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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
"Religious freedom" is a euphemism. It is, and has been for a long time, a cudgel in service of bigotry.
On that note, most recent episode
of "The Alt-Right Playbook". It goes into detail on "The Death of a Euphemism" and what Trump's refusal to use euphemisms says about about him, the alt-right, and the current state of the Republican Party.
I used to believe people should be able to serve and not serve whoever they wanted as I believed that said freedom could be used against hate as well as for hate. Then I had a wakeup call that it would almost always be used by bigots and as a terror as well as intimidation tactic. The one time KKK members weren't served by any local businesses in my area was the exception not the rule.
And if religious freedom is solely to hurt people, you are not doing anything by your religion.
edited 4th Jun '18 9:51:05 AM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Some good news for once.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Just from the sound of it and the split, I'd imagine that they (or some of them, at least) were making a distinction between "the baker doesn't have to make a cake for a ceremony they feel goes against their religion" and "the baker doesn't have to serve gay people, period."
edited 4th Jun '18 10:31:27 AM by LSBK
The news article made it sound as though it was more a ruling against Colorado, as it pointed out more than once that under the law, you could refuse to make religious-themed cakes and be covered, but not refuse to make gay cakes. So, I kind of get that ... only yeah, this ruling will absolutely be used as an excuse for bigotry.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - SilaswThe issue is that on a day to day level it's potentially a Distinction Without a Difference
edited 4th Jun '18 10:51:32 AM by sgamer82
“a ceremony they feel goes against their religion” can cover pretty much any ceremony, interracial marriage, marrige of racial minorities, non-Christian marriage, atheist marriage, catholic marriage, ect...
edited 4th Jun '18 10:57:12 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranYeah, I’m absolutely in agreement with the majority of the board: however much this is supposed to be a dry, legalistic/procedural decision, bigots who don’t get down into the legal weeds or never hear that fact from Fox News will definitely think they just got a green light to discriminate as long as they can make up an excuse that it’s for religious reasons.
As a result it’ll cause a lot of pain and suffering for people who are victims of prejudice and the courts will be relitigating this case many times in the coming years with every time a bigot tries to take advantage of it.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |A Twitter thread on the ruling:
One is to question how it can be described as a "narrow" decision when the margin is so big. The other is to worry about how many and which justices sided against us.
Well, IANAL (and also, separately, I am not a lawyer) but I did go through a SCOTUS junkie phase.
It's a narrow decision because its implications are narrow. They did not rule on the underlying point of law; they only ruled on the previous ruling, finding that it was improperly worded. In overturning it, they did not actually find for the bakery; they left the case open.
"Reversed the decision" does not mean "the decision is now the opposite"; it means the decision was undone. As the Supreme Court did not issue a ruling on the case beyond that, the larger question is now punted back to the lower courts to be resolved, where similar cases wait.
The Supreme Court frequently tries to make the smallest impact possible when a big question comes before it. In this case their ruling was that a previous court, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, had infringed on the baker's religious freedom... but not by ruling against him.
The hostility was cited in the commission's language, which labeled his beliefs "offensive". This, according to the majority opinion, created the appearance of bias, which weakened the commission's ruling against the baker.
If you want to know why liberal justices would have sided with the conservative ones here, it's probably because they worried that having a legal precedent standing on biased grounds would make any rights it created weak and vulnerable.
The justices have handed down instructions to courts hearing this and similar cases: make sure you cite rights, not righteousness. The discrimination was wrong because it was illegal, not because the man's beliefs were offensive.
Would it have been better, in this current atmosphere, if the ruling had been left to stand? Maybe. There's a danger now that it could all go the other way. But that could also have happened today, and it didn't.
I do not agree with every assertion being made in the majority opinion, but I think they ruled appropriately on the main point: it should not be the job of courts and commissioners to rule on the appropriateness or validity of a person's beliefs, only legality of actions.
As a private individual I can think the man's beliefs are offensive, odious, backwards, and incompatible with a pluralistic society. But if I were a judge or commissioner, I would be weighing the lawfulness of his actions.
So! That's where things stand, as I understand them. The Supreme Court's finding of the need to protect religious expression was not a positive affirmation of faith-based discrimination, no new precedent has been set, and the case was effectively un-decided.
If you want more of a breakdown than that, I suggest following some of the legal beagles (or legal eagles, if you want more of an expert on bird law) here on Twitter dot com.
But the TL;DR is that the Supreme Court handed down a writ of Well You Don't Have To Be A Jerk About It, telling lower courts they can find that refusing to do business with queer people is discriminatory, but they can't editorialize about religion while they do so.
I'm reading deeper into the decision now and I have to recommend anyone who has misgivings read Justice Kagan's concurrence, which literally contains instructions on how a lower court could resolve the questions raised in this case without running afoul of this decision.
And to be clear: I understand why this comes as a blow, during Pride month especially, and I understand the way it's being trumpeted as a blow by the major news media, and I definitely understand how it's going to embolden bigots who already feel like Trump gives them license.
But for those reasons especially, I think it's important to understand what the ruling does and doesn't do.
And if you get any clarity or reassurance from this, feel free to tip your weird Twitter pundit.
@Ambar: We'll have to wait and see what the consequences are, I was simply talking about the legality of race discrimination, which is undoubtely still illegal after this ruling and which the Supreme Court would never side with if such a case arrived at their desks.
edited 4th Jun '18 11:40:07 AM by Grafite
Life is unfair...So apparently depending on who you ask, we're living in Schroedinger's Economy
where it's both great and horrible simultaneously depending on which political party you're part of. Really long article text

You're joking right? You actually think a Supreme Court ruling that makes discrimination against a minority group legal won't be used to a) increase discrimination against that minority and b) discriminate against other minorities? That's at best an incredibly naive view to take.
Republicans got a Supreme Court ruling that says they can refuse service to gay people, in the name of "religious freedom". If you think that said ruling will not be cited in order to refuse service to not only gay people, but Muslims, black people, etc, in the future, you have not been paying attention to the entire history of bigotry in this country.
Even interpreted as narrowly as possible, Republicans now have an excuse to not only say "I don't have to provide service to a gay couple" but "I don't have to provide service to an interracial couple" or "a couple whose religion I thinks is blasphemous." If you think they won't do that you have not been paying attention—and if you think they'll actually interpret it that narrowly, instead of abusing it in service of more general bigotry, well, I have some waterfront property in Florida I'd love to interest you in.
edited 4th Jun '18 9:33:22 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar