>They've begun taking positions against individual civil rights... this has escalated to the point that I think they're often on the wrong side of 1a issues as well.
Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another?
A common example is the baker tasked with making a wedding cake for a gay couple. Should the baker have the civil right to practice their religion which does not condone gay marriage? Or should the gay couple have the civil right to not be discriminated against for their sexuality? You can't take a position in this situation without being against someone's civil rights.
As the political environment in the US becomes more polarized, these conflicts become more common and the apolitical path becomes less tenable.
EDIT: I wasn't trying to start a debate about this specific court case. But the fact that simply mentioning it did spark that debate basically proves my point. There is no universal agreed upon line between the civil rights of one individual and the civil rights of another. When these conflicts arise, the ACLU's work will be inherently political because an apolitical compromise is rarely possible.
> Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another?
Kind of, yes. I think where things go off the rails is where projection and extrapolation come into play.
Recall: one of the key defining cases of the ACLU was their defense of (actual) neo-nazis marching in Skokie in the 70s.
Contrast this with the ACLU in 2017 arguing that San Francisco should prevent an alt-right protest because of theorized violence (the protest went forward. No violence materialized). Volokh wrote a bit about it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
There's a lot of inconsistency in the modern day ACLU. I think they've walked some of it back in the last few years, but from 2016-2020 I think they kind of lost their mind and I saw a lot of strong advocacy for these sort of projected societal norms -- don't let the bad people protest -- rather than the staunch defense of individual rights no matter who the individuals may be.
I want an ACLU that isn't polarized by politics. With a focus on individual rights.
You are leaving out some important context. The ACLU statement against those alt-right protests came in the immediate aftermath of a similar rally in Charlottesville that resulted in violence and death. People have a right to protest whatever their political viewpoint. However they don't have a right to incite violence. The ACLU no longer believed that these protests would be peaceful so they came out against them.
You can argue that the ACLU made the wrong decision because maybe they were misinformed about the nature of the protest and whether it would lead to violence. But the principle behind their decision seems clear and obvious. They will support peaceful free speech and not support speech which incites violence.
In particular, it's worth remembering the ACLU was backing the protestors at Charlottesville when it happened. They felt like they had blood on their hands.
For the record I am pro-gay marriage, but your example is BS. The baker in your example was willing to bake them a cake. They were never denied a cake. What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech. It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights. Or going to an artist who sells t-shirts with their standard art and saying they denied me service when they wouldn't let me commission a custom piece that they didn't like to content of.
This discussion has been rehashed over and over again, but you're wrong on the facts of this case.
The owner claimed that he would bake any cake, but the evidence shows he refused before they discussed any styling or even what the cake was. He would sell them cupcakes or prebaked items, but wouldn't bake any cake, arguing it was compelled speech. The problem is that in the absence of asking for a cake which specifically mentions gay people, the owner's line of argumentation works equally well for refusing to cook a burger for black people at a diner. By being a business owner in a community, you give up certain civil liberties because you have increased power to infringe upon the civil rights of others.
Your analogies all fail because they consider situations where the customer asks the seller for a different, non-standard product. But that didn't happen; they were refused before any products were discussed.
> By being a business owner in a community, you give up certain civil liberties because you have increased power to infringe upon the civil rights of others.
Big [citation needed] here. The Constitution doesn’t say you give up your rights by being a business owner and participating in the economy.
Owning a business is not a right, though. Public commerce is pervasively regulated in all sorts of ways that might plausibly constitute "speech". The first amendment guarantees your right to make your opinions heard to all who want to listen. It doesn't say anything about making a buck doing it.
Owning a business is most definitely a right. One of the highest. It falls under 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' and is explicitly a right given by the constitution. It is on the same as familial association which is also a right legally recognized as being granted by 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.
It comes from Locke, actually, and the third right enumerated was explicitly "property". But this is strawmanning anyway. I'm not saying the government has the right to seize property (that's covered quite explicitly under the fourth amendment). I'm saying that there is no right to operate a public business without regulation.
And sometimes regulation says "you can't police what your customers say with your product". Which is why I have a hard time taking some people seriously on this argument, which is so precisely analogous to the Twitter situation where they stand on the other side.
