The court ruled that creating a website was considered speech. The government cannot force you to produce speech you are against.
The state stipulated (agreed with) the following:
> Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” and she “will gladly create custom graphics and websites” for clients of any sexual orientation.
> She will not produce content that “contradicts biblical truth” regardless of who orders it.
This would also protect a Muslim artist from being forced to produce a drawing of Muhammad if requested by a client.
This was purely hypothetical if she were to enter the wedding website creation business and a gay couple were to ask her to create a site for them and she declined and if she were to get in trouble with the Colorado government because of it?
And Colorado argued that she would not get in trouble and only have to sell the same site templates she already made for hetero-couples to same-sex couples, not make new products for them? [1]
And the counter argument was that each theoretical website would be completely unique[2] but this whole situation seems weird and not like one the court should have even heard (yet) because it never happened?
> This would also protect a Muslim artist from being forced to produce a drawing of Muhammad if requested by a client.
I think there is a difference here. It is not a prohibition in Christianity to create a website for a same sex couple, whereas producing an image of Muhammad is a prohibition in Islam.
I'd also argue that a wedding website for same-sex couples is not something that "contradicts biblical truth"; there is plenty of homosexuality in the bible.
What you're saying is nonsense. How is the desire to have something drawn for you all that different from the desire to have a website created for you? It's essentially the same.
Because producing an image of Muhammad is an explicit prohibition in Islam. Providing services to same-sex couples is not a prohibition in Christianity.
> Because producing an image of Muhammad is an explicit prohibition in Islam. Providing services to same-sex couples is not a prohibition in Christianity.
Is a distinction like that even relevant? I don't think the US court system is going to wade into determining who is correctly practicing their religion or not. That itself would be a glaring First Amendment violation.
> Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender.”
To your credit, it appears you are far from alone in missing this.
No less than a Supreme Court Justices apparently missed this fact:
"Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people. The Supreme Court of the United States declares that a particular kind of business, though open to the public, has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. The Court does so for the first time in its history." - Justice Sotomayor
But she was never a freelance web designer. Folks just seem to gloss right over that small detail. She couldn't "refuse" because she was never actually asked.
Lower courts should have thrown it out due to lack of standing and… well… fraudulent filings to the court. That whole "perjury" thing.
The fact that SCOTUS agreed to take the case in the first place and laid down this ruling even after finding out it was purely hypothetical and lacked anything even approaching "injury" is a truly sad indictment of our justice system.
No court should make rulings based on hypothetical injuries let alone our highest one.
IANAL, but my understanding is that courts will make rulings without standing all the time. Most commonly in cases where constitutionality of a new law or statute is raised, without the law having gone into effect yet, not having affected anyone.
That’s a good point. If I was creating something out of whole cloth, I wouldn’t want to do it. However if it was required by law in order for wedding designers not to discriminate for racial or sexual orientation, I’d do it.
And the case in this situation was different where it was more like a service:
“It only insists that once Smith has designed a wedding website, she must allow same-sex couples to purchase that product. In essence, Colorado says she must sell her website template to all customers, regardless of their identity. She need not create a new template or “speak” in support of any marriage.”
What’s scary is the precedence the decision sets:
“A bakery whose owner opposed mixed-race relationships could refuse to bake wedding cakes for interracial couples; a real estate agency whose owner opposed racial integration could refuse to represent Black couples seeking to purchase a home in a predominantly white neighborhood; or a portrait studio whose proprietor opposes interracial adoption could refuse to take pictures of white parents with their Black adopted children.”
I believe the point is that she would also refuse to create a same-sex wedding site for a hetero customer and would be willing to make a hetero wedding site for a same-sex customer. It's a subtle but important distinction.
Of course, it gets very messy because in the case of wedding sites, the correlation between content and customer is 0.999999999.
But, the justification is a non-sequitur. The ruling is that the content, not the customer, was the determining factor in refusing the business, and therefore legal.
