Conservative SCOTUS is a ****ing joke but it’s not funny

That's dubious logic. When you write copy for a website, you are always using your "own" words but they are not an expression of your speech. Rather it's an expression of the speech of who has hired you. It's not like writing an article for publication - it's uncredited copy. By this logic a lawyer can refuse to serve gay people because he'd have to write or make arguments that would violate his free speech. Or a teacher could refuse to teach gay people as that would be a violation of their speech since they use original words and creativity in their lessons.

Wedding websites aren't copyrighted to the website designer. They are owned by the couple. It's their speech. Not the designer's. This is a bs argument and I am shocked they are using this rationale.

 

Beliefs are like a$$holes. We all have them, and we are free to express them, but we aren't free to act upon them to the point of breaking the law. Discrimination against a protected class is breaking constitutional law until after the SCOTUS ruling. Her rights to express her thoughts and opinions based on her sincerely held beliefs are not infringed upon, even if she still must not discriminate by providing services (creating a gay content website) to a protected class. What she did is not only express her thoughts and beliefs but also refused to provide services to a protected class.

Are you denying the very fact of the origin of this case, which is that she says she has a biblical belief that gay marriage is wrong and thus does not want to create a wedding website for gay couples? Since gay marriage is an inherent nature of gay couples, the result is discrimination against gay couples based on her biblical beliefs. She is only willing to work with a gay couple if they create a wedding website that lies about them, "stating" that their wedding is not a gay wedding. LOL.

No, that analogy doesn't work. Someone not wishing to create Nazi content or pro-war content doesn't discriminate against a constitutionally protected class, as Nazi and pro-war content are not inherent nature of any constitutionally protected class.

I have always been talking about content, but I didn't enumerate it and left it to the imagination. I'm sure you can use your imagination to come up with someone refusing to create content that leads that person to discriminate against a protected class. The case itself is one example.

An atheist logo designer would not create content for a Christian ministry based on his strong disbelief in God, discriminating against Christians due to their beliefs.

A photographer with strong white supremacy beliefs, based on their sincerely held belief in the Christian Identity theology, refuses to create content for non-white individuals, discriminating against non-white people.

 

this is your key mistake: you are interpreting this decision as "discrimination against" x.

The case is about "protection of" y.

where y=an individual's freedom of conscience

 

This is something I have been thinking of for a while. It's a form of logic that is both dubious and intriguing, but I believe it has been spreading mostly for negative reasons. With the recent SCOTUS decision, I anticipate that it will further pave the way for the proliferation of this logic.

Firstly, as a side note, it is not always necessary to use creator's own words when it comes to web design. Web designs typically consist of graphical content and focus on how it visually appears, accompanied by some text. The actual text content is often provided by the client, with some suggestions or input from the creator.

I believe this involves associating oneself with and feeling uncomfortable about anything that contradicts their beliefs, often referred to as protecting one's "conscience." In Florida, there already exists a law allowing doctors to refuse services such as abortions or providing contraceptives if it conflicts with their faith or moral values, causing them discomfort. Now they are expanding this right to refuse services to the LGBTQ community. If we continue down this path, it opens the door for anyone to refuse service to others based on their personal beliefs. This paves the way for those in positions of power to create discriminatory laws. With the highest court now prioritizing personal beliefs and feelings over discrimination, we are likely to witness the proliferation of these laws throughout Republican-led states. These individuals are determined not only to impose their religious beliefs on others but also to safeguard their own feelings. 1A as a vehicle to discrimination, I'm afraid, is just a start.

 

So would you be cool with hotels saying they can deny accommodations to people because of their race, due to their “freedom of conscience?”

 

Your key mistake is not interpreting it that way.

I'm interpreting it two ways. A personal right to thought and expression / or conscience as you call it (way 1) that has the effect of discrimination against a protected class (way 2).

 

I do not believe Gorsuch could be more clear

 

and the effect could not be more clear, lol

 

I disagree, other than the rampant misinterpretations of the decision evident in this thread and elsewhere:

 

Couldn't she create a Yu-Gi-Oh! fan website for a gay couple without violating her professed belief that marriage is between a man and a woman?

 

That's exactly the court's logic. You don't have to do something if it conscientiously objectionable to you.

 

It's a ****ed up ruling. The thing I don't personally get either, and this is why I totally believe a story like it had to be made up just for it to exist and go up to the USSC, is there's lots of available talented web developers who are allies or are extremely gay themselves to choose from across the global internet. If I wanted to have the best possible gay website out there, I definitely wouldn't stick with the web developer whose religious beliefs might consciously or subconsciously lead to extremely subpar work. I'd go with the other options with people who are more likely to care about the quality of their work given the topic.

It's like having a Houston Rockets fan website. Would you really want a Spurs web dev to put in the work to create you one? Or do you think a talented die hard Rockets fan web dev might be the better option?

If you're a minority and you had to choose between a racist doctor to save your life or someone without such prejudices, who do you think would try their hardest to keep you alive and put in more thought to your well being after surviving? Who do you think might opt for the most painful way to treat you over someone more considerate of your emergency situation?

If you were a first time home buyer would you rather work with a home loan financer with racist tendencies or one without such prejudices? Which one do you think is more likely to **** you over in the process?

If you were in legal trouble and a minority, would you rather have a racist lawyer represent you or one without such prejudices? I always think of StupidMoniker when that question pops up in my head. I always wonder what his stats are on minority clients compared to white clients. I wonder what the differences in effort and results are. I have those questions with some other posters too and how they treat minorities in their professional lives.

 

‘Sopranos’ actor mockingly thanks SCOTUS for ‘allowing’ him to discriminate after LGBTQ rights ruling

https://nypost.com/2023/07/02/sopra...im-to-discriminate-after-lgbtq-rights-ruling/

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/same-s...-creative-40476891?mod=hp_opin_pos_6#cxrecs_s

Same-Sex Marriage Doesn’t Trump the Right to Dissent
In 303 Creative v. Elenis, the Supreme Court rules against Colorado’s use of antidiscrimination laws to compel speech.
By Nicole Ault
June 30, 2023 at 3:05 pm ET

When the Supreme Court held that the Constitution gives same-sex couples the right to marry, Justice Samuel Alito warned that the decision “will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy.” Dissenting in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), he wrote: “I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.”

Justice Alito’s fears were well-founded, despite assurances to the contrary in the majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy. But in 303 Creative v. Elenis,which was decided as the court’s term ended Friday, the court forcefully affirmed the freedom to dissent.

That freedom came under threat even before Obergefell. In 2012 a gay couple filed a discrimination complaint against Masterpiece Cakeshop after Jack Phillips, its Christian owner, refused to bake a cake for a Denver reception that would follow their Massachusetts wedding. Although Colorado didn’t recognize same-sex marriage at the time, a state civil-rights panel held that the law compelled Mr. Phillips to bake the cake.

He appealed the decision in state court, alleging that this application of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act violated his First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion. In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018), the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Mr. Phillips’s favor. But the decision by Justice Kennedy avoided the constitutional questions and held only that the commission’s members were impermissibly biased. That “has allowed activists to continue to relentlessly pursue those who decline to create speech that violates their convictions,” says Kristen Waggoner of Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued Mr. Phillips’s case at the high court.

Lorie Smith, another Denver-area client of Ms. Waggoner, owns 303 Creative, a website-design business. Like Mr. Phillips, she objects on religious grounds to same-sex weddings, and she says she won’t make a website celebrating one. The Justices ruled 6-3 that this is a constitutionally protected right to free speech. Colorado “seeks to force an individual to ‘utter what is not in [her] mind’ about a question of political and religious significance,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court. That “is something the First Amendment does not tolerate.”

Many similar cases are pending around the country, and the ruling ought to resolve them, in part because it affirms that speech is still protected by the First Amendment even when it is for sale. At least three wedding photographers—in New York, Louisville, Ky., and Virginia—are in federal court fighting public-accommodations laws that would force them to shoot same-sex weddings against their beliefs. They are threatened with crippling fines and, in the New York case, incarceration. The New York and Virginia cases have been on hold pending the outcome of 303 Creative.

The ruling may also help Mr. Phillips, now facing a complaint for refusing to bake a cake celebrating a “gender transition.” He lost in state trial and appellate courts and is waiting to hear if the Colorado Supreme Court will take his case. Another couple, Aaron and Melissa Klein, are Oregon bakers who face fines for refusing to bake a same-sex wedding cake. They lost in state court and asked the justices to hear an appeal. On Friday the high court sent the case back to Oregon for reconsideration in light of 303 Creative.