(FWIW: I think Masterpiece v. Colorado was absolutely correctly decided. Twitter doesn't have to put anything on their cakes that they don't want to say.)
Sorry, I'm a little confused by your post(I didn't follow this story originally and was, um, indisposed when it all happened so I don't know any of the larger social discussions that occured at the time other than a few newspaper articles). I'm was raised by hippies to be a diehard libertarian with a son who has had a lot of judgements and pain in his life because of who he is (and who he is is amazing so f all yall who judge him without knowing him). So this is kind of an existential crisis for me. I'm really really grateful to read all these thoughts.
I was absolutist about individual rights. But this discuss has me seeing that the absolutist view can allow people to be denied basic freedoms too (like how blacks were in the past). Each side is actually advocating for rights in this scenario, no matter which side I take. Before I would say the government can't limit rights, so tough luck to people who have theoretic constitutional rights but can't actually take advantage of those rights because society as a whole denies them to them over something arbitrary (race, sexual preference). Now I'm not sure. Our Government was created to ensure rights are protected from the tyranny of the majority as much as to protect from government tyranny (hence religious freedoms, freedom of speech, etc). This discussion has me seeing that protecting protected classes need a way that they can actually experience the rights given to them by the constitution and that is no different than the government enforcing freedom of religion.
I'm kind of at the point of seeing that past freedoms (to discriminate) resulted in non government imposed limiting of peoples (minorities, those with non-standard sexual preferences) basic freedoms (freedom to travel, be in public life, associate, have the same life experiences as others).
I think you are saying that businesses shouldn't have compelled speech but that the government can regulate business so that protected classes have their basic rights to enjoy/live life actually made available?
Sorry, not trying to be dense, just possibly adjusting some major life long beliefs.
Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
> Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term "private".
Then cite where the constitution explicitly protects discrimination against protected classes.
The problem citing the constitution here is it's an argument from ignorance. You can't ignore federal laws just because the constitution doesn't say anything about them.
> Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
> The US constitution overrides other US laws, not the other way around.
> Then cite where the constitution explicitly protects discrimination against protected classes.
That reply was not about protected classes, per se. Please don't strawman off constructive criticism. Acknowledge you made a bad assertion or ignore it as irrelevant to your point.
- Asking where the constitution talks about protected classes is a loaded question, because it's protected by federal law.
- Stating the constitution overrides federal law is an argument from ignorance, because the constitution doesn't say anything about discrimination against protected classes to override it with.
Selectively ignoring the context of this conversation (i.e. "it's not about that per SE") to make my comment look like an unrelated straw man is cherry picking.
The problem with constitutionalists declaring freedom of association here is that the courts have repeatedly, undeniably upheld that the federal laws protecting civil rights are more important than the centuries old document (or, in a way, linked to the 14th amendment).
> Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
> The US constitution overrides other US laws, not the other way around.
> Stating the constitution overrides federal law is an argument from ignorance,
It is not an argument from ignorance. There was no argument about discrimination made. There was a reply (a correction) to point out a flaw in your argument. You are intentionally trying to pretend there was no error in your own argument by circling back to an orthogonal point. It was simply incorrect on its own to say "Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law." I don't understand why you are bending over backwards, to defend something that doesn't matter to the points that matter to you, at all.
You have been striking out against people who are trying to help you have a stronger argument, by pointing out weakness. That's something worth thinking about in the future. GL with whatever.
The US Constitution guarantees freedom of association, i.e. the freedom not to associate, to discriminate on any basis you please. The CRA removes that right for a delimited number of protected classes but doesn’t remove it generally.
Can you point to something establishing what you say it true?
The specific situation you reference would seem to totally be a violation under my argument but taht doesn't invalidate my argument (especially since I did not mention a specific baker).
In the situation I presented would you grant that no rights are violated?
You claimed "the baker in your example was willing to bake them a cake. They were never denied a cake". That's 1) referencing a specific baker (the one GP mentioned with a definite article) and 2) a positive claim about that baker.
