BREAKING>> SCOTUS rules in favor of Colorado baker

[Jazzhead]

I agree with Ed Straker of the American Thinker.

He said Justice Kennedy created the "right" of two men or two women to "marry" out of thin air several years ago, and now he is making up the law as he goes along.  IMHO, the right decision would have been to leave the decision up to the states themselves, but that is all water under the bridge now.

There was never any newly-constructed "right of gays to marry".  What was affirmed is the right of gay couples to the equal protection of the law.   The individual states remain able to deny all special rights to married couples, gay and straight.  What they cannot do is afford the special rights, benefits and obligations of civil marriage to straight couples but not to gay couples. 

While the context here happens to be wedding cakes,  the right of gays to be protected from discrimination derives from the status of sexual orientation as a protected classification.  And there, the states indeed have a say-so.  For example, Colorado extends protected status to sexual orientation, but Pennsylvania generally does not.   

[driftdiver]

They never discussed any of their ideas for the cake, so there is no basis for concluding they wanted a “gay” cake, whatever the hell that means. 

According to the facts as recited by the Supreme Court, they got as far as telling him they wanted a cake for “our wedding” at which point the baker said no, and they left.  For all the baker knew at the time, the cake they wanted would not be identifiably “gay” or “straight”, whatever the hell that means.

@Oceander
Seriously, you don't understand what that means OR is that part of the game you are playing.

[HoustonSam]

I agree with Ed Straker of the American Thinker.

He said Justice Kennedy created the "right" of two men or two women to "marry" out of thin air several years ago, and now he is making up the law as he goes along.  IMHO, the right decision would have been to leave the decision up to the states themselves, but that is all water under the bridge now.

He has not yet decided how far this newly created right goes, and since he is unmoored by the framework of the Constitution, he is choosing, for now, to decide these disputes on a case-by-case basis.  This is what happens when you abandon an established body of law and operate based on feelings.  Not only do you throw out consistency, but you make it hard to apply the law consistently because there is no consistent law to apply.

So there will continue to be huge clusters of litigation about people who are coerced into participating in same-sex ceremonies.

........

I read an opinion piece in the New York Times yesterday from a gay rights advocate who suggested amending the Constitution to protect gay rights.  That would have been a much better course for the country, whether it succeeded or not, than what the Supreme Court did: informally amending the Constitution on its own and playing by ear, with the whirlwind of lawsuits created by its irresponsibility.

These arguments are very consistent with the position I took up thread : those charged with interpreting the law have made an unmanageable mess of it, to the extent that intelligent citizens of good will cannot even know whether they are acting within the law.  "The law" is whatever a majority of justices feels like on a given day, without regard for the plain meaning of words or the clearly-defined-and-limited Constitutional authority of each branch of the federal government and of each state.

Jazzhead has suggested that the facts of the case were not clear enough to allow for a definitive resolution.  Many here, myself included, disagree.  But assuming for the sake of argument that the facts were unclear, we are forced to conclude that the nation's law has become a multi-variate differential equation, a mass of detail complexity not decipherable by logical principles but amenable only to the personal sympathies of a privileged caste of elites.

The federal judiciary has maintained for years the the US Constitution does *not* mean what it *does* say about arms, and that it *does* mean what it *does not* say about abortion.  This is precisely why many on this board, and elsewhere, maintain resolutely that they simply will not comply.

[Jazzhead]

The Colorado court record shows that the defendant offered to sell the couple anything in his store.  The next day, he made the same offer to the mother of one of the plaintiffs.  I see zero evidence that Mr. Phillips made generic off-the-shelf wedding cakes.  I suspect that you simply made that up.  But if you are correct, then the court records prove that Phillips offered to sell them a generic off-the-shelf wedding cake.  And if you are incorrect, then this proves once again that you are still in the habit of making up facts to fit your narrative.

I'm not making stuff up.  Look at the Masterpiece website - he clearly sells off-the-shelf wedding cakes.  But my point is that IT WAS NOT CLEAR FROM THE RECORD whether he was refusing to sell his customers a custom wedding cake, an off-the-shelf wedding cake, or both.  (That question has nothing to do with whether he'd sell them chocolate chip cookies.)    That's one reason why the SCOTUS ultimately did not use this case as its vehicle for deciding the broader Constitutional issues.   It found narrowly for the baker and punted.   

