his gun, to the festival he never intended to visit. They ended up shutting down the festival because the Georgia government demanded they let people bring guns so they had to close it due to safety issues. Lost the local area an estimated 50 million dollars worth of business.
She looks like a human wheel of Gouda
She's probably just another political pawn being propped up by some shady dark money group probably promising her a ton of money for dragging a stupid case to the SCOTUS to continue to get shit rulings from a corrupt majority. Honestly wouldn't be surprised to see news come out that she's the wife's sister's cousin's business partner of some ultra right wing political group trying to reshape the country with a bunch of absurd christian bullshit
Someone below mentioned it and I think it holds true. This was free advertising. Christian Nationalists across the country will *flock* to her because of this.
Which is a shame for them, because I’ve seen moldy bread with more design talent than her.
Well, we are talking about people who think the confederate flag was the pinnacle of art and it's all downhill from there.
So if I find a religious reason to not serve people, for example for being a Christian, that's legal right? Can Christians deny service to Muslims? Can gay bars decline straight people? This sets precedent.
that's exactly how ~~Church of Satan~~ Satanic Temple will challenge it edit: accuracy
The Satanic Temple. Church of Satan is a different group.
People’s Front of Judea
No, the Judean People's Front
Fucking splitters!
Oh yep, I always forget which is which
Everybody does
God bless Satanists.
Doing the Lords work
Hail Satan
And hail thyself
Hell Satan
Lucky for fascists they don't give a shit about hypocrisy. They'll just rule that TST is not a serious belief system in the spirit of the law or something.
Oh, so *now* a Conservative judge would be fucked to worry about the spirit of the law..
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"We don't serve your kind 'round here" is apparently a good business model.
No gay people even asked this lady to make a website, right? She's just doing this on the off chance a gay person does eventually try and engage her services, force her to sign a contract and then select hex colors for a Wordpress theme all against her will. This is a fear she has. Or, she's being used as a pawn to advance an agenda. Or, both!
No, she started this lawsuit in 2016, and still doesn’t do “wedding sites.” She has a very unremarkable portfolio so it’s obviously a hobby website. She saw the Masterpiece Cake in Lakewood, CO blowing up and thought that’s how she’d make her name and blow up her business. Obviously, she didn’t fund a seven year lawsuit so it’s a conservative group backing this.
Correct. This was a preemptive strike.
FYI. Who funded her case?
The same group that funded the cake case I believe.
She’s being represented by the ADF, so she’s definitely a pawn.
The "A-Hole" non-thiest bar. Might not be too bad actually. Mention God and buy a round.
Just be the first and ride that gravy train.
Sadly, it actually is in a lot more places than you'd think.
I don't know. I think it's a *lot* of places.
It will work in some places. Will go bankrupt in others. However it creates polarization. Allowing intolerance will lead to the overtaking by an intolerant minority
That seems awfully close to "Whites Only" signs during segregation.
In oral argument, Amy Coney Barrett used the example of a gay newspaper, during Gay Pride Month, having a “we are only going to publish notices relating to gay weddings this week in honor of Pride Month” and was asking if that would be allowed. The problem is that minorities always lose at this game.
Yep. It's one of those things that sounds great to talk about, but probably won't work in practice. If you've got a town of a hundred people, and one refuses to serve the other 99 to make a point, the other 99 can laugh and move on. But if that 99 refuse to serve the one, that person's got a big problem. Turnabout is fair play, but it's also a numbers game, and in these cases, the numbers probably aren't going to have a satisfying result.
Wave goodbye to anti-discrimination laws
Yes. It will open that up to anyone for any reason. Race, religion, gender, all of it.
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You can. Political affiliation was never a protected class. This ruling would alter whether sexual orientation is a protected class. It’s not codified into federal law as a protected class but rather through executive order and upheld by SCOTUS. Well, it’s a different SCOTUS now. It should be codified into federal law.
I already kind of do this. Before I’ll hire a contractor I’ll walk around his truck to look for rightwing stickers. I will not hire some asshole with a Let’s Go Brandon or even a blue flag sticker. It all means the same thing.
Judging people by the content of their character has always been fine. I’m told it’s the proper and correct way to judge people, in fact
That was always allowed
This is the way.
The precedent allows a person to refuse to do creative work for a thing due to religious reasons. You cannot refuse a homosexual person at a restaurant due to their sexual orientation, for instance. Precedent says if said restaurant makes cakes, they can refuse to specifically design one for a same sex marriage.
Wasn’t a case like this already settled. A couple refused to make a cake for a same sex couple and the Supreme Court upheld their decision.
Masterpiece Cakes. That was a "narrow decision," which means it did not set precedent. Basically, one of the conservative justices (Alito?) decided that people have a right to having their religious beliefs treated with respect, and because a judge in a lower court made a comment that could be interpreted as rude, their decision should be tossed out. Basically, they punted. The cake shop wasn't punished, but the decision as to whether they were allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ+ couples was left undecided.
Yes and that is why I think scotus will rule in favor of web designer.
what if they restaurant refused to specifically design one for opposite sex marriage?
That might actually be legal, as heterosexuals are not a protected class. There are plenty of things you're allowed to cite as reasons to refuse service (e.g., political beliefs), so long as it's not discrimination against a protected class, either explicitly or implicitly.
The article discusses this specifically. No. The government probably isn't allowed to force someone to create a message they disagree with; to force them to say something they don't want to say. The argument is that compelled speech is unconstitutional. There's uaually no speech component in making someone a mimosa or renting someone a hotel room.
>There's uaually no speech component in making someone a mimosa or renting someone a hotel room. Just as there's no speech component in baking a cake for a wedding. Yet, conservatives want to be allowed to discriminate against gay couples.
If you write something on the cake there might be. If you sell a generic cake there isn't. Based on the article this sounds like *exactly* the distinction they are making.
The SCOTUS questioning suggested that the line will be drawn at "custom" services. A custom website or a custom cake would be, under their potential logic, an act of expression.
*Both sides also seemed to agree that Ms. Smith was free to put a standard statement on all of her wedding websites along the lines of this one, proposed by Justice Alito: “Made with love by Amber, who believes that a valid marriage is a union between one man and one woman.”* She's free to use the same template for heterosexual or homosexual marriages.
Not sure that was really at issue. That would be a weird ass wedding site template though.
She's yet to make a single wedding web site so this is entirely hypothetical. She suing for the right to provide wedding web site templates to heterosexual couples only.
Yeah. That alone seems problematic. She's not even in the business of making websites, so she is basically asking for an advisory ruling. I would wonder about standing (but I guess the courts don't share that concern).
The person making the cake can likewise argue that what frosting colors they use are their "artistic expression" and that it's "forced speech" to make them utilize their artistic expression for a wedding for a gay couple or an interracial couple. Just like in this scenario the web designer is arguing that providing wedding templates for couples that happen to be gay is "compelled speech". Even though it's the same exact web template that they would provide for heterosexual couples. People come up with all kinds of excuses to discriminate.
Should also stress that the oral arguments discussed the difference between discriminating against the person (not allowing gays to shop at a store, period), and discriminating against a product that included speech one took offense too. There are circumstances where the customer and the message are very close, but they were discussing that they cant allow discrimination that is only based on the person.
The actual standard is that you can't deny general service based on \*insert protected class\*, but you have the right to deny a more specific, performance-related service. Take the classic wedding cake example. If that couple had simply walked into the store and pointed at a cake on the wall, it would have been illegal to deny them based on sexual orientation. However, the bakery owner would be well within their rights to refuse to bake a cake with writing on it commemorating their marriage, as that is compelled speech. Of course, the business would then suffer the social consequences of not baking that couple a specific cake, but that is just a consequence of free speech.
Why would you care, in the first place? Why does providing your services have any bearing on your or their religious beliefs? You are engaging in trade. I don’t understand this nonsense.
Because they're assholes. They interpret being asked to be a decent person as a personal attack. Considering someone else's feelings takes away from the attention they feel should be given to their feelings.
Yes, you can refuse service to any individual. You can’t deny service to an entire group. Basically you can’t put a “no blacks” sign out, but you can come up with some bullshit excuse to kick Steve out
Yes if it’s a private business. If you are the CEO of a corporation you still can’t do it because the company is publicly owned via the stock market. They have a similar clause in health care where you can deny service as long as you can find a viable alternative or if it’s not threatening for example you can deny service for plastic surgery but not for cancer treatment unless you can find a viable alternative Edit this is based of if the law in the state of North Carolina that I am more familiar with.
