Opuscula SCOTUS rules: Baker’s faith wins Vs. LGBTQ cake

HAS SANITY RETURNED TO AMERICA?
Perhaps a small step was taken in that direction by a recent Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) decision.

According to several media web sites^{1, 2, 3}, the Supremes reversed a Colorado court ruling that a baker is obliged to cater to customers who want a cake that violates the baker’s religious beliefs.

There are a number of similar cases that likely will come before the nation’s highest court.

In none of the cases this scrivener knows about, all the couples seeking a product that violated the vendor’s sensibilities could have gone to another nearby vendor for whatever product they desired. (In at least one case, another bakery; in another a flower shop.)

USA Today’s leed^cq paragraph reads:

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a custom cake for a same-sex wedding could mark the first step toward allowing businesses to withhold certain services based on religious grounds, but it doesn't open the floodgates for widespread discrimination.

Reuters noted that:

The justices, in a 7-2 decision, said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed an impermissible hostility toward religion when it found that baker Jack Phillips violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by rebuffing gay couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig in 2012. The state law bars businesses from refusing service based on race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation.

The court concluded that the commission violated Phillips’ religious rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

But the justices did not issue a definitive ruling on the circumstances under which people can seek exemptions from anti-discrimination laws based on religion. The decision also did not address important claims raised in the case including whether baking a cake is a kind of expressive act protected by the Constitution’s free speech guarantee.

The New York Times’ story noted that

“The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote I the majority opinion, “all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.”

Reuters claimed that

Seventy-two percent of U.S. adults believe that businesses should not have the right on religious grounds to deny services to customers based on their sexual orientation, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday showed.

As usual for such polls, information about how the questions were phrased, to whom and where the questions were presented were omitted from Reuters’ article.

Perhaps I’m just contrary, but if a merchant doesn’t want my business, I’ll go elsewhere, providing there IS an elsewhere to go. It’s the “flip side” of me not liking a business and going elsewhere. Should the business I elected NOT to patronize sue me for going elsewhere?

In my opinion, we are too quick to “Sue the B*st*rds” (the title of an interesting book). Are we looking for a moment of fame, or are we after “big bucks,” a small portion of which we might enjoy after lawyers’ fees and taxes.

It is not just real or perceived discrimination. We are “Johnny n the spot” to sue for anything that smacks of sexual harassment or abuse.

The other day a female cashier told me “Have a nice day, honey.” Perhaps I should find an attorney (there are several on my block) to sue the woman and the store franchisee and the chain behind the franchise for sexual liberties. Maybe I could sue the company that made the peanut butter I bought – and all the companies in the supply chain that handled the product from the peanut farmer to the truck driver who delivered the product to the store.

Of course the scenario above is ludicrous, but given some of the cases brought before the courts today, maybe “ludicrous” is too strong a word.

The Constitution and all its amendments guarantees equal rights to all citizens (even if that is largely wishful thinking). To my Edward Bear mind, that means if I have a business (and there is nearby competition) I can select to whom I wish to cater. If you are in the group whose custom I reject, you have the equal right to go elsewhere or open a competing business.

I’m waiting until someone from the LGBTQ community sues a house of ill repute in Nevada (where they are not illegal⁴) for discrimination.

---

Sources

1. http://tinyurl.com/y8tdme3q

2. http://tinyurl.com/ybpsy3uh

3. http://tinyurl.com/ybntg3na

4. http://tinyurl.com/ngruuvb

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Comments on SCOTUS