
Supreme Court Sides with Baker Who Turned Away Gay Couple - Amorymeltzer
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/us/politics/supreme-court-sides-with-baker-who-turned-away-gay-couple.html
======
classichasclass
Page 12 I think is where the money is. "Any decision in favor of the baker
would have to be sufficiently constrained, lest all purveyors of goods and
services who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons in effect
be allowed to put up signs saying 'no goods or services will be sold if they
will be used for gay marriages,' something that would impose a serious stigma
on gay persons."

In effect, the ruling comes down in favor of the baker because it finds fault
with the Colorado commission's deliberative process, not actually with CADA,
nor does it say that religion must take precedence, merely that it must be
considered. Both sides are going to pull pieces from this for future cases. I
applaud Kennedy for trying to address the complexity of the issues here but it
doesn't settle much.

IANAL. (edited for typo)

~~~
ordinaryradical
You can look at all of the false precedents that are being extrapolated below
to see how few of us read or understood this case well (I’m guilty here!)

What’s scary is how many of us are repeating arguments that the media
narrativized this case with as a way of raising the stakes. So many “common
sense” yet wrong arguments and conclusions being trotted out.

~~~
PurpleBoxDragon
Even in this thread, much less in other discussions about this case, I've read
a lot of people who believe the bakery refused to serve the couple at all,
instead of refusing them a particular service but offering to sell them
anything in the shop or to custom make cakes for any events other than a same
sex wedding. If facts of the case are lost in the discussion, then what hope
is there of minding the nuances of the ruling itself?

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macinjosh
Cases like this have me baffled. They just seem unreasonable. Why would you
want to pay someone to make something important to you like a wedding cake if
they clearly do not want to? On the other hand what sort of business rejects
paying customers that aren't doing any harm?

I realize it is a matter of principle for both sides but why do both political
wings in the US feel compelled to force those with opposing belief systems to
comply with their belief system? Post a negative review on Yelp and just find
a better baker that's not a jerk!

The level of tolerance of those with differing opinions is extremely low in
this country and I fear it may eventually be an Achille's heel. Tolerance goes
both ways, if someone is being a jerk to you _avoid them_ don't bully them
into doing things your way. On the flipside if someone wants to be your
customer: let them!

~~~
geofft
I'm not sure what it's like in this couple's town, but in my hometown in the
South, as of when I was in high school, I genuinely don't know where I'd go to
find _any_ gay-affirming baker. I could probably find a few who would take the
job for money, but most of the good bakeries in the town were owned by old
Cajun families who generally had strong Catholic beliefs, and most of the
people not of that demographic were conservative Protestants. (I can also tell
you a little bit about being raised in that environment and whether _I_ would
have felt totally comfortable selling such a cake if I hadn't left the town.)
I think my best bet would have been a supermarket chain, but a) do you really
want a supermarket cake for your wedding b) I have no reason to expect that
the person working the bakery counter that day would be comfortable with my
order.

Is the answer for a gay couple in such a place to just leave their hometown?

~~~
macinjosh
I don't think people should have to leave their hometown because of bigotry.
If I was in their position I would _want_ to leave ASAP because I would want
nothing to do with them. What I don't understand is the proclivity people have
for conflict versus ignoring the minority of bigots and enjoying life despite
them.

~~~
Balgair
To add to the discussion, my brother is in Lakewood, right next door. The gay
couple isn't leaving anytime soon, as the area is pretty 'live and let live',
they aren't being chased out (except maybe by hispters due to rising rents).
Denver is pretty gay friendly in general. Though there are a fair few crazies,
it's rare enough that any incident of bigotry is newsworthy.

Google maps link:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Masterpiece+Cakeshop/@39.6...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Masterpiece+Cakeshop/@39.6086722,-105.1128487,13z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x876b81d27c8ec5f5:0x27d6cc955a8e1d4b!8m2!3d39.6546678!4d-105.0821642)

Of note: the educational institution just below Marston Lake on S. Pierce St.

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joe_hills
You can find the judgement at:
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf)

It's clear from the text that the lower court's ruling was thrown out because
of prejudicial behavior by Colorado's Civil Rights Commission during the
hearing about this matter.

The Supreme Court didn't decide anything about the baker's actions, only that
he wasn't given a fair process by the state.