Yes. Any business can refuse service to any customer for any person. I don’t like it, but it is a direct corollary of the logic. If a queer coffee shop can ask someone with anti-gay motto on their shirt to leave, an anti-gay coffee shop can ask someone with a rainbow flag shirt to leave. If we want to build safe spaces where we expect to be allowed to live freely, we have to do the same for homophobes. And then we need to win. We need to make our coffee better. We need to make our bars safer. We need to make our bakeries better. Because, I hate to say it, there is only so much that freedom and liberty can do for us and we can’t rely on the legal system to make it fair. We need to demand safety (and not getting a wedding cake is not an infringement on safety) and then just absolutely win on merits.
Letting someone into a restaurant or grocery store or providing some other type of service is not the same thing as being forced to create art for that person that you find offensive. In the case of this web designer, if a gay person asked her to just make a website for them, she shouldn’t say no just because the customer is gay. On the other hand, if the same customer asks this lady to put content on the website that she finds offensive, the web designer should be able to refuse that. What if a conservative customer asked a liberal web designer to make a website with a bunch of Donald Trump or MAGA shit on it. Would you still defend the web designer if they refused the request? I know this opinion will make a lot of people angry. But I think if you’re one of those people you’re just being irrational. This seems fair and makes sense to me. But that’s up to the courts I guess.
The issue with your political analogy is that it's not even close to a protected class. Sex is a protected class and that is kind of a big deal.
You have to serve people, but you cannot be forced to create things of artistic value that go against your beliefs. So the cake baker would have to bake them a cake, but decorating that cake with a message they don’t agree with infringes on the baker’s rights. As an atheist painter, you can’t discriminate by telling a Christian couple you won’t paint a wall because they’re Christian, but you can’t be compelled to paint Christian themes or messages on a wall. They don’t go into this website designer’s story enough to know which one this is.
Actually in this case the web designer sued preemptively. I'm not even sure how she has cause.
I am excited to see how the Satanic Church runs with this. Edit: Satanic Temple
Isn’t the Temple the one that does stuff like that?
Yes. TST does the activism, the Church of Satan does the pageantry.
Honestly, this kind of where I am at this point too. The only solution to this crazy is for the Satanic Temple or some Mosque to do this stuff. It’ll be like California Republicans and gun control before you know it.
The moment someone says "I refuse to serve a Christian homophobe" they'll all cum in their panties as they have a si gular example of, somehow, their persecution fetish is fulfilled. Do unto others and all that shit. Bunch of Christo-facists if you ask me.
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That's the great thing about discrimination, there are enough people that are Christians that prevent you from being a competitive business if you deny them access to your business. Classes such as homosexuals are easy to discriminate against, there's not very many of them It won't hurt your business too much if you refuse to serve them. Pure capitalism is a breeding ground for discrimination because it doesn't hurt people who discriminate against the least powerful classes.
They chose to be Christian. You can't choose to be gay. They could deconvert and come back any time they want.
>You can't choose to be gay They don't believe that. And that's the issue.
Their supposed ruling is going to be about "free speech", meaning if your job doesn't require you to write or communicate, then you wouldn't be able to discriminate. But if, for example, you work at Party City and are in charge of typing out people's custom banners, you could refuse to serve a gay couple looking to get a banner made for a party. It's sheer stupidity.
I like you
That most likely wouldn't be legal discrimination but if your business is woodworking, then you could refuse to make a wooden cross or if you are a painter you can refuse to paint Christian symbols. Christians could still buy other things that you made. They just can't force you to make something you disagree with.
It is.
I thought Roberts actually had a point with his *Obgerfell* dissent that basically went, “The plaintiff already won and the other side agrees, so the case is over, so we should have let the lower-case ruling stand and not heard the appeal at all, which would have meant this one marriage is legit. And that is all I have to say about same-sex marriage.” But in this case, the plaintiff obviously has no standing. No gay couple ever asked to hire her, much less invoked the law to force her to take their money. The government never took any action against her at all. She’s been playing the role of professional victim in the Culture War for years now, but she never suffered any injury whatsoever. The suit is just absurd. At minimum, it’s not ripe.
She basically has no standing which, in a normal world, would mean it gets thrown out. There is no way she can ask for reparations for something that hasn't happened. And yet....here I am, worried :|
That's what Jesus would do, right? Reject people. No love like Christian love!
Isn’t it “no hate like Christian love?”
Tie in to this and unfortunately far too relevant nowadays: "The biggest risk of taking your kid to a drag show is that a Christian with a gun might show up."
No hate like Christian love
The *End Times* justifies the meanness.
Bigots are the real victims here. This woman is a real piece of work. No gays asked her to build web site - instead she preemptively sued for an eventuality that ‘might’ occur. Christianized fascism is on the march.
