US supreme court strikes blow against LGBTQ+ rights with Colorado ruling
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Anonymous
Don't kid yourself, these people being sued, bakeries, website designers, etc. have been sought out by specific groups just so these lawsuits can be brought forward I guess hoping to solidify something into law. There are many businesses that would happily have created this website for these people, move on. I would much rather have my party catered or the cake being baked made by someone who wants my business. The vilifying of individuals is back firing. It needs to stop. |
Anonymous
I’m gay too. But you misunderstand the holding of this case. It’s not a free speech holding. It’s a religious imposition holding. Nothing in this case prohibits the government from compelling speech if you defense isn’t that your religion is opposed to it. There are other freedoms associated with speech but this case is not about that. |
Anonymous
Being a nazi is not a protected class. It’s not a good example. Find a valid example. |
Anonymous
Except in this case it was the website maker who completely made up this case. There was never a gay couple asking for a website! What’s stopping them from making up other cases to further erode our rights, invalidate our marriages? |
Anonymous
Well written. Most of the people on here have no idea how much of our freedoms are being taken away. The worst part is that they are giving them away freely. They are so passionate about liberal causes that they don't have the capacity to look at the larger picture. Both democrats and republicans have been taking away our rights over the last few decades (George Bush was just as bad as Biden), and we've just gotten comfortable with it. If a website designer or a cake decorator doesn't want to provide their services for ANY group, then so be it. Let the market forces work and let them be. Unfortunately victimization has become the social currency of this day and everybody wants a piece. When you take individual rights from those whom you oppose, you take them away from yourselves as well. If a cake decorator doesn't want to design a cake for a fundamentalist christian group, they should not be forced to do so either. My God people, you really are just handing over your freedom willingly.
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Anonymous
Yes, this!! |
Anonymous
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From the perspective of this gay man, I really don't care because I also think people shouldn't be forced to perform a service specifically against their personal beliefs, if it's that important to them.
There's enough to go around and no shortage of designers. Let and live. |
Anonymous
Religion is a protected category. Politics is not. Put it this way, would you force a Muslim to design a website that was openly hostile to Islam? In a hugely diverse country and one that is only getting more diverse, the only way to accommodate all the various viewpoints is not to impose a binary across all of them. |
Anonymous
You missed the point. It isn’t about whether being a nazi is a protected class. It isn’t about whether nazism is right or wrong. A website can decline to publish certain pieces if they believe the content is immoral. The validity of their judgement of what is immoral is not what is in question. Jeff deletes stuff all the time off this website. It’s his website. He’s allowed to do that because it’s his website and he gets to decide what stays online, not because his opinions are infallible. He is not required to publish the opinions of others with whom he disagrees. |
Anonymous
| This was a good a just decision. Compelled speech is wrong. |
Anonymous
Got it. You don’t know how the law works, or how how standing works, or what “stipulation” means. But sure let’s hear more of your opinions. 
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Anonymous
Westboro Baptist Church demands a gay baker design a cake that says “God hated fa&&ots.” —NP |
Anonymous
You can’t refuse your standard services to anyone, and neither can 303 Creative. You can refuse to make creative products that specifically compel you to speak against your beliefs. A lot of people are missing this point, but this case was NOT decided on religious freedom grounds; it was decided on freedom of speech. And it’s not the Supreme Court that first made that distinction, but the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. |
Anonymous
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Those of you falsely claiming that the plaintiff didn’t have standing need to go beyond a TNR article and ask why neither the U.S. District Court, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals (both of which ruled against 303 Creative) did NOT dispute her standing, nor did the state of Colorado ever dispute standing.