~~~
wilsonnb
Personally, I think that their evidence of prejudicial behavior was pretty
weak, which is the stance that Ginsburg and Sotomayor took as well.

It will be interesting to see what happens the next time a case like this
makes it to the Supreme Court. I was hoping we would get a decision that would
set more precedent about this kind of "freedom of expression vs freedom of
religion vs civil rights law" debate.

~~~
dorchadas
I would love to see the SC basically say it comes down to how the business is
structured (though I doubt they'll do that, since businesses are now
considered 'people'). If you're using a DBA or just plain self-employed, you
can discriminate based on personal beliefs since it's you who is the business.
However, if you're using an LLC or fully incorporated, you can't since it's a
licensed business that you work for, and not yourself doing it.

Basically, it'd make people weigh whether the benefits of an LLC are enough to
make them give up their "religious freedom" to be bigots.

------
dorp
It is the baker's right to bake a cake for who ever they feel like baking a
cake for. You can't force someone to do something.

~~~
cdelsolar
You can if they're providing a service for the public. Wtf are you talking
about?

~~~
toomuchtodo
A business has the right to refuse service to anyone.

I genuinely thought this ruling would go the other way, but I can appreciate
why it didn’t. The demarcation of rights is fraught with complexity.

~~~
bootlooped
Except if the reason they are refusing them service is because they are a
member of a protected class. This was a core issue of the civil rights
movement.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It could be argued that forcing a business owner to provide a service they
don’t want to perform is assault by the state (protected classes
notwithstanding).

What if a business owner’s religion precludes then from serving a protected
class or someone with a disability? Which takes precedence?

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
But the business owner in this case is specifically offering to provide the
service (baking a cake to your requirements) already. Unless they aren't, and
they just offer a number of predesigned, off-the-shelf cakes, but it doesn't
sound like that's the case here.

------
mabbo
I'll be intrigued to see the long term consequences of this. Religious
freedoms overriding civil rights regarding discrimination are a heck of a can
of worms.

My local barber shop (who are really nice guys) nearly got into this situation
a few years ago. On the day in question, all 3 barbers working were devout
Muslim men who cannot touch a woman other than their wife. A woman came in
looking for a men's cut. They refused. It made the news. They resolved it
outside of courts amicably.

But what happens long term if everyone is allowed to discriminate against
anyone they like so long as they wrap their beliefs up in a religious
reasoning? Does society not lose out as we break off from interacting with
those of other cultures?

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scottmf
I can’t believe there are comments here supporting the “baker’s right” to
refuse service on these grounds.

>The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Phillips’s free speech rights
had not been violated, _noting that the couple had not discussed the cake’s
design before Mr. Phillips turned them down._

This is a public business refusing service to a person(s) because of their
sexual orentiation.

This is no different than refusing service to an interracial couple because
you dont believe in race-mixing.

Yes, they could have gone to another bakery but that isn’t the point. Do you
understand why anti-discriminatory laws exist? Step out of your privileged
bubble and read some fucking civil rights and LGBT history.

------
ChrisRR
A fairly similar case in the UK where a hotel owner refused a room to a gay
couple, came down in favour of the couple.

I'd have to agree with that decision. If you want to run a business, you
shouldn't be allowed to refuse people service based on their sexual
orientation, race, level of education, sex, religion, etc.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
While I'm not familiar with UK law, in US law that would be open and shut if
the reason he refused them the room was specifically because they were gay. It
would be similar to if this baker refused to sell the couple anything because
of their sexuality, which is not the case. He immediately offered to sell them
anything already in the shop or to even create custom goodies for
showers/birthdays/etc. But he would not create a product to endorse a view he
found offensive.

