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Title: Justice Department Takes Baker's Side in Gay Wedding Cake Case Before Supreme Court
Source:
Reason
URL Source: https://reason.com/blog/2017/09/07/ ... epartment-takes-bakers-side-in
Published: Sep 7, 2017
Author: Scott Shackford
Post Date: 2017-09-08 06:05:06 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1384
Comments: 6
The Department of Justice under President Donald Trump is taking the side of a Colorado baker who declined to make a cake for a gay couple. The baker, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Bakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, is the plaintiff in a case scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court this fall. The state's civil rights commission ruled that Phillips violated Colorado's public accommodations law and engaged in discrimination for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Phillips has argued that his religious beliefs oppose same-sex marriage recognition. Forcing him to make a wedding cake for a gay couple was compelling him to participate in the couple's wedding and that the act of crafting a wedding cake—not merely just selling one—is expressive activity protected by the First Amendment. Trump's Justice Department agrees. In a filing with the Supreme Court today, the Justice Department argues that traditionally public accommodation laws had not in the past run afoul of the First Amendment because they were neutral to content and focused on conduct. A gas station couldn't refuse to sell fuel to a person because he or she is black, for example. But there's no message in the process of selling gas, so there's no compelled speech. Here, the Justice Department argues, the making of a wedding cake is an expressive activity, and the court needs to engage in heightened scrutiny of the First Amendment issues: A public accommodations law exacts a greater First Amendment toll if it also compels participation in a ceremony or other expressive event. That participation may be literal, as in the case of a wedding photographer who attends and is actively involved with the wedding itself. Or that participation may be figurative, as when a person designs and crafts a custom-made wedding ring that performs an important expressive function in the ceremony. Either way, such forced participation intensifies the degree of governmental intrusion. Read the brief here. The Justice Department's argument is very narrow. It is not making a case for freedom of association, whereupon businesses would have a general right to decide with whom to do business. The filing is very specific that in this case and in similar cases involving expressive activity (photography, floral arrangements), the First Amendment rights of the business owners are violated if they're compelled by the law to participate by producing goods or offering their services. And that's really what the Supreme Court will be considering in this case. Is the act of baking a cake a form of expressive activity and therefore protected by the First Amendment? We'll get a sense of what the justices think when they hear the case later this year. The Reason Foundation (the non-profit think-tank that produces this site and publishes Reason magazine) is in agreement with the Justice Department in this case. They've submitted a brief asking the Supreme Court to consolidate this case with a petition by a florist in Washington State who is also being punished for declining to provide arrangements for a same-sex wedding. Read about that case here. Trump administration argues the First Amendment protects right to decline.
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
(Edited)
This case has dragged on for 5 years now. Yet another example of the ridiculous amount of stalling that happens in courts across the country on what should be routine cases. Here is some background. Longstanding Colorado state law prohibits public accommodations, including businesses such as Masterpiece Cakeshop, from refusing service based on factors such as race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation. Mullins and Craig filed complaints with the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) contending that Masterpiece had violated this law. The CCRD ruled that Phillips illegally discriminated against Mullins and Craig. In December 2013, Administrative Judge Robert Spencer of the Colorado Office of Administrative Courts issued a decision confirming that finding. Masterpiece Cakeshop appealed Spencer’s ruling to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Commission discussed the matter at a public hearing on May 30, and issued a decision at a public hearing on May 30, 2014. The Commission’s order affirmed previous determinations that Masterpiece’s refusal to sell Mullins and Craig a wedding cake constituted discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in violation of Colorado law. The Commission also ordered Masterpiece Cakeshop to change its company policies, provide “comprehensive staff training” regarding public accommodations discrimination, and provide quarterly reports for the next two years regarding steps it has taken to come into compliance and whether it has turned away any prospective customers. Status: After a victory in the Colorado Court of Appeals on August 13, 2015, Materpiece Cakeshop appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. When that Court declined to hear the case, Masterpiece Cakeshop asked the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case. On June 26, 2017, The Supreme Court announced it will review the decision from the Colorado Court of Appeals. I was concerned at first glance that this case might have passed through the Colorado federal court of appeals where Gorsuch served, making it likely he would have to recuse. But it went only through the state courts so Gorsuch will be able to sit for this case. Of course, Ruth Buzzi Ginsberg did officiate at a sodomy wedding prior to casting her deciding vote for sodomy marriage but no one would dare suggest that she should recuse herself from that case. It's ridiculous that this took two years for the appeal to get from the Colorado appeals court to the USSC, with almost another year before it will finally be resolved. The right to a speedy trial has almost disappeared in this country over the past 20-30 years.
Not sure there ever was a right to a speedy appeal.
Spoken like a lawyer. Look at the reporting. The baker never had a speedy trial either. He didn't really have a trial at all. A bit more: another lesbian couple got turned down for a cake and, after reading about the first couple getting turned down on Facebook, tried to get the baker to make a cake for a doggie wedding. He did so. That isn't going to help him. The baker was sanctioned by the commission for refusing service based on sexual orientation, not on grounds of sodomy marriage which was not imposed by the Court until 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Yeah, I pretty much hate the laws that I don't agree with, and unlike Bill Clinton, I am much, much more interested in results than the "process" that folks like he and Obama so hallow. Truth is, through political control, a narrow minority can gain control of process, and thereby dictate outcome through process. The police do this on the other side. It offends me very much, and I hate it so - the sheer intelligent malevolence of it - that when I'm not using it to benefit my own interests, I want to take a flamethrower to everybody using the technique to advance their interests, when I don't agree with them. Ultimately, I want what I want. If I can get there through law, then the law is right and good and just and holy. If I can't, that's because the law is bad and evil and those who support that law are scumbags who should be drowned in a sack. If I can't directly, but can get there indirectly through control of process and the rules of procedure, well, that's the reward of studying law and being good at it. Law seeks to be a hard stony monolith, and becomes clay putty in the hands of the persuasive lawyer. When the decider won't be persuaded by reason or charm, then he's a scumbag who is self-evidently corrupt and should be shot, obviously.
And lawyers wonder why we civilians all tell so many mean lawyer jokes. : )
We all want what we want. We all use the means we have to get it. We all think we're justified, and "We've all got it coming, kid."
David Mullins and Charlie Craig visited Masterpiece Cakeshop in July 2012, with Craig's mother, to order a cake for their upcoming wedding reception. Mullins and Craig planned to marry in Massachusetts and then celebrate with family and friends back home in Colorado. Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips informed them that because of his religious beliefs the store’s policy was to deny service to customers who wished to order baked goods to celebrate a same-sex couple’s wedding. 
The darling couple 
The baker of hate
#2. To: Tooconservative (#1)
The right to a speedy trial
#3. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
(Edited)
Not sure there ever was a right to a speedy appeal.
#4. To: Tooconservative (#3)
#5. To: Vicomte13 (#4)
#6. To: Tooconservative (#5)
And lawyers wonder why we civilians all tell so many mean lawyer jokes. : )
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