She had every right to refuse business to anyone for any reason as a business owner, regardless of the quality of her reasoning. People also have the right to refuse to use her business and go to a competitor who would likely be happy to service them.
The free market goes both ways and while first amendment protects you from state prosecution of exercising free speech, it does not protect you, however, from the court of public opinion, which she and her business may need to answer to.
If you operate a retail store, should you be able to refuse business to someone in a wheelchair, especially if building the ADA ramp will cost you an extra 10k that you don't want to spend?
If you word it right you can. Just make incredibly complex and vague agreements that people must agree to to do business with you. Like Amazon, who can terminate your business with them after falsely claiming you’re a racist.
I generally hold this opinion, also, but I worry about the ramifications. Should we allow restaurants to exclude certain races? What if employees of the business differ on their treatment of customers? It feels like opportunity for much more chaos, even if the free market handles it.
The lines between what individuals can do and what a business can do (with individuals representing it) feel too blurred. In cases like the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses after Obergefell, she _has_ to because of the office she represents. It feels like businesses should have the same obligation, because business !== person.
I agree that there are problems, specifically when an ideology dominates an industry in a given locale. For single employee behavior, a company should have a code of conduct or expectation of some degree of professionalism because they are representing the company. If a single employee treats someone poorly, the business can be called out and hung out to dry. It is the business’s responsibility to hire and maintain employees that accurately represent their business.
In the case of Kentucky county clerk, that person failed at their position as a public servant to perform the duty they were assigned. If it goes against their personal beliefs, that is not the job for them and they can reenter the job market for a position they are capable of performing.
I don’t agree that business should have the same obligations as public institutions, but they must also be willing face indefensible criticism if they choose to die on this hill. Social issues tend to always be progressing on the whole in some way, and I would be in favor of government subsidized grants for small business owners who are willing to create a competing business in an otherwise monopolistic environment.
It’s easy to suggest that we should just legislate away undesirable behavior, but this does not solve the underlying problems and will simply be gamed as most laws lacking teeth or clear violation criteria are. It’s only when social pressures force a business either to rethink their stance or to close will you get meaningful results.
I'm just waiting for someone to argue that it violates their religion to allow black people to sit at the lunch counter and suddenly we're back to the 1960s
It seems like there's a distinction between things here, though. As far as I can tell, no precedent has been set here regarding an individual's right to receive non-speech-based goods or services.
For instance, if you go into a burger shack and the owner doesn't like some trait about you, they still have an obligation to sell you the same burgers they'd sell anyone else. If they have a special bun where they write out in sesame seeds "I endorse your decisions" for some people, though, then they'd be under no obligation to give you that specific bun.
Wasn't the whole cake thing that they wanted custom writing on top? As in, a plain old cake would be fine, but a cake that said "Congratulations on your wedding!" would be speech, as far as I read it.
It's a good point regardless, though, and I don't envy the position of trying to draw the line between what's protected speech and what's not.
Edit: it seems the cake was not requesting custom writing -- custom writing was explicitly protected as free speech in another case. It seems in the analogy of the burger joint, that case was more akin to a burger joint which only sold "I endorse your decisions" buns. Which makes me as glad as ever that I'm not in charge of being the arbiter of what's speech and what's not.
Not for the cake shop in Colorado. The couple just came in and said "we want a wedding cake for our gay wedding" and the owner refused with no other details about the cake discussed. I do however see there have been lawsuits where the writing on cake was at issue (including one in the UK where the request was to write "Support gay marriage") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
Do you have a citation for that? I've also seen reporting that there wasn't an actual couple, and to be honest: I'm having trouble figuring out what's real here.
>> For instance, if you go into a burger shack and the owner doesn't like some trait about you, they still have an obligation to sell you the same burgers they'd sell anyone else
Isn't that only true if the trait they don't like is related to a protected class? Couldn't they refuse to sell burgers to left-handed people, for instance?