The reason can be found most comprehensively in a section of the Supreme Court’s unanimous 2014 opinion in SBA v. Driehaus, another free speech case. This portion, which was approved by 9 justices including, RBG, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, discusses considerable case law that does not require a plaintiff to have been injured in a chilled speech case in order to demonstrate standing: One recurring issue in our cases is determining when the threatened enforcement of a law creates an Article III injury. When an individual is subject to such a threat, an actual arrest, prosecution, or other enforcement action is not a prerequisite to challenging the law. See Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 459 (1974) (“[I]t is not necessary that petitioner first expose himself to actual arrest or prosecution to be entitled to challenge a statute that he claims deters the exercise of his constitutional rights”); see also MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 549 U. S. 118, 128–129 (2007) (“[W]here threatened action by government is concerned, we do not require a plaintiff to expose himself to liability before bringing suit to challenge the basis for the threat”). Instead, we have permitted pre-enforcement review under circumstances that render the threatened enforcement sufficiently imminent. Specifically, we have held that a plaintiff satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement where he alleges “an intention to engage in a course of conduct arguably affected with a constitutional interest, but proscribed by a statute, and there exists a credible threat of prosecution thereunder.” Babbitt v. Farm Workers, 442 U. S. 289, 298 (1979). Several of our cases illustrate the circumstances under which plaintiffs may bring a preenforcement challenge consistent with Article III. In Steffel, for example, police officers threatened to arrest petitioner and his companion for distributing handbills protesting the Vietnam War. Petitioner left to avoid arrest; his companion remained and was arrested and charged with criminal trespass. Petitioner sought a declaratory judgment that the trespass statute was unconstitutional as applied to him. We determined that petitioner had alleged a credible threat of enforcement: He had been warned to stop handbilling and threatened with prosecution if he disobeyed; he stated his desire to continue handbilling (an activity he claimed was constitutionally protected); and his companion’s prosecution showed that his “concern with arrest” was not “ ‘ chimerical.’ ” 415 U. S., at 459. Under those circumstances, we said, “it is not necessary that petitioner first expose himself to actual arrest or prosecution to be entitled to challenge a statute that he claims deters the exercise of his constitutional rights.” Ibid. In Babbitt, we considered a preenforcement challenge to a statute that made it an unfair labor practice to encourage consumers to boycott an “agricultural product . . . by the use of dishonest, untruthful and deceptive publicity.’ ” 442 U. S., at 301. The plaintiffs contended that the law “unconstitutionally penalize[d] inaccuracies inadvertently uttered in the course of consumer appeals.” Ibid. Building on Steffel, we explained that a plaintiff could bring a preenforcement suit when he “has alleged an intention to engage in a course of conduct arguably af- fected with a constitutional interest, but proscribed by a statute, and there exists a credible threat of prosecution thereunder.” Babbit, supra, at 298. We found those circumstances present in Babbitt. In that case, the law “on its face proscribe[d] dishonest, untruthful, and deceptive publicity.” 442 U. S., at 302. The plaintiffs had “actively engaged in consumer publicity campaigns in the past” and alleged “an intention to continue” those campaigns in the future. Id., at 301. And although they did not “plan to propagate untruths,” they argued that “ ‘ erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate.’ ” Ibid. We concluded that the plaintiffs’ fear of prosecution was not “imaginary or wholly speculative,” and that their challenge to the consumer publicity provision presented an Article III case or controversy. Id., at 302. Two other cases bear mention. In Virginia v. American Booksellers Assn. Inc., 484 U. S. 383 (1988), we held that booksellers could seek preenforcement review of a law making it a crime to “ ‘knowingly display for commercial purpose’ ” material that is “ ‘harmful to juveniles’ ” as defined by the statute. Id., at 386. At trial, the booksellers introduced 16 books they believed were covered by the statute and testified that costly compliance measures would be necessary to avoid prosecution for displaying such books. Just as in Babbitt and Steffel, we determined that the “pre-enforcement nature” of the suit was not “troubl[ing]” because the plaintiffs had “alleged an actual and well-founded fear that the law will be enforced against them.” 484 U. S., at 393. Finally, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U. S. 1 (2010), we considered a preenforcement challenge to a law that criminalized “ ‘ knowingly provid[ing] mate- rial support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.’ ” Id., at 8. The plaintiffs claimed that they had provided support to groups designated as terrorist organizations prior to the law’s enactment and would provide similar support in the future. The Government had charged 150 persons with violating the law and declined to disavow prosecution if the plaintiffs resumed their support of the designated organizations. We held that the claims were justiciable: The plaintiffs faced a “ ‘credible threat’ ” of enforcement and “ ‘should not be required to await and undergo a criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking relief.’ ” Id., at 15. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-193 |
Anonymous
Hate is against my religion so hating gay people is against my religion so yes we can deny them services now. |