>In July 2012, Craig and Mullins visited Masterpiece, a bakery in Lakewood, Colorado, and requested that Phillips design and create a cake to celebrate their same-sex wedding. Phillips declined, telling them that he does not create wedding cakes for same-sex weddings because of his religious beliefs, but advising Craig and Mullins that he would be happy to make and sell them any other baked goods. Craig and Mullins promptly left Masterpiece without discussing with Phillips any details of their wedding cake.
>The parties did not dispute any material facts. Masterpiece and Phillips admitted that the bakery is a place of public accommodation and that they refused to sell Craig and Mullins a cake because of their intent to engage in a same-sex marriage ceremony.
The distinction Masterpiece argued was that they were discriminating against Craig and Mullins on the basis of gay marriage, not on the basis of being gay. See e.g. Elane Photography v Willock for why this argument doesn't work.
Even taking that line on face value (although I would argue that the rest of the quotes portray a different story), the distinction between "standard service" and "custom work" is nigh-useless when divorced from the content of the custom service, which weren't discussed ("Craig and Mullins promptly left Masterpiece without discussing with Phillips any details of their wedding cake."). If a diner said "we'll make you a hamburger, but we won't make one without onions", and said that only because of a customer's race, that would be transparent discrimination.
In other words, you can refuse custom work that goes against your principles, but you can't refuse custom work to someone that goes against your principles. And in the Masterpiece case, the content of the custom work wasn't discussed.
Thank you for your persistence. I know it probably seems obvious to you but this helps my thinking. You can refuse work that goes against your principles, but you can't refuse custom work to someone that goes against your principles. I still think it takes agency away from artists in a way I am not comfortable with but because people suck it is probably a needed tradeoff or else people will couch unfair behaviors as artistic discretion.
Not the place and way off in the weeds, but I wonder how this plays out with a wedding photographer, who is required to be at the event that they might be against.
Frig, I wish there was a different example I'm really not trying to defend the baker. I'm trying to understand expanded (government) limits on freedom that we didn't have in the past that are paradoxically needed in order for people (gays, minorities) to have freedom (marriage, free association, ability to just do the same things I take for granted) that they didn't have in the past. Not trying to be a monster here. Just trying to understand things. Bringing it back to the article this is we need something like the ACLU as an organization to navigated these things in a way trusted by people on all sides of the political aisle.
The Colorado Court of Appeals actually mentions a case involving a wedding photographer decided by the New Mexico Supreme Court, Elane Photography LLC v. Willock.
NM SCOTUS decided even more strongly, arguing that the New Mexico Human Rights Act, "prohibits public accommodations from making any distinction in the services they offer to customers on the basis of protected classifications. The NMHRA does not permit businesses to offer a limited menu of goods or services to customers on the basis of a status that fits within one of the protected categories." (I'm Quoting Lexis, not the ruling)
I'm not sure I agree with this ruling, but it's unclear whether it would have been decided the same way if the Court had interpreted Elane Photography's services as an artistic work rather than a utilitarian service. NM SCOTUS had a few arguments, but basically it decided that anti-discriminatino laws aren't compelled speech because Elane Photography could just decide not to be a company performing a service:
>However, unlike the laws at issue in Wooley and Barnette, the NMHRA does not require Elane Photography to recite or display any message. It does not even require Elane Photography to take photographs. The NMHRA only mandates that if Elane Photography operates a business as a public accommodation, it cannot discriminate against potential clients based on their sexual orientation.
>The Barnette Court noted that the dissenting students’ choice not to salute the flag “[did] not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual.” 319 U.S. at 630. That is not the case here, where Elane Photography’s asserted right not to serve same-sex couples directly conflicts with Willock’s right under Section 28-1-7(F) of the NMHRA to obtain goods and services from a public accommodation without discrimination on the basis of her sexual orientation.