I thought the same but the case mentioned down below in the replies brings up an interesting point. The Colorado cake bakery case involved a regular cake, no special decorations on it. Seems we may be going down a slippery slope again.
I don't quite understand the Colorado bakery case, but it seems like it involves a custom cake and the majority opinion was very narrow, intentionally not addressing the broader intersection of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and anti-discrimination. This website designer case seems to fill that legal gray zone.
It's not unprecedented. In the history of the US, the Bible has been used to justify owning slaves and segregation.
It's a common strategy. Figure out the conclusion you want to draw first, and then look in the Bible for things that justify your viewpoint, glossing over things that don't support or contradict your point of view or shine a bad light on your subsequent behavior.
Farah Alhajeh, 24, was applying for a job as an interpreter when she declined to shake the hand of a male interviewer for religious reasons.
She placed her hand over her heart in greeting instead.
The Swedish labour court ruled the company had discriminated against her and ordered it to pay 40,000 kronor ($4,350; £3,420) in compensation.
Forcing employees to handshake is maybe the most bizarre company policy I've ever seen. I've known multiple people who were uncomfortable with handshaking. I imagine that if this company didn't get in trouble for discriminating against someone because of their religion which prohibited getting touchy touchy with members of the opposite sex, that they would have run into trouble eventually for discriminating against someone with OCD.
I'd give them a pass if being an interpreter actually required you to touch strangers as a function of the job, but give me break.
A lot of restaurants already dislike black patrons, they consider them to be stereotypically "bad patrons". So, I think this will happen much sooner than we'd hope.
Technically, isn't the ruling that the website designer can refuse to create same-sex wedding content? If the same-sex couple commissioned a website for a hetero wedding, the designer would be obligated, right?
It's a subtle distinction, but legally important.
Things get really messy because it's tough to disentangle the content from those commissioning the website in the case of a same-sex wedding.
Don't get me wrong: I hold these web designers in low regard. However, my understanding is that this ruling isn't as bad as the headline suggests.
> If the same-sex couple commissioned a website for a hetero wedding, the designer would be obligated, right?
Based on this ruling, no. The designer would be just as firmly within their rights under this ruling to say "I don't think anyone should get married, so I won't do a heterosexual wedding website", or to say "I think this person is too tall, so I don't want to make their website".
If the designer agreed to make a given website, though, then declined upon finding out that the customers were a same-sex couple (in a way that didn't change the contract at all), then that would still presumably be a case of discrimination.
I’d love a complete breakdown on how this case even made it to the Supreme Court. From my (very limited) understanding the situation in this case is essentially a hypothetical?
The court took it cause they felt like it. Full stop. Standing, harm, prior precedence, it all just goes out the window when there is a 6/3 majority.
The Supreme Court is explicitly political, partisan organization, which should have been obvious after bush v gore but now this is here to remind a new generation what a joke this thing is.
I'm not sure why states are not just ignoring federal courts at this point. The GOP hasn't allowed democrats to appoint any judges (even when they had majorities in the senate) for over a decade now. There is no reason for blue states to abide at all at this point, and they should just defer to their own state level courts instead. Either that or a 'supreme court in exile' needs to be made to counter this.
From there it's a slippery slope to not even maintaining a facade of following the Constitution. I don't know if any system can really be "perfect" in balancing different moralities, or having a reasonable recovery mechanism to address what are considered intolerable injustices. I think this was all a matter of time in the grand scheme of things.
> The GOP hasn't allowed democrats to appoint any judges (even when they had majorities in the senate) for over a decade now.
In case anyone was curious, literally the most recent appointment to the Supreme Court was by (Democratic president) Joe Biden. Ketanji Brown Jackson began her service exactly one year ago.
(Biden has also appointed over a hundred other federal judges.)
