To the High Court

An interesting take. We’ll see what happens when the case is argued.

Meanwhile, while LGBTQ activists argue for their rights, other LGBTQ activists seek to take away the rights of others, which again may be headed to the Supreme Court. It would be interesting if the court were to rule separately that gay and transgender people are protected from workplace discrimination, and religious business owners can’t be compelled to create messages and participate in ceremonies that violate their faith.

9 Comments for “To the High Court”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    “In her petition to the Supreme Court, Ms. Stutzman argues Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson has been hostile towards Christians, saying he took her to court but refused to bring any action against a gay coffee-shop owner, who allegedly removed a group of Christians from his store after disagreeing with their religious views.”

    Oh, that one.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/6/christian-activists-booted-from-seattle-coffee-sho/

    That’s a tough one and I think one could easily argue it was politics instead. I don’t remember how I came down on it at the time.

    While I understand the need to make the argument that the AG had an anti-Christian animus, I find the argument disturbing on several levels. It shows a disregard for the state’s ability to exercise discretion and set policy over what to focus scarce resources on in pursuit of justice and social stability. It also points to the emergence of a trend that I find troubling, and especially prominent among state attorney generals: the widening social and political divisions of this country are paralyzing our public servants’ ability to carry out their core functions as public servants, because the divisions are impacting them electorally. They are not exercising discretion in how best to protect the public, they are engaging in partisan and ideological politics so that they can be elected by special interest groups. It has gotten to the point where an attorney general can be accused in the Supreme Court of religious bigotry. It shows a great loss of respect for a major law enforcement office, and I think that bodes poorly for this country’s stability and security.

    The use of Scalia’s 1998 decision in the employment discrimination case is no surprise. It’s a mandatory argument. But it’s not enough.

    By 1998, Title VII had already been held to prohibit a behavior: sexual harassment. “Well if they intended to prohibit male-on-male sexual harassment it would have said so”–No, because that prohibition against sexual harassment is case law and regulation. It’s not in the Title VII text itself. So now that you’ve crayoned in a prohibition against it, you can’t have an artificial exception to it.

    Where’s the crayoned in ban in this case that sneaks in sexual orientation? It’s in the decision the Supreme Court is being asked to hand down now. That’s a tougher sell.

  2. posted by JohnInCA on

    What [Stutzman] can’t do is take part in, or create custom floral arrangements celebrating sacred events that violate her religious beliefs,”

    I love that by a plain reading of Stutzman’s claim, she would refuse flowers for a hetero couple getting married in a Wiccan ceremony, but supply flowers for a gay couple getting married in a secular ceremony.

    I mean seriously, no god or goddess was invited to my wedding, their names were not invoked, and we asked for no blessings. Our ceremony was 100% non-sacred.

    But I think we all know that this plain reading is wrong. Because her statement, that she’s only opposing “sacred events that violate her religious beliefs”†, is a lie. She is opposed to serving same-sex weddings, regardless of whether or not they are sacred, and she would sell flowers to opposite-sex weddings, regardless of whether or they are sacred.

    The whole “sacred events that violate her religious beliefs” bit is just a red herring.
    ________
    †By the way, if we take this at face value, that gay couples getting married “violates” her religious beliefs, then that violation happens regardless of whether she’s involved or not. Bad word choice on their part, as it makes her a victim of violation even if she wins her case.

    • posted by Jorge on

      I love that by a plain reading of Stutzman’s claim, she would refuse flowers for a hetero couple getting married in a Wiccan ceremony, but supply flowers for a gay couple getting married in a secular ceremony.

      That’s a little like telling a Christian that Ouija is a game.

      My aunt’s second marriage was officiated by a Justice of the Peace. Now she’s a very faithful Catholic and one of the reasons she’s in this parish and not that parish is because the priest in the first one said she’s living in sin. The priest is wrong. People, being imperfect, do not always get annulments even when it’s the right thing to do. Or was I supposed to say grant annulments? One of the many reasons that don’t make sense why I idolize Pope Benedict.

      My job had a gaming day a couple of weeks ago, and I brought a set of tarot cards from one of my video games. And I was telling “fortunes” based on a video game. I had a co-worker actively try to convince people not to join in for reasons of religious orthodoxy. Christians are supposed to shun magic and fortunetelling, you know. Frankly I’m a little leery of keeping the cards within my reach for too long.

      I really was just basing it on a video game.

      In plain English, John, no she would not.

      • posted by JohnInCA on

        In plain English, John, no she would not.

        Um, duh? There was more then one paragraph.

        That said, you kinda missed the point, which is that she isn’t refusing to provide flowers for a “sacred event”, she’s just refusing an event, who’s sanctity (or lack thereof) is irrelevant to her decision.

  3. posted by Kosh III on

    Slippery slope

    https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2019/09/mississippi-wedding-venue-refuses-mixed-race-couples-because-of-christian-belief/

    “we don’t do gay weddings or mixed race, because of our Christian race — I mean, our Christian beliefs.”

    Lock ’em up!

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      That story has a hilarious ending. Richard and Donna Russell (who own Boone’s Camp) recanted a few days later after talking with her pastor and “other men of faith”, learning that renting a hall for a interracial marriage would not condemn them to eternal damnation, tormented by Satan amidst great weeping and gnashing of teeth:

      In a screenshot of the apology, someone from Boone’s Camp Event Hall says they spent Saturday and Sunday searching the Bible, and even “sitting down with my pastor” to find the verse that bans interracial marriages, and could not.

      “I have come to the conclusion my decision which was based on what I thought was correct to be supported by The Bible was incorrect!”

      “As my bible reads, there are 2 requirements for marriage and race has nothing to do with either!”

      Who would have thunk it?

      Boone Camp continues** to refuse to serve as a venue for same-sex marriages, however, because of the clear and unequivocal words of the Christian Man-God condemning same-sex marriages. I can’t put my finger on Chapter and Verse, but I’m sure it is in there someplace. Right?

      ====================

      ** Boone’s Camp refused to offer a venue to a same-sex couple in 2018.

  4. posted by Mike and David on

    Kosh III

    Now we will see if the religious freedom argument is consistent or totally BS.

  5. posted by mike king & David Bauler on

    people did certainly use the Bible to justify race based restrictions on marriage. Did the camp owners not look hard?

    • posted by JohnInCA on

      Eh, I’m not surprised. Most American Christians these days, even among the Southern Baptists, denounce the Christian racists of 60 years ago as having projected their racism onto the bible rather then properly based their racism in the bible. So if she talked to her pastor, him saying “yeah, no, that’s not a thing and never was” isn’t surprising.

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