[Hoodat]

There was never a newly-constructed "right of gays to marry".  What was affirmed is the right of gay couples to the equal protection of the law.

Couples rights?  When did our founding fathers invent these 'couples' rights?  Or are you simply making it up now?

As for equal protection, no one has ever been denied the right to marry based upon their sexual preference. in other words, 'preference' was never a legal consideration.  That is known as equal protection.

Yet you advocate that we should introduce preference into the equation - well, one preference anyway.  While at the same time you deny me my preference.  Nothing equal about that.  So once and for all, stop saying this is about equal protection.  It's not.  It is about one class of people being given preferential treatment above all others.  My preference continues to be denied.

What they cannot do is afford the special rights and obligations of civil marriage to straight couples but not gay couples.

Ah, once again, the argument for tyranny - the Constitution be damned.

[driftdiver]

There was never any newly-constructed "right of gays to marry".  What was affirmed is the right of gay couples to the equal protection of the law.   The individual states remain able to deny all special rights to married couples, gay and straight.  What they cannot do is afford the special rights, benefits and obligations of civil marriage to straight couples but not to gay couples. 

While the context here happens to be wedding cakes,  the right of gays to be protected from discrimination derives from the status of sexual orientation as a protected classification.  And there, the states indeed have a say-so.  For example, Colorado extends protected status to sexual orientation, but Pennsylvania generally does not.   

@Jazzhead
Nonsense, through activist judges and lawyers they maneuvered the laws into such a way that bypassed the will of the people repeatedly.   Every man and woman already had equal protection.   Any man could marry any woman just as any woman could marry any man.

No what they wanted was special treatment, just like in everything else.   They want endorsement of their lifestyle and repudiation of Christian morals and traditional values.

[Jazzhead]

    Nowhere in the court records did the plaintiffs announce their sexual preferences to the baker.  Also, at no point did the baker refuse service to the plaintiffs.  (See:  Colorado case record).  The baker only informed the plaintiffs that the item they requested is not one that he ever creates.

Stop being obtuse.   A gay couple comes in and requests a cake for "their own wedding".  He refuses.   A straight couple comes in and requests a cake for "their own wedding".  Of course that is discrimination based on sexual orientation.   There is no other sensible explanation.   The only question left is whether that discrimination is nevertheless justified.   

If two straight people of the same gender had made the exact same request (a cake for their own wedding), Phillips would have refused.

Again, stop being obtuse (and ridiculous).

Bottom line.  The baker view marriage as a covenant union of one man and one woman before G-d - as two become one.  He interviews the couple, asks them questions, and then is moved by the Spirit to create a masterpiece to celebrate that covenant.  When two people of the same gender want to join in this fashion, he has nothing spiritually to base that upon.   It is a violation of his spiritual conscience.  By his religion, there is no process for leaning upon the Spirit to create something that is not in alignment with his relationship with G-d.

Not free exercise.  Free speech.  Whether the Court will recognize that remains to be seen.  But even the Trump administration in its amicus brief knew that discrimination with respect to a public accommodation based on free exercise would not fly.  Again, see Piggie Park.   

[Hoodat]

But my point is that IT WAS NOT CLEAR FROM THE RECORD whether he was refusing to sell his customers a custom wedding cake, an off-the-shelf wedding cake, or both.

It was crystal clear from the record that the baker offered anything and everything else to plaintiffs.  But he did not make cakes for same-sex weddings.  So if you continue to insist based upon your absurd self-invented facts that the baker had off-the-shelf wedding cakes, then you just end up looking foolish.

Think, man.  What baker is going to bake wedding cakes and put them on display in their store hoping that someone happens to come into the store at the last minute needing a wedding cake.  Do you have any idea how much wedding cakes cost?  Seriously, stop lying.

[Jazzhead]

Couples rights?  When did our founding fathers invent these 'couples' rights?  Or are you simply making it up now?

As for equal protection, no one has ever been denied the right to marry based upon their sexual preference. in other words, 'preference' was never a legal consideration.  That is known as equal protection.

So you're the only human being on God's green earth who married with no expectation of having sex?    That is a spurious (and ridiculous) characterization of equal protection and you know it.   A sexual relationship is part and parcel of marriage.   Gays marry gays, straights marry straights. 