The justices didn’t address whether baking celebratory cakes is speech. But Justice Gorsuch wrote that Colorado’s logic “would allow the government to force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe on pain of penalty.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed the decision establishes a “license to discriminate” and “threatens to balkanize the market and to allow the exclusion of other groups from many services.” That fear is overwrought. Ms. Smith and all these litigants say they’re happy to serve gay customers; their objection is to being compelled to affirm a gay wedding. As Justice Gorsuch notes, “Ms. Smith herself recognizes that Colorado and other States are generally free to apply their public accommodations laws, including their provisions protecting gay persons, to a vast array of businesses.”

Mr. Phillips isn’t alone in finding that the next battleground is transgender ideology. “Biological reality is being debated in the public square,” Ms. Waggoner says. An Oregon woman sued the state for rejecting her application to adopt children from foster care because she wouldn’t pledge to “respect, accept and support” the “gender identity” of children in her care. A professor sued Ohio’s Shawnee State University for ordering him to refer to a male student by feminine pronouns. The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor.

It’s significant that the justices decided 303 Creative on free-speech rather than free-exercise grounds. In Obergefell, Justice Kennedy emphasized that “religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines,” were free to disagree. He relegated “those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons” to an afterthought. But compelling an atheist or agnostic to affirm a secular orthodoxy is also a violation of conscience.

Friday’s ruling affirms something unique about the U.S. “There’s nothing special about what our First Amendment says,” as Ms. Waggoner puts it. Other countries’ constitutions affirm free speech and religion too. “But judicial precedent and frankly apathy by the citizens have allowed those written guarantees to mean absolutely nothing.”

Ms. Ault is an assistant editorial page writer at the Journal.
​

 

I think it's a legit argument that my religion says same sex marriage is wrong so I shouldn't be forced to make anything promoting it. That's really not refusing service to gays. It's not saying I don't won't to bake a wedding cake for a gay couples.

There is definitely a slippery slope but religion is a protected class also. I understand someone could as easily say my religion forbids interracial marriage..

 

Given all of that, why does there need to be a law preventing her from refusing such clients. They shouldn't want her anyway, right? Wouldn't it actually be to their benefit to know that she doesn't want to make a gay wedding site?

Counting only cases that went to trial, I had a much better win rate for defense with black clients than white. None of my Hispanic or Asian clients proceeded to trial. I would say it is all fact specific though. I'll give you a couple of examples.

On a domestic violence case with a white client, either the defendant or his wife thought it would be a good idea to try to coach the defendant's son on what to say (never bothered talking to me about it). So, when the kid was on the stand, whenever the prosecutor asked him a question for which the answer would make the defendant look bad, the kid would say, "Can you refresh that for me." I don't know if mom or dad (whoever was coaching him) told him to say that or they told him to say, "Can you rephrase that for me?" and he didn't understand, but it made the defendant look guilty as hell and was obviously convicted. That was a white defendant. I don't feel I did a better or worse job defending him than any other client, the obviously coached lying witness torpedoed any chance I had to get an acquittal.

A different defendant refused to take a deal on a case, even though what he was being offered in the deal was less time than he would get for just the things that he had been recorded doing. I am pretty comfortable with my skill and persuasive ability, but I can't convince a jury that someone didn't try to convince a witness not to come to court when the prosecutor plays a tape recording of the defendant on the jail telephone telling a witness not to come to court. That defendant was black.

In contrast to those cases, I had a case where the defendant was accused of vehicular homicide. He had made a left turn into a driveway and a motorcyclist coming from the opposite direction crashed into the side of his truck. There were no witnesses to the incident. The California Highway Patrol did a half-assed accident report and concluded my client was at fault. I had a former member of the CHP's Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team testify as my expert and he concluded that given all the available information (marks on the road, lighting conditions, damage to the motorcycle, injuries to the rider, etc. that the rider was likely going more than 100 miles per hour at the time of the crash, would have had plenty of time to stop if he was going the speed limit, and there was no way my client could have seen him coming at that speed from as far away as he would have been when my client started turning across his lane to decide not to make the turn. He was a black client, and acquitted.

None of those people's skin color had anything to do with the outcome of their cases. Whether or not a fact pattern exists that I could present to the jury as leaving doubt of thier guilt is what mattered. Of course, I have never said anything that should give anyone the impression I would treat a minority client differently than a white client. I have consistently stressed that people should all get the same treatment regardless of skin color.