You are confusing things here. One liberal supreme court justice (with none of the others being picked by the incumbent administration and instead decided by McConnell and co.) does not make up for the hundreds that have aged/died out of office since the clinton and obama years.
It seems like the plaintiff's lawyer lied - the person they "denied" a website for was a straight married guy who never interacted with the business owner.
I think there's a pretty clear line with this sort of thing that we'll eventually settle around.
Let me start with the hypothetical illustration. Michaelangelo was a devout catholic. If a Muslim sultan had captured him and forced him to create works of art that offended his personal values, do we really believe that he would have been capable of producing his best works of art, or even items of the same caliber as those he regularly created? Of course not. He would have created art for sure, but without the spark that comes from his passion, there is no physical force in existence that could have prodded him to paint his best masterpieces.
So then neither should a court force a modern day expression of artistic creation when it goes against the personal values of the creator.
Most of these cases boil down to someone wanting work involving a not insubstantial amount of creativity by a craftsman who holds opposing viewpoints. Even if we force them to do so at gunpoint, they won't create at the same standards because it will be intrinsically impossible to coerce creativity. Should we then punish them for that? Of course not.
Now on the other extreme, I don't think there's any real principled disagreement that can be had by forbidding McDonalds from discriminating who can buy a cheeseburger. It's a mass produced item, devoid of creativity at the point of production. What I mean is that all the creativity has already happened at the corporate office and we see merely the works of distributed assembly. There's no discernable difference between a McChicken assembled under coercion and one by incentive.
Of course there's a murky line in there, but insofar as a work involves creativity, it ought not be compelled.
For example: a wedding cake bakery. Mixing the dough and baking it is not a creative act - it's a well practiced procedure sourced previous creative endeavors that don't need repeating. A bakery serving the public ought not to be able to refuse an undecorated, baked rectangular cake to anyone if its part of a product regularly produced. Beyond that, you start to get into exercising creativity with frosting, however simple and I think you should not be compelled to exercise your creativity.
You misunderstand the baker case. All that case ruled was that the Colorado Civil Rights Commision was harassing Masterpiece Cakeshop, and that they needed to stop. It's why as soon as the case was over, the baker was sued again by someone else.
In the cake case, they ended up not really ruling on the issue and focusing on the specific treatment of the baker by the commission rather than the broader rights concerns.
From the majority: "The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands."
From a dissenting opinion: "Today, the court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class."
Remember, the job of the Supreme Court is not to decide what is morally correct or just, but to interpret the Constitution.
Both the majority and the dissent "interpret the Constitution".
The difference is that the majority want to interpret it in a way that agrees with their morality, while the minority interpret it in a way that agrees with theirs. The actual text of the Constitution itself has no bearing on it; it can be used to justify any decision they want.
So the majority opinion becomes the Constitution. They'd like for you to believe that it flows inevitably from the 1787 text, but that's simply not the case. The opposite opinion could just as easily have been "the interpretation", aside from the accident of history that made one group the majority and the other not.
If their establishments are open to the public, generally yes, in my opinion, within reason. And that's okay: if an entity wants to operate a business open to the public, it should be open to all the public (within reason: obviously they can't be compelled to be "open" to customers for which there is no relevant business relationship to be had). So an establishment selling only halal goods couldn't be compelled to sell non-halal goods, but it also ought not be permitted to refuse service to non-muslims.
> If their establishments are open to the public, generally yes [we need to force Muslims to sell non-halal food], in my opinion, within reason.
Either GP's question got reversed after they posted, or you misread their post, or your phrasing is off. The rest of your post suggests that Muslims should not be compelled to sell non-halal items.
I think your proposed comparison follows the headline, and the headline doesn't actually reflect the ruling.
I believe that the ruling is focused on the content, not the client. My reading is that if the same-sex couple had (for some odd reason) asked for a hetero wedding site, the web designer would not have been allowed to deny them business.