[driftdiver]

So you're the only human being on God's green earth who married with no expectation of having sex?    That is a spurious (and ridiculous) characterization of equal protection and you know it.   A sexual relationship is part and parcel of marriage.   Gays marry gays, straights marry straights.

@Jazzhead
You don't have to get married to have a sexual relationship.

The primary purpose of marriage throughout the ages is to ensure the stability of the family.  A stable family is a better environment for children.   Stable children tend to grow up into stable adults which contribute to a stable society.

Which is why this was being pushed, to destabilize our society.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The federal judiciary has maintained for years the the US Constitution does *not* mean what it *does* say about arms, and that it *does* mean what it *does not* say about abortion.  This is precisely why many on this board, and elsewhere, maintain resolutely that they simply will not comply.

That is an exemplary summary of our judiciary and problems we now have.

Thanks for the insight.

I do wish you would chime in more often on threads, @HoustonSam .

You are a breath of fresh air.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

As an aside here:  Does anyone notice the liberal face is presented by two known lawyers on this thread?

I wonder if this is a coincidence?  If not, I need to fire some legal advisers.

[Jazzhead]

@Jazzhead
You don't have to get married to have a sexual relationship.

The primary purpose of marriage throughout the ages is to ensure the stability of the family.  A stable family is a better environment for children.   Stable children tend to grow up into stable adults which contribute to a stable society.

Which is why this was being pushed, to destabilize our society.

Some gays, too, want the stability of family.   Why not?  It's better and healthier than the bathhouse lifestyle of the 70s.   Why shouldn't we encourage gays to be monogamous and marry?    What is "destabilizing" about my neighbors and their family?     

[HoustonSam]

I do wish you would chime in more often on threads, @HoustonSam .

You are very kind @IsailedawayfromFR.  TBR got along fine before I ever showed up, and it gets along fine without me.  I appreciate having an opportunity to speak my mind when I have something to say and I hope my expression will be clear and fair-minded.  I've known people who said too much and I would rather err in the other direction.

[INVAR]

If two straight people of the same gender had made the exact same request (a cake for their own wedding), Phillips would have refused.

Stop being obtuse.   A gay couple comes in and requests a cake for "their own wedding".  He refuses.   

...Again, stop being obtuse (and ridiculous).

You're projecting your own obtuseness. 

In reports and records, the two homo men AND the STRAIGHT mother of one of the homos came into the shop with a book of ideas and concepts to show Phillips for the cake they wanted him to create.  In 30 seconds of discourse he simply told them when asked to make a same-sex wedding cake - "Sorry guys, I don't make cakes for same-sex weddings.  I'll sell you anything else, pastries or shelf cakes - but I do not create cakes for same sex weddings".  Then they cursed him, flipped him off and marched out of the store and went right to a lawyer to file suit.

He refused to create a same-sex cake to celebrate their perversion.  He did not refuse to sell to them because they were homos.

So Hoodat is precisely correct when he says that if a normal hetero person asked Phillips to create a same-sex wedding cake, they too would have been refused.  Phillips discriminated against the behaviors they wanted his cake to celebrate, not the persons.

But you know this already, and deliberately try to frame the issue to foist the narrative you have cultivated since this cake broke in the public eye.

The Obtuse one, is you.

[Jazzhead]

As an aside here:  Does anyone notice the liberal face is presented by two known lawyers on this thread?

I wonder if this is a coincidence?  If not, I need to fire some legal advisers.

This isn't "liberal" vs. "conservative".   It is a knotty problem where one set of rights conflicts with another.   A big part of the problem is the laziness of labeling stuff as "liberal" vs. "conservative".   

[Hoodat]

So you're the only human being on God's green earth who married with no expectation of having sex?    That is a spurious (and ridiculous) characterization of equal protection and you know it.   A sexual relationship is part and parcel of marriage.   Gays marry gays, straights marry straights.

I happen to know two straight men in California who got married for health insurance reasons.  One needed a policy, and the other had a very good policy through work.  So here you have straight marrying straight, except they were of the same gender.  And if they had gone to Masterpiece bakery to have a wedding cake made, they would have been told the EXACT same thing that plaintiffs were told.

That's called 'equal protection'.   You just don't happen to like equal protection.