>The same situation is true in the instant case. Like the law in Rumsfeld, the NMHRA
does not require any affirmation of belief by regulated public accommodations; instead, it requires businesses that offer services to the public at large to provide those services without regard for race, sex, sexual orientation, or other protected classifications. Section 28-1-7(F). The fact that these services may involve speech or other expressive services does not render the NMHRA unconstitutional. See Rumsfeld, 547 U.S. at 62 (“The compelled speech to which the law schools point is plainly incidental to the [law’s] regulation of conduct, and it has never been deemed an abridgment of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out. Dale also was decided on freedom of association grounds. Id. at 644. Elane Photography has not argued that its right of expressive association was violated. by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). Elane Photography is compelled to take photographs of same-sex weddings only to the extent that it would provide the same services to a heterosexual couple. See id. at 62 (speech assisting military recruiters was “only ‘compelled’ if, and to the extent, the school provide[d] such speech for other recruiters”).
To get back to the root of the issue, the Civil Rights Commission's decision was only reversed because the majority believed they had demonstrated hostility towards Philips's religious beliefs. The majority actually affirmed the constitutionality of the statute he was originally sued under, and the general constitutionality of anti-discrimination laws that protect gay people. Justice Kennedy explicitly said that the First Amendment does not protect a right to discriminate against protected classes under public accomodations law.
That is a huge misrepresentation of the facts of the case. Of course he refused before they discussed any styling: the same sex couple wanted a wedding cake. It didn’t matter what styling it had, making any such custom cake for them would be an implicit endorsement of their behavior, which was contrary to his deeply held religious beliefs.
> It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights.
It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, noting that they seem only seem to be denying black patrons off menu orders, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights.
And? Ethnic restaurants do this all the time with same ethnicity patrons and not me as a white guy. Shoot, they often even have a seperate menu for the right ethnic group that I never even get to see.
I’ve been to restaurants like this, like one where The husband and wife owners were Vietnamese and Cambodian, and the wife used to cook Cambodian dishes for people that wanted it, and had a Cambodian menu.
It wasn’t anything sinister. It just wasn’t something they advertised but found it to be a novel additional income.
It was a Vietnamese restaurant cuz people seek that cuisine out more than Khmer food.
But if even I asked for the Khmer menu they’d hand it to me, even though I’m a brown clearly Indian dude (who grew up with a few Cambodian friends)
They sure do deny it, it's happened to me may times. Or they allow it once or twice, but then later on they told me I can't keep ordering it because it's too much work and not on the normal menu.
I'm not saying it's sinister. Personally, I think it's reasonable. You have a standard business that you provide. And maybe those recipes are more generic to appeal to a larger customer base, but when someone from the home country comes in wanting the taste of home, you make them that special because you want to out of hospitality, and separate from your standard business. Is that illegal? Should you have to make that for everyone?
Some places will accommodate you, but some won't. Maybe because they only make a limited amount of those items, or because they are more labour intensive, or because they include more expensive exotically sourced ingredients and aren't a westernized recipe, or as happened with an ex-girlfriend, because it's a pretty acquired taste, and you should believe them when they say you aren't going to like that, they aren't just being hipstery.
As long as they provide me and everyone else their standard service, I think it's legitimate. But under what is being talked about here it would be considered an illegal racist practice.
Wow, keep voting me down and ignore that this is a real world example that happens all the time. Making accommodations for off menu items at ethnic restaurants is often determined by race but it isn't being done out of racism.
>What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech
This is just semantics of a legal argument. It is not some universal truth that ordering off menu puts any additional ethical strain on someone. If the baker would make those customizations for a straight couple and not a gay couple then the civil rights of the gay couple are being infringed.
Come on man, if I list services, and am willing to provide you those services, how did I deny you service? If I am not willing to go above and beyond to make you special creative accommodations that is not a violation of your rights.
If my religion does not allow me to do drugs, and you want me to cover a cake with marijuana flowers instead of the standard roses, I am required to do that? Am I denying you service when I say I will sell you a cake with standard flowers but I'm not spending 16 hours custom making marijuana icing flowers? Putting the standard icing on a cake is a service and should not be denied, but 16 hours making something custom is art and I should have a choice if I want to put that creative energy into what you are asking for.
Service was not denied, commissioning a custom work of artistry was. No rights were infringed.
You're conflating discrimination on the basis of the product being created vs on the basis of whom the product is being sold to.