And that's the major issue. Under freedom of speech you cannot be compelled by
the state to endorse things you find distasteful, and cake creation is
reasonably qualified as an expression of speech. By contrast, I do not think
one could argue that giving somebody the keys to a room is any sort of
expression.

~~~
amaccuish
I feel like people shouldn't get to decide what is distasteful or not. Bakers
should be able to reject making a cake with swear words, sexual imagery and
hate speech, and that's about it. Everything else you make, unless of course
you don't have the resources/staff/time etc. But on the basis of the message
on the cake, if it isn't hateful, bake it.

This is clearly without regard to American law, I'm sure it conflicts, but
that's where my views lie on this :)

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Have you considered the implications of when people can force others to
perform services, involving expressions of speech, against their will? You
could go into an Islamic cake shop and demand they draw an image of 'happy
Mohammed' on a cake for you. You could demand Bob's Marketing Company create
and execute a campaign stating that Bob's Marketing Company is the worst. And
so on.

That's just at the high level if you can actually get the law to function.
Which is itself a huge question. That's where you get into questions like what
is sexual imagery? What is hate speech? Who defines that? For instance back in
the more puritanical times of the US, which really was not all that long ago,
there were numerous laws against indecent material. And again the problem
regularly faced is how do you define it? Consider all the content that would
be naturally ambiguous. Consider other content that intentionally slides in or
out of the restrictions for whatever end. Not so easy!

------
Matticus_Rex
As much as I might personally believe this baker to be a sanctimonious jerk, I
believe in people's right to be a sanctimonious, prejudiced, awful jerk with
their own stuff (just not other people's). For the same reason, I support a
media company cancelling a TV show for racist tweets, or a sports association
fining players for a particular action (even if I agree with the action).

We don't make people less awful by forcing them to use their own stuff in the
way we would like them to use it.

------
craftyguy
So I guess discrimination lives on as something folks can legally do.

What's to stop me from refusing to work with someone of a different race or
gender because I believe in some religion that says those other people aren't
people and are evil?

Setting precedence to allow people to fuck over other people and hide behind a
religion, which can proclaim just about any arbitrary non-violent thing and be
'protected', seems very very wrong.

Also, SCOTUS, where's your commerce clause now? Why does this not apply?

~~~
knubie
> What's to stop me from refusing to work with someone What's to stop me from
> refusing to work with someone of a different race or gender because I
> believe in some religion that says those other people aren't people and are
> evil?

You would probably be fired, or not hired at all.

~~~
craftyguy
Eh, you missed the point. Replace 'work with' with 'serve' or whatever. This
ruling empowers business owners as much as anyone else to refuse service based
on sexual preference.

~~~
PurpleBoxDragon
But it doesn't because the courts made a limited ruling that doesn't set a
strong standard either way. It also applies to the service provided, not to
whom is served. A bakery that refuses to sell any cakes to a gay couple is
going to have a much worse time in court than a bakery refusing to make a gay
wedding cake, but even in the latter case, assuming a lower court doesn't
repeat the same mistakes made in this case, the Supreme Court may still rule
against the baker.

------
wpietri
I look forward to reading the full ruling, but this seems a little ahistorical
to me. If you look at the civil war era, there were plenty of people with
"sincere religious beliefs that motivated" their enslavement of black people.
And those religious beliefs continued to motivate "separate but equal"
schools, segregated restaurants, and the like.

We're currently seeing a rise in white supremacist thinking, so much so that
people are calling it a second Nadir. [1] And the religious motivations for
gender bias are even more blatant. I don't think it'll be too many more years
before we see a case where somebody refuses to serve black people or
unaccompanied women and claims a religious motivation. I'm sure the Supreme
Court won't accept that, but I don't know how they'll justify one sort of
"sincere religious" bigotry but not the other.

[1] The first being the late 1800s through the early 1900s:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_American_race_relatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_American_race_relations)

------
Tomte
Well, I'm generally for gay rights, but I think the decision was correct, not
only on the narrow grounds it was actually decided on.

As far as I know, the baker did not refuse to sell the gay couple a wedding
cake.

He refused to put the inscription on top himself. He offered the couple to
either buy a pre-made cake with a standard inscription or – if they didn't
want that (because it's obviously lower quality than a 100% hand-made cake) –
to go to another bakery he recommended.

Presumably (but I don't know if he actually offered this) he would have been
okay with selling his cake and the gay couple having someone else inscribe the
cake.