This doesn't make sense. Why would a Muslim vendor care to do that in the first place? There is nothing in their religion that says only Muslims can eat halal food. It's a completely different scenario.
> Do muslims need to be forced to sell/serve non-halal items in their establishment?
No and that is a mischaracterization of the decision. This case states that they can decide who they want to sell their items to and discriminate against those they feel are unworthy of their goods.
Decisions like this seem like tricky business, and probably doesn't help that most news about things gets filtered through two or three layers of news media first.
It's definitely a tough situation overall, and there's no totally satisfying result (which is the sign of a good case for the courts, as far as I'm concerned).
As a constrasting example, in many states, political affiliation is a protected class. If a swastika-tattooed neo-Nazi asked for a portrait, would an artist be obliged to do the painting, even if no endorsement of the ideology was requested? As distant a case as that is, it seems like the legal principles being argued here carry over more-or-less directly.
Waaaait, isn't this the same court which considers money to be speech?!
By the same rationale, a bank cannot be forced to "speak" with you after you "speak" with it....
If you're getting the "money=speech" information from the Citizens United ruling, then you fell into the same trap I did by reading the headlines. Despite what all the headlines said, Citizens United didn't actually rule that money is speech.
In a discussion about where we draw the line on acceptable discrimination, this is an extremely lazy sentiment which adds nothing to the discussion. What if "how I want" is to exclude all people of a certain race from my business that provides an important service to a community? It's my lifestyle, after all!
Ah, the "if you disagree, you're literally hitler" response.
Nothing in my statements endorses racism in any form. The only reason to bring that as a response is to strawman and attack what you think is said and not what really exists.
This is the same reasoning, what you’re using, that people used for segregation. The reason people are forced to serve black people in restaurants is the same reason that these protections for LGBT people exist. It’s “protected classes” including race.
It was in the oral arguments, Alito was discussing a black Santa at a mall and a kid in a KKK hood. So I’m not standing up a straw man, I’m not calling you hitler, but it is funny how quickly you ran to that as some kind of defense.
"it's funny how quickly you ran" in response to you claiming support of religious protections is support of segregation.
I literally responded to your escalation with an equally stupid response. I responded in kind.
"protected class" you mean... like religion? You realize that religion is a protected class? belief in stuff like traditional marriage?
Serving you food is not the same as creating art with a message that goes against your religion. Just like the cake guy didn't refuse to sell to anyone - he simply refused to make product with messages that went against his religion. he would sell you a cake... but not one with a message.
We aren't "going backwards". We won't have black people at the back of the bus. The only ones fighting for segregation today is, like always, the left as they push for segregated graduation ceremonies and the like.
Stop being disingenuous and maybe I won't be forced to respond in the way I did.
"no one forced your speech" if you support forcing independent artists or businesses to make stuff with messages they dont' support then you support "forced speech".
"this form of discourse" what form? defending simple statements? Attacking strawman attacks? Celebrating freedom of speech and the defense of freedom of religion? If the discorse isn't allowed here? why not?
what are you afraid of hearing?
“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
Ok, Mr. Religious. What parts of the Bible do you think give you the right to tell gay people what to do with their lives?
I’ll need specific passages please. I’ve read the whole New Testament, and Jesus was a tolerant fellow. I’m going to assume you live in a glass house and haven’t sinned right?
The same part of the bible that you seem to think gives gay people the right to force religious people to support their lifestyles.
Your rights end when other peoples rights begin.
You may not like it... but at the end of the day? Religion is a protected right - and for damn good reasons.
Here's the clue: I'm not telling gay people how to live their life. I'm saying they can't tell me to make stuff that endorses their lifestyle.
Before you presume to talk to me about religion... pull the stick out of your ass, the plank from your eye and stop acting like me not making you a cake or a website is telling you how to live your life.
Either you're being disingenuous or you're purposely lying to make a point that is wrong.
Again, since you seem to be slow: No one is saying you can't be gay - we aren't telling you how to live your life. Fuck who you want. How you want.