The cake being commissioned was not materially different from any of the other cakes the baker made. What was materially different was who he was selling it to.
I am a computer geek and suck at words, but I thought that is what I said. If you provide a standard service, you can't deny that service to people. If you have something different, say a wedding cake that takes tens of hours and is a one off custom work of art, that is different.
I do custom software development. What is the line for what work I am compelled to take on versus what projects I can choose not to do? Would I be required to take on making a grindr clone if my only objections was religious?
You don't have to take bad faith arguments at face value.
When the baker says that his wedding cakes are a custom work of art tailored to each client, he's bullshitting you. He simply wants to discriminate against gay people. It really is that simple. There is no material difference between drawing flowers on a cake for a gay wedding and drawing flowers on a cake for a straight wedding, the same as there being no material difference between drawing flowers on a cake for an interracial wedding and a non-interracial wedding. When people make up false pretenses to justify their discrimination, your job as a rational human being is to identify it as such, not be a sucker.
I absolutely guarantee that if a straight couple had came in, commissioned a regular wedding cake, and then once the cake was done said "Oops we're not gonna buy it, can you sell it to our gay friends' wedding instead?", the baker would not have sold them the cake at that point, because again, it's about who he's selling it to, not what he's making.
Dude, have you bought a wedding cake? Mine was $2500. WTF? We had a dedicated time slot where we had our own private cake tasting to determine what cake we wanted and they establish a relationship with you and understanding of what you want and spend days making our cake. I don't see how that isn't a work of passion tailored to an individual's request. I don't think you understand the process and are assuming it's something it's not.
Nice use of a lot of derogatory comments though. That convinces me, I mean I don't want to be a sucker or a non-rational human being. You know people can have a different opinion and you don't have to degrade or otherize them. I'd rather keep my too much good faith in people's arguments that take on your toxicity.
If he refused in your hypothetical situation then yes, that would be discrimination 100%. I don't think your hypothetical is what happened though.
Who cares how long the cake took. I’m a programmer. Most projects take far longer than a cake takes. Maybe you don’t believe coding is partially an art form, but I do. I can’t imagine discriminating against people would make sense as a programmer just because projects usually take dozens upon dozens of hours.
—-
By deciding bad faith people aren’t bad faith, you’re effectively, screwing over the victims of discrimination. Which effectively “degrade or otherize them”.
“I'd rather keep my too much good faith in people's arguments that take on your toxicity.”
What does this mean?
These are the exact sort of stuff that people say to defend bigoted grifters on Joe Rohan’s podcast like Ben Shapiro. Something like “Rogan says Shapiro is a genuinely good dude. Why assume he is speaking in bad faith when he pushes everything his billionaire fracking backers believe and thinks gay or trans people are awful…but that’s just against his Jewish faith which he is not consistent on any way. Since he isn’t consistent in general”
Except one of the (standard) services of the bakery was "custom wedding cakes". And he didn't refuse to make some specific art that depicted homosexuality or whatever, he refused to make any custom wedding cake for a gay wedding. As in, they could have requested the exact same cake as a straight couple - let's say white, three tiers, pink icing - and he would have refused.
Just like if your 'service' is making meals to anyone who comes into your restaurant, you can't deny black customers. This seems like the same thing to me.
But it doesn't seem like the same to me. If he refused to sell a cake out of the display, it's an obvious violation. If he refused to take an order for a wedding cake, obvious violation. It looks like to me he refused to meet for a consultation on making a custom cake, which is something different. Maybe I am convoluting the process I went through with something different.
When I got married we could either fill out an order for a cake, and say we wanted white frosting, white cake with raspberry, to serve 200 people, etc by filling out their standard wedding cake form. Or, we could do a custom cake, where we had our own individual tasting of cakes and talked with the person about the details of what we wanted and design the details of the cake. The second option was not their standard service nor a standard cake, the first was. The first can not be denied, the second can (though your still a shitty person/business if you do). It's no different than an artist with a gallery. Anyone can buy their paintings, but anyone can't commission a piece. The artist has, not regency, I can't think of the word, but they have a say on who they take commissions from.