[INVAR]

Why shouldn't we encourage gays to be monogamous and marry?

Because it is a perversion and abomination to nature, and to the Creator who made the institution of marriage to begin with.  It is egregiously detrimental to the propagation of a wholesome society and opens the doors for people with perverted sexual desires to demand marriage rights to pets, objects and children.

What is "destabilizing" about my neighbors and their family?     

The homo agenda is not content to have their perverts masturbate together in private and keep to themselves.  They have to flaunt it in our faces, have parades and demand that the rest of us acknowledge it, celebrate it and participate in it.

That's why they are destabilizing.

[Hoodat]

This isn't "liberal" vs. "conservative".   It is a knotty problem where one set of rights conflicts with another. 

Actually, it is a problem where the tyranny of a select few is imposed upon the very foundation upon which our US Constitution is based.  If Congress wanted to pass some law defining marriage, then they have every right under the Constitution to do so.  But in lieu of that, said decision is left up to the States - also under the Constitution.

The problem lies when one side relies upon black-robed tyrants who ignore the Constitution and impose their will upon the States without referendum, legislation, or vote.  And they do so under the lie of equal protection, claiming equal protection for one select class while ignoring dozens of others.

T-Y-R-A-N-N-Y

[driftdiver]

As an aside here:  Does anyone notice the liberal face is presented by two known lawyers on this thread?

I wonder if this is a coincidence?  If not, I need to fire some legal advisers.

@IsailedawayfromFR
Oh yeah I've noticed.  And both come from the coasts.

[HoustonSam]

A big part of the problem is the laziness of labeling stuff as "liberal" vs. "conservative".   

I have to agree with @Jazzhead here.  Arguments over who is the real conservative and who is a closet liberal are just disputes over labels.  We might as well argue about distinctions between shades of a color.  "The color is salmon, and if you call it "coral" you're going to burn in Hell and I'm going to enjoy watching."

I've actually stopped thinking of myself as a "conservative", because I can't find a common principle that unifies the various positions I take on issues, all of which are conventionally labeled "conservative."  You pick an issue, I'll give you my opinion on it, and down the line every opinion will fall into the "conservative" camp, but I can't tell you what pro-life has in common with low taxes, RKBA, or traditional marriage.

Shortly upthread @IsailedawayfromFR paid me a very kind compliment, far nicer than I deserve.  The honest reason I don't post here more often is that there is simply no value in arguing about labels and calling each other names.

[Hoodat]

Why shouldn't we encourage gays to be monogamous and marry?    What is "destabilizing" about my neighbors and their family?     

That is a question that should be left up to the people of the State of Vermont, or California, or Pennsylvania, or Georgia.  It is not something that should be forced upon them with brute tyranny.

If Pennsylvania wants to legalize same-sex marriage, then they should have the right to do so.  And if Ohio wants to define marriage as between one man and one woman, they should be allowed that freedom as well.  Yet your position is not one of freedom at all.  It is one where you impose your tyranny on everyone else as Amendment X is burnt to ashes.

[driftdiver]

I happen to know two straight men in California who got married for health insurance reasons.  One needed a policy, and the other had a very good policy through work.  So here you have straight marrying straight, except they were of the same gender.  And if they had gone to Masterpiece bakery to have a wedding cake made, they would have been told the EXACT same thing that plaintiffs were told.

That's called 'equal protection'.   You just don't happen to like equal protection.

@Hoodat
heck there are a lot of straight married couples who dont have sex

or so I've heard

:)

[driftdiver]

You are very kind @IsailedawayfromFR.  TBR got along fine before I ever showed up, and it gets along fine without me.  I appreciate having an opportunity to speak my mind when I have something to say and I hope my expression will be clear and fair-minded.  I've known people who said too much and I would rather err in the other direction.

@HoustonSam
I could probably do better to follow your example

[IsailedawayfromFR]

This isn't "liberal" vs. "conservative".   It is a knotty problem where one set of rights conflicts with another.   A big part of the problem is the laziness of labeling stuff as "liberal" vs. "conservative".   

That is the problem with 'legalese' in a nutshell.

Most people use morality guidelines when confronted with that choice.

The years of decline in morality is the reason we have these discussions.

When I grew up, I knew the moral thing to do and what others were expected to do.  Now, it is left to trying to figure out in legal texts.