What they are saying is YOU can't force others to endorse your lifestyle.
Your right to be gay ends at someone else's right to think it's wrong - and it doesn't include your right to FORCE someone else to say what you want or create product with messages you want.
What part of your right to live how you want includes forcing others to support it? That's the difference between you and me... I don't give a shit what you do with your body... but you won't force me to support your decisions.
You need to realize that before you even attempt to talk to me about who Jesus was, what he represented or try to "school" me on who gets to throw the first stone... because you have no moral high ground on either topic.
So you don't have an answer, but that is not surprising because it's not in the Bible.
Lemme know when you find some religious basis for what you're saying, way I see it you're just a bigot trying to find an excuse to make someone else feel small.
'you don't have an answer' and you don't have a valid argument for me to answer.
I've given you my answer.
"religious basis" for what? freedom of religion?
Your just an unintelligent person trying to ignore the truth that it doesn't matter what my religous basis is. Jesus, Muhammed, Moses, Shiva... People have deeply held religious beliefs and it's not me trying to make someone feel small.
It's me standing up to narcists like yourself who think you can bully others into supporting your message because you don't agree with religious foundations.
Which is why you're saying "But Jesus..." when you have shit all knowledge of what Jesus would actually say and when that has nothing real to do with the topic at hand:
Religion is a protected class and you can't force someone to use their free speech to endorse your lifestyle.
Stop deflecting you coward and stick to that fact. I can defend what the Bible says - but that's irrelevant to the topic at hand because this isn't limited to the Bible and Jesus.
I've given you the answer... you're just to ignorant to understand that your right to live doesn't trump my right to religion.
So few words to say "I don't have an intelligent response".
My points stand no matter if you run from them or not.
Freedom of religion is a protected class no matter how much it hurts your feelings that that freedom means you can't bully people into supporting something you don't like.
I understand you're a bigot and won't accept alternative viewpoints. It's okay. Its also why you run from the conversation.
If you actually addressed the points I made instead of deflecting you might have to admit that freedom of religion means others don't have to endorse your choices.
What religion do you follow that tells you to discriminate against gay people? Show me where it says to do that in the Bible please. Show me that passage in the Bible and you might have the beginning of a point.
What religion do you follow that you can't accept the fact that freedom of religion doesn't depend on my personal religion?
Show me where in the constitution that it says that you can force others to not follow their religion? Show a law that says that America doesn't protect the religious freedom of its citizens? Show me that religion isn't a protected class and you might have a point.
Stop deflecting to me. I'm not the topic of conversation. My beliefs aren't the topic of debate.
You trying to bully others into not following their faith - no matter what it is - is the topic of conversation. Plenty of religions don't support gays or gay marriage (Hint: Go to any middle eastern country and walk around in drag. For reference see people getting arrested during the soccer games for wearing lgbt paraphenelia).
Again, so MAYBE you'll eventually get a clue by pure repetition: My religion isn't in discussion here. I've not pushed a specific religion or belief. Your narcissism and demand that others must create stuff with your message is what's on display here.
Take a step back and stop focusing on me. The problem you have is you want to destroy the rights of others.
Thankfully in America? Freedom of Speech and protected classes like Religion stop you from doing so.
Not making you a cake or a website? If that's "discrimination"? You are reaching for that victim card to validate your "oppression".
Hint: That's not oppression or discrimination... that's simply the freedom of others to not be enslaved by you and bigots who don't agree with free choices made by others based on religious beliefs.
Chris, I’m trying to meet you where you are but it’s not working. This is not the place for a discussion like this. You’re not even engaging with what I’m saying. Honest to god man I’ll talk to you about this all day and discuss it in good faith, but nested comments in HN are not the place for it. Shoot me an email, find me on Twitter, insta, whatever.
Its not working because you're not accepting reality. You're attempting to attack my religion and 'but the bible' argument is a sideshow of the fact: Religion is a protected right and individuals can't be forced to make messages that violate that right.
I'm absolutely arguing in good faith despite you trying to "but Jesus" me.
My point is simple and has been consistent. Trying to put me in the hotseat is the problem here because this isn't an argument about me personally it's an argument about free speech and protected classes in the US.
edit: and to be clear... I'd sit down and have a beer with you anytime. You haven't been disrespectful or personally attacked even if you've try to make the discussion personally about me - there is a difference. I do respect that and wouldn't have continued the conversation otherwise.
I’m using the logic that resonates for me personally, to me being Christian means being tolerant of and good to other people, especially people who are less fortunate or kicked by society. Luke 5:13 - Jesus reached out and touched the man with leprosy sticks out to me always when people are talking about trans people.
I'm a Christian too... but that's not the topic at hand here - love the sinner, hate the sin. I can love you and hate the decisions you make because the are "wrong". I support family and love them end when they are dipshits and make stupid choices.
"tolerant of and good to other people"
tolerant doesn't mean you have to support or endorse. If I was, say, anti-Trans (which I'm not - you live your life. You answer for your decisions.)? as a Christian? I can still be the Christlike example and love you. Help you. And still tell you "God loves and you're in the right body". In loving you and accepting you but not supporting your "sins"? I would have the right and duty to not create a cake, shirt, website with a message that's pro-your life.
I can be tolerant of you being an alcoholic or a drug addict... I would be under no pressure to buy alcohol/drugs/etc to support your bad lifestyle.
And again... this isn't about me personally. It doesn't matter how fortunate you are or what life you live. You don't have the right to force others to create works that support what you think is "good". Just like I wouldn't have the right to say YOU can't create a cake for "pride month".
Jesus helped less fortunate... he helped the sick, the lame, the dead. That doesn't mean he endorsed their lifestyles.
Nothing about Jesus supports FORCING others to be "tolerant" of sin and to ENDORSE sinful activity. He helps? Again... that doesn't mean he loves the sin or endorses it.
I agree that you don't have to be compelled to assist someone in sinning, and in there is where I think the nuance of these decisions come in. It would be one thing if someone was being forced to help physically harm someone, help murder, help steal, etc. I'm not sure that being a drug addict falls into that category, but I digress.
In this case, I do not think this web designer would be helping anyone sin, honestly they are probably just providing a template and some theme, copy would be basically immaterial.
Then comes the more theoretical aspect, which is how do I know I'm helping someone sin by helping gay people get married? The Pope says it's not for us to judge, and I agree. So what I'm saying is that reasonable people can disagree on this being an infringement of religious rights, and that is essentially what I was trying to talk about.
I am a Marine, I went to war, I did things I can't take back or be forgiven for in the literal Old Testament version of things, but Jesus said, basically, forget all that old fire and wrath, you're forgiven if you ask for it. I try to treat everyone as most people treat me, which is to say not to throw stones at me as I walk down the street, or whatever the equivalent is in our time. That's my personal philosophy, and I think makes for much more interesting discussion about this. Do you see where I'm coming from?
"I do not think this web designer would be helping anyone sin" This seems to be where we differ.
The designer/cake maker/etc is implicitly supporting if one of their products has the message in support of it.
When Target sells pro-trans shirts? The company is implicitly supportive of it - just like a cake shop would be implicitly supportive of Nazi's if they baked a birthday cake with "Happy Birthday Hitler KKK Forever". Someone else could take those shirts from target or the cake and put that directly with the company logo and the company receipt and the company selling it.
"The Pope says it's not for us to judge, and I agree" but you can say "I'm not making you a blue/blue cake" while also saying "Live your life the way you want. I'm not judging you - that's Gods place. But I'm also not making something in support of something I think is wrong. I love you but I can't support your actions."
