No standing. No problem. "Brave."The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines that the First Amendment bars Colorado from "forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees."
[...]
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: "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."
She added: "Around the country, there has been a backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities. New forms of inclusion have been met with reactionary exclusion. This is heartbreaking. Sadly, it is also familiar. When the civil rights and women's rights movements sought equality in public life, some public establishments refused. Some even claimed, based on sincere religious beliefs, constitutional rights to discriminate. The brave Justices who once sat on this Court decisively rejected those claims."
[...]
For years, the justices have side-stepped the difficult issue presented by business owners who don't want to comply with public accommodation laws for same-sex weddings. Florists, photographers, and a baker all went to court arguing that they should not have to use their artistry for same-sex weddings. But the court either declined to review lower court rulings or, in the case of the baker who refused to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple, the court punted.
This year, however, the new conservative supermajority reached out in an unusually aggressive manner, agreeing to decide a case in which nobody had yet filed a claim of discrimination.
Instead, Smith, a web designer who is opposed to same sex marriage, pre-emptively sued the state of Colorado, claiming that the state law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation violates her right of free speech.
NPR
Remember: this woman doesn't even HAVE a website. This was made up so SCOTUS could play their anti-LGBTQ hand.
[T]he court ruled against the state and for the web designer in a decision that could have profound consequences in Colorado and 29 other states that have laws requiring businesses open to the public to serve everyone, regardless or race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.
UPDATE 04:59 pm:
UPDATE 06/30/2023: Could it be any worse? Why, yes, it could...
A friend quoted someone on MSNBC saying essentially: all these justices during their confirmation hearings refused to opine on a hypothetical, and yet, they had no problem ruling on one.
UPDATE 07/01/2023:
The 303 Creative ruling gives every segregationist who never gave up hope, every bigot who keeps hate close to their heart, and every neo-Nazi who pines for a whites-only nation a brand new tool to fight for the legally protected discrimination that they yearn for so deeply.That's from an excellent (and emotional) article by Elie Mystal.
Read it.
No comments:
Post a Comment