The point is this is why we need the ACLU. Someone who is willing to take the other side in uncomfortable/ugly discussions, so that we keep our rights. It is easy to give up rights. It's hard to get them back. I'm super uncomfortable with this discussion because I don't agree with the baker or what he did. But I think we need to be willing discuss infringements on rights, even when we agree with them.
It certainly is an uncomfortable discussion, although that often means it's an important one. I suppose I'd question whether the ACLU (or whoever) should push for the rights of the baker or the couple, since they seem to be at odds. Generally I think people have a right to run their business how they want, but also that people have a right to be free from discrimination based on their sexuality/race/gender/etc. I also don't agree with the baker, but I think I'd be uncomfortable with the state forcing him to create specific art.
I do see a distinction between denying a particular commision and denying someone even the option to request a commision though. If he refused to make a cake that said 'Jesus loves gay marriage' I probably think that should be allowed. But refusing to make any custom cake at all for a gay couple seems much different.
And comment is why we need the ACLU in it's old form.
Dude, do you not see no one is arguing for being pieces of crap, but that rights can easily be curtailed long term from an initial starting point of everyone agreeing we shouldn't be pieces of crap. You know, the saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.
No crap. Which is why we are discussing the boundaries of rights in the context of an organization that's purpose is to ensure that those boundaries don't get pushed to the point of infringing on other rights in either direction. In a free society we need someone willing to stand up for the unpopular side. I support gay marriage. I feel like a piece of crap in this discussion because the person I am defending disgusts me and is garbage. But I feel like there is a larger discussion that should be had.
If political speech is banned in the 6 months before an election do I have free speech?
If I am forced to do work I don't want when I am self employed and affluent enough to choose, do do I have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
Bringing religion into the gay cake thing is just gish galloping. No one should be forced to make any cake, no questions asked. (And no, WElL yUo CoulD jUST sTOp MaKInG ALL caKeS does not work, that's just force with a pretty bow on top.) But by bringing irrelevant religion into it, this gives the slavers - er, excuse me, the people who think it's okay to force other people to do things - the moral high ground of defending against a bunch of fundies. Just fucking stop trying to force other people to conform to your beliefs, even if those beliefs are as morally righteous as LGBT rights. Not making someone a cake is not violence.
No one has a "civil right" to discriminate in the United States. The default law in the United States is that discrimination is illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 spells out protections against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin.
Sexual orientation is not explicitly protected, but that does not mean you have a "civil right" to discriminate against gay people. You just... have a right to be an asshole.
> The Civil Rights Act of 1964 spells out protections against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin.
Only in specific, enumerated contexts, such as employment and public accommodations.
You have a civil right to associate with whomever you want to, for whatever reason you want. You also have a Constitutional right to live according to your religion even when participating in the economy.
Public accomodations includes hotels, restaurants, and other institutions open to interstate commerce, per Title II.
The baker in question claimed they were an artist (separate from their bakery/restaurant public accomodation) and that they had the religious freedom to discriminate against sexual orientation based on their religion.
The court ruled that artists are not compelled to create for whomever they want, but did not say that people can discriminate against other protected classes based on their religious beliefs.
A bakery is generally not a restaurant under Title II, which defines that to mean an establishment “principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises.”
Only if it also has a restaurant that serves food primarily for eating on premises. The bakery in masterpiece cake shop might have incidentally had a restaurant, I don’t remember, but a wedding cake caterer ordinarily wouldn’t fall under the Civil Rights Act.
Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another?
A common example is the baker tasked with making a wedding cake for a gay couple. Should the baker have the civil right to practice their religion which does not condone gay marriage? Or should the gay couple have the civil right to not be discriminated against for their sexuality? You can't take a position in this situation without being against someone's civil rights.
As the political environment in the US becomes more polarized, these conflicts become more common and the apolitical path becomes less tenable.
EDIT: I wasn't trying to start a debate about this specific court case. But the fact that simply mentioning it did spark that debate basically proves my point. There is no universal agreed upon line between the civil rights of one individual and the civil rights of another. When these conflicts arise, the ACLU's work will be inherently political because an apolitical compromise is rarely possible.