"I am a Marine" Ooh-Rah Brother. 2000-2005 and two trips to Iraq. Thank God I was in the back - the dirty POG I am - and I didn't have to actively do anything PTSD inducing.
With that said? Asking for forgiveness means you admit those things were wrong and living Christ-like means that you actively stop doing those things and live the example. I can't judge you for being a "baby killer", a prostitute, an alcoholic, a drug addict, etc (as a Marine? You're probably all of the above /snicker)... but I can say it's wrong and that I won't take actions that endorse your decisions.
I think our disagreement comes from the definition of tolerant - I can tolerate your bad decisions, love you and still tell you that you're wrong. I can accept that it's not my place to judge - but it is my place to live a Christ like example which is accepting that I'm a sinner and you're a sinner. God judges you and I don't... but that doesn't mean I have to implicitly or explicitly support your decisions.
And for this discussion? In America where Religion is a protected class... that means we can't force someone to do something against their religion. We have to accommodate those who want Sunday off. Saturday off. We have to accommodate those who want to wear head gear.
We also have to accommodate those who own companies and don't want their brands associated with something their religion says is harram.
Simple: if you force me to make something I don't agree with then you are compelling me to support your lifestyle - and that infringes on my freedom of speech.
On faith? Majority of the world believes marriage is man+woman. If you force me to make a shirt, website, cake, etc? Thats making me create something that endorses that idea.
You can't claim to support freedom if you support forcing others to take part in stuff they disagree with.
Can you articulate how forcing someone to do something they think is morally wrong or evil isn't slavery?
How far should that go, if you are hurt lying on side of road should an EMT be able to refuse to server you based on religious feelings? what about an ER doctor?
That line was already crossed. Many police departments refuse to stock Narcan because they don't want to deal with junkie drama.
Something about the situation in general feels wrong. There is no balance. The customer is allowed to be discriminating in where they choose to shop, but the storeowner is not allowed to choose who they accept the liabilities of doing business from. This sets a bad precedent in enabling customer thuggery.
I feel like the same rights should be afforded to both parties, but it leads to situations like you suggest, which isn't right either. I don't know where the middle ground is.
In the case in question the lifestyle in question is gay marriage. A large portion of the world - an overwhelming majority - still support "traditional" marriage as between a man and a woman.
What other lifestyle do you think is on conversation here?
You have the right to live how you want. Fuck who you want. Dress how you want. Etc.
You don't have the right to force others to support that lifestyle - especially "artists" who do stuff like make cakes and websites.
If you force me to do stuff that goes against my religion or deeply held beliefs - whatever the topic - then you're wrong.
Religion is a protected class as are the beliefs held by religious people.
I think if they are going to allow discrimination for "religious" reasons, then I think then the whole issue is gone to dust. I should be able to discriminate against your religion then as well, because I am not religious.
There are "public accommodation" laws that involve this, but they are pretty much saying that "public accommodation" doesn't extend to creative endeavors, like making websites or baking custom cakes.
The headline is wrong and this is a free speech case, not a religious case, specifically the question of "whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment."
The idea is that the government can't compel someone to endorse a particular message. This includes the commission of creative works that someone disagrees with. This is NOT a general right to refuse service based on protected characteristics.
So you can't make a Jewish baker bake holocaust cakes if they don't want to (yes, this is an actual example that came up). But if someone is already selling holocaust cakes, they have to sell them to everyone regardless of race or sexuality.
I believe that "not religious" is considered a religious belief. I'm pretty sure that "religious" beliefs can even include things like not wanting to take a vaccine (according to some courts).
The court ruled that creating a website was considered speech. The government cannot force you to produce speech you are against.
The state stipulated (agreed with) the following:
> Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” and she “will gladly create custom graphics and websites” for clients of any sexual orientation.
> She will not produce content that “contradicts biblical truth” regardless of who orders it.
This would also protect a Muslim artist from being forced to produce a drawing of Muhammad if requested by a client.