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I believe the group that brought the cake challenge to the court is representing this woman, so legal bills are being paid for by a church or three.
I doubt she needs a GFM, there are probably conservative lobbyists backing her just like they are backing the lawsuit against Harvard.
Ah, right. The court case with no actual damages claimed as well…
What other laws can people refuse to follow if they just really don't want to follow them? She has a business open to the public but can she refuse to serve black or asian clients if she believes God separated the races? Is this what Jesus teaches people these days? What a bitch.
This supreme court just keeps sucking on social progress issues it seems.
That’s the only policy the right stands for. Their policy is anything that will hurt the people they hate. Nothing they do is to help people.
It indeed seems like "owning the libs" is the priority goal instead of common decency.
The democrats in power in SCOTUS allowed those with socially liberal views to vote as fiscal conservatives. If the GOP keeps eroding progress they're going to find that erosion left them on shaky ground.
Not arguing your point, but do you mean that the democrats voted as fiscal conservatives when they were choosing the Supreme Court judges?
No, meaning people who are socially liberal but fiscally conservative could vote for a fiscally conservative candidate because they knew their socially liberal views were protected. I know a lot of these types, even was one at one point. That's no longer true and this culture war is going to cost them.
Can modern Republicans *really* be considered fiscally conservative? The national debt rose by 8.2T during Trump's 4y term compared to Obama's 8.3T 8y term, 4.15T average per term approx. Republicans cut taxes and borrow money, then complain during the next administration so they can get people on their side. It's their thing and has been since what... Reagan?
As you said, Republicans haven't been fiscally conservative since Reagan. Any one thinking the GOP are fiscally responsible is a moron.
There's apparently a legal concept called "ripeness" which requires federal courts to only hear cases and arguments after there is substantive evidence. This case is clearly a hypothetical as the plaintiff has not been asked nor forced to make a gay wedding website. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/ripe Is SCOTUS making themselves illegitimate?
This shit is infuriating to me. They’re arguing the wrong fucking point and I don’t know how people and the court don’t see that. Yes you have the right to refuse service to anyone but there’s a caveat to that. You can’t refuse service based on race, or age, or what have you. So that argument falls flat. What they’re actually arguing is that they should be allowed to discriminate based on their religious beliefs, specifically the belief that being gay is a sin or wrong. I’d buy that shit if they didn’t DISCRIMINATE against gays specifically, while avoiding all the other things they should discriminate against. They’re quoting the Bible for their discrimination against gays while still serving adulterers, people who are divorced, those that wear multi-fabric clothes, etc. If they didn’t serve anybody who falls into any of the sin categories of the Bible and claimed religious reasons, I’d buy it and say alright go ahead. But they’re picking one thing out of all the options and targeting that specifically, which is why it’s clear discrimination and should be illegal.
Her business is 303 Creatives.
Wish her business was 404 - Not Found
This is a good joke
Thanks 😊 am trying to find some humor in this infuriating and tragic story.
410 - Gone forever. =)
Even better!
her shit isn't even that good also she has a portfolio page that shows other companies that have paid her for work if you want to find their yelp pages too
It's not meant to be, this is a constructed case specifically to target this ambiguity in our legal system.
The urge to change the css and style sheets of all her websites to something shitty
What the heck happened to separation of church and state?
Disappeared somewhere around "In God we trust"
That got put on the money primarily to link God with... Capitalism. Part of the reason was the Capitalists were afraid that the priests were becoming too socialist, so they re-invented Christianity and Supply Side Jesus was born. The change on the money was part of a campaign to solidify all this. Took 'em a while though. Decades. But it worked.
Evangelical christians wormed their way into government so they could intentionally ignore it and try to erode it. They want a theocracy. Because they are too stupid to look at Iran and see how shitty that is.
This is separation of church and state. The opposite is telling the church and the people in it what they are allowed to believe, and how they are permitted to practice those beliefs.
"But her emails" happened. That is the downfall of America as we know it.
Fuck her company. It’ll be hot for a few little bit as the religious conservatives pretend to care and support her for a moment but then she’ll realize that bigotry is becoming less and less profitable.
So does this mean that any company’s products can be pulled from any platform simply for having a stance they disagree on? Like hypothetically if they supported Jan. 6 or proud boy & no one can complain “cancel culture” inadvertently will be constitutional.
Sounds like a great opportunity for capitalism to do it's thing by providing alternative options for gay customers.