Although the blogs loved to depict the case as "gay-hater refusing service to
gays", it was really a case of "religious baker doesn't want to personally
write on top, because he felt in this way he was giving his blessing".

------
xxpor
In a very narrow ruling that creates little binding precedent.

~~~
sparrish
7-2 decision doesn't sound very narrow to me.

~~~
harryh
In this case "narrow" has to do with the scope of the ruling, not the margin
of votes. It could have been 9-0 and still been correctly referred to as
"narrow."

The court did not rule on the conflict between free speech and discrimination
that was at the core of the case. Instead they made a "narrow" ruling saying
that the shop owners did not receive a fair hearing in front of the Colorado
Civil Rights commission. The broader free speech/discrimination question is
still an open one as far as SCOTUS is concerned. I assume we'll see another
case down the road somewhere on this topic.

------
sgift
At the end of the day there will always be cases where one right stands
against another and a society will have to decide which right is more
important. Such decisions are shaping a society, not laws that say "you have
right xy" without any context.

------
wilsonnb
I suggest that anyone interested in the case read the actual ruling. It's not
that long and not hard to understand. [1]

Personally, I thought that the majority ruling and the dissent were both
pretty compelling. I'm not sure where I would have come down on this issue.

[1]
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf)

------
libc
Setting aside the moral question for a moment, this seems like a terrible idea
from a business perspective. Say nothing of the potential revenue they're
turning away over their (bigoted) political views, they'll also lose business
from bad PR.

------
tomatotomato37
It seems that takeaway from this is that in a collision of people's rights the
explicit rights takes precedent over implicit rights

------
cromwellian
So, what if one’s religion doesn’t let you sell cakes to Infidels, or Jews, or
blacks?

Why does religious beliefs get get out of jail free cards but other sincere
beliefs, like say in Socialism or Environmentalism not get similar deference?

For example conscientous objection in the US used to rely on religous beliefs
and it would be hard to avoid going to war by asserting your opposes to it for
rational secular reasons.

The law should apply equally to everyone no matter your internal beliefs or
how offended you are at something. Atheists can’t object to laws on ththe
grounds they find something deeply offensive and against their morals, so why
do Christian bigots get to do so?

~~~
PurpleBoxDragon
>So, what if one’s religion doesn’t let you sell cakes to Infidels, or Jews,
or blacks?

They court will rule against you. In this case, the bakery didn't refuse to
serve them, but refused a particular service it didn't offer to anyone, gay
wedding cakes. The question was, given that they offered a straight version of
that service, should they be forced to offer the gay version. But even then
the ruling is narrow enough it likely won't be applicable to a similar case in
the future.

------
TangoTrotFox
An important issue here is that the baker did not refuse the couple service
because they were homosexual. The baker has a fairly long list of things he
refuses to endorse with _custom products._ This includes Halloween, atheism,
anti-American views, and same sex marriage. In his interaction with the couple
he stated he would not bake a cake for a same sex wedding, but offered to sell
them anything in the shop or to create custom birthday cakes, shower cakes, or
cookies and brownies. In front of the court he also stated he would have sold
them any premade wedding cake - just not create one specifically for this
event. In other words if a heterosexual couple wanted a cake that endorsed
homosexual views, he would still have refused them. It's not about the person,
but about the product he's being asked to create.

This is very important because freedom of speech also has the nuance in that
there's also protects against compelled speech. And on this there's a couple
of really interesting components. The courts have ruled a wide range of things
from stained glass windows to even topless dancing as expressions protected by
the first amendment, and so 'cake art' almost certainly falls within this
protection. This is even implied in the price. Wedding cakes can run hundreds
of dollars, yet the cost of the ingredients and even labor is a tiny fraction
of that. People are paying for the artistic expression of the person creating
the cake.

A different argument might be that nobody could think that the baker creating
the cake was itself an endorsement of gay marriage. One of the many
interesting 'friend of the court' filings here dealt with this. There was an
interesting case in New Hampshire who's state slogan is Live Free or Die. This
was (is?) emblazoned on all license plates from the state, but one individual
took issue with this as it did align with their own moral beliefs, and so they
sued the state and this case ended up at the US supreme court. The state lost.
The point here is that nobody could reasonably believe that the individual
with 'life free or die' on the license plate was actually endorsing such a
view, since it was a standard part of the kit for everybody - yet even when no
individual can reasonably believe that some form of speech might be endorsing
a view (or reflective of the individual who is indirectly 'expressing' such a
view), one cannot be compelled to expressions that they find offensive.

------
dijit
idk, this seems fair.

It goes both ways though; if I ask a gay baker to make clitoris cakes I don't
think he should have to do that either, we all have the right to refuse to
work on things we oppose; surely.

There is such a thing as decency, I wouldn't expect my local baker to make
sexually suggestive cookies for me, she would not be comfortable making them
and it would be arrogant of me to force her.

EDIT: for those likening the service to race, it's not quite the same, unless
you were talking about a white person being unable to buy a racist cake from a
black baker. Which I'm sure we all agree is a fair thing to refuse service
for. We have control of what we put into the world. Tolerance means being
tolerant, it does not extend so far as to deny my right to refuse to create
something I do not support (matter of what you should support or not is not
the topic here), otherwise anyone can ask anyone to make racist/sexist shit
and they have no recourse.

~~~
fzeroracer
You are massively misrepresenting the case.

There is a world of difference between someone refusing to design or bake a
cake on the basis of the contents requested and someone refusing to do the
same on the basis of the person(s) requesting the cake.

The baker refused to bake a cake because the couple was gay, not because of
what was on it.

~~~
Tomte
That's wrong. The baker offered to sell another cake to them.

The difference between the cake not sold and the cake he was willing to sell
was what was on it.

You've fallen victim to hyper-sensationalized blogs.

~~~
fzeroracer
No, what I said was correct.

He offered to sell them other prefab cakes, but refused specifically to bake
them a cake because he viewed it as supporting gay marriage (and ergo,
supporting their marriage).

In this case there is little to no distinction between what was on the cake
versus the people requesting it. As I mentioned in another comment, if a black
couple was refused service because the baker does not recognize marriage among
black people I believe it would be considered flagrant racism.

And don't resort to ad hominem attacks against my arguments.

~~~
Tomte
Exactly. He was willing to sell a cake.

You're erither not understanding the issue or you're willfully obtuse.

Since it's such a charged issue, I'm pretty sure you're doing this out of
malice.

------
peterwwillis
This is going to be a shitshow soon, so here's a terrible comment to kick
things off:

Will surgeons soon be able to refuse to operate on patients because they're
gay? After all, it's a service in an open market.

edit: it has been legal and common practice for doctors to refuse service to
gay and trans people for at least two years. see thread below

~~~
Matticus_Rex
Do you want or trust a surgeon who hates you to operate on you?

~~~
sgift
Yes. That's part of what makes that surgeon a professional - that they ignore
their bias and do their job. If they cannot provide that standard of conduct
they are unfit to be a surgeon.

~~~
Matticus_Rex
What's better, a world where we have X surgeons who will do a good job for
everyone, or a world where we have those X surgeons plus Y surgeons who refuse
to operate on certain people, but do a good job for everyone else? It's not a
choice between case 2 and a magical fairy tale case where we get X+Y surgeons
who will do a good job for everyone.

~~~
evanlivingston
separate but equal.

------
Brosper
How this news is connected with "Hacker News"?

~~~
Tomte
Do you imagine this to be an original and valuable comment?

This news is connected to Hacker News in that our community has long been
interested in civil rights and societal shifts.

And more importantly, in that it has made the front page. 95 out of 100 times
reaching the front page means it's proper here. The rest are buried by the
mods without fifth-time commenters lamenting the declining quality as if they
were a fixture in this forum.

------
dfundako
As odd as it is that people can use religion as their motivation for refusing
to do something (refusing to sell alcohol/pork to a customer as a store
checker because it is against their religion to consume those things), the
free market in the US will probably weed those people out. If you generate bad
publicity and turn away money enough, you will find yourself out of business
in a capitalist society.

~~~
samueldavid
in conservative america? good luck with that anytime soon

------
samueldavid
good news for once today!