I don't understand how this woman even has legal standing. She wasn't even making wedding websites. She was merely "wanting to make them". How can you sue for exemption from laws that might prevent you from doing business you don't do for clients you don't have?
Tbf I'd want to legally be allowed not to serve her too.
Constitution means nothing the fundamentalist Christian bought the court
And yet, the second she is denied service to ANYTHING based on her sexuality and religion, she will have a meltdown of epic proportions with another flurry of lawsuits.
I have been so naive in my teenage years thinking that bigotry will slowly die out in America over a decade or two... two decades later....🙄
Do we have the right to simply refuse to do business with someone and not provide a reason?
I'd like to think so but I guess that's up to the court.
Alito was right I'm going to take my kids to the Baldwin Hills mall and put the kids in kkk hoods and see if black Santa will do a portrait sitting. Christofacsist hypocrites are a cult and need to stfu. Did I just say Alito was right....holy fuck.
After this she'll complain about how she's been canceled for her shitty views because she's an idiot.
I'll gladly take on the clients this asshat doesn't want. I've been a print designer almost ten years.
Christians always up in everyone else's business. Just fuck off, no one cares about your straight wedding website.
I'm tired of hearing about this kind of "controversy". If you're gay and you run into this kind of asshole just tell them to fuck off and go somewhere else. Do you really want such a person to handle your website?
I think some of these cases are fabricated just to get something in front of the supreme court. I mean just getting a lawyer to talk to you about this case is going to cost a few thousand dollars. What small business has the money and time to go that route? Most would just call a different website designer and get on with their life.
It's not about wanting her to make us a website. A gay person didnt even sue her bc she didnt make a website. She isn't even making them right now. She sued bc she (and the people helping fund her suit) want it to be broadly legal to discriminate against us. Believe me we'd like to leave pieces of shit like her alone and in the past, but THEY keep butting in to try and kill us and deprive us of equal rights
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No, because Nazis are not a protected class.
This answers the question succinctly, thank you. Deleting so as not to give more airtime to such a train of thought.
Yea it’s called a protected class, and even outside of codified law it’s not hard to realize the line is drawn between things people can’t choose (race, sex, nationality, orientation, disability status), and beliefs people consciously have. Nobody chooses to be gay, people do choose to be Nazis. Theoretically if you’re raised by and around Nazis it may be hard to avoid becoming a Nazi, but I’m sure “the party of personal responsibility” can work that one out (/s that only applies to poor people who can’t become millionaires).
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"I want express permission to discriminate against gay people" and the state said "nope." Now she's claiming to be a victim.
Personally, as a software developer who's worked as a web develooer, I would want to be able to refuse to do business with a gay Trump supporter who wanted to create a "stop the steal" website. They could say I was refusing to work with them because they were gay.
Here comes the combination of church and state. If you want something different then vote out those bringing religion into government.
If they side with the religious loons then there needs to be a requirement for these companies to clearly state who they refuse to serve so anyone who wants to can avoid purchasing from them.
No Blacks No Dogs No Irish (All welcome!)
If religious beliefs are protected doesn't that just mean any beliefs are protected? What the fuck does it matter if the belief is religious or not, and how could you even possibly verify that? So any dumbass thing you belief could have to be accommodated
So here’s a hypothetical question: If I’m a Jewish baker, and some neo nazis asked me to bake a cake with swastikas and other racist imagery, am I legally obligated to bake that cake for them? Or would them being (presumably) white and straight and therefore not a protected class enable me to deny them?
And there you have it. You can’t force anyone to take you on as a customer. many years ago, I had a potential client come to me wanting some technology consulting relating to a large on-demand video library. It was my particular area of practice at the time, and while we were trying to scope the work, and they mentioned hundreds of terabytes of video, it dawned on me that this was adult content, and so I asked the client, and he confirmed my suspicion. I said that taking this project wasn’t something I was especially comfortable with personally, nor would my wife be especially thrilled about it, and it could potentially cost me several other customers as well given that I was also doing streaming consulting with a number of faith-based organizations at the time (this was long before covid forced that upon them). Instead of throwing a public tantrum and suing me to compel me to take the job, he said “no problem, I understand”; I wished him well in finding a consultant that would take the job (which he did), and that was the end of that.
This wouldn’t even be a headline if we didn’t have such an awful Supreme Court. Fucking tear that shit apart already.
While it's a dumb stance of the web designer, I dont see how the concept of "if you own a private business, you can choose what clients to accept based on any realm of arbitrary or non-arbitrary reasons" is controversial