Civil rights groups and Democrats reacted angrily to the US supreme court decision in favor of the Colorado web designer Lorie Smith, who argued she had a first amendment right to refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages. Critics of the court’s decision say it ushers in a new era of prejudice in America.
“This ruling on LGBTQ+ rights by the Maga-right activist wing of the supreme court is a giant step backward for human rights and equal protection in America,” said the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a statement. “We will continue to fight to ensure that all Americans, including LGBTQ+ Americans, have equal protection under the law.”
The progressive Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib called for term limits of justices on the conservative-dominated supreme court which has now ushered in a series of decisions rolling back well-established rights, such as overturning federal protections on abortion and affirmative action.
“End lifetime appointments for supreme court justices. Enforce a binding code of ethics. Expand the court,” Tlaib posted on Twitter.
The New York congressman Ritchie Torres said: “Scotus invokes religious liberty to license discrimination against LGBTQ people. The LGBTQ community might be the first victim of the supreme court’s decision but it won’t be the last. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Civil rights groups were also vocal in their shock and warned of the impact on LGTBQ+ communities across the US who see it as opening the way for people and businesses to legally refuse services to LGBTQ+ people.
“This decision will have a devastating ripple effect across the country by creating a permission structure, backed by the force of law, to discriminate and endanger LGBTQ+ people and trans youth who are already so at risk,” said the Rev Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and chief executive of the Interfaith Alliance.
“Discrimination under the guise of religious freedom is not just unconstitutional, but antithetical to our values,” added Darcy Hirsh, director of policy and advocacy at the group. “Just as people are free to explore matters of faith and personal conscience, people should also be free to express their sexual orientation and gender identity without fear of discrimination or harm.”
The Human Rights Campaign, one of America’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, called the ruling in the case, known as 303 Creative LLC v Elenis, “unprecedented” and a decision that “will have sweeping and harmful impacts on the LGBTQ+ community and is a dangerous step backwards”.
“Our nation has been on a path of progress – deciding over the course of many decades that businesses should be open regardless of race, disability or religion. People deserve to have commercial spaces that are safe and welcoming,” said the organisation’s president, Kelley Robinson, in a statement.
But the Republican former vice-president Mike Pence, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and popular with rightwing evangelicals, praised the court’s decision.
“Religious freedom is the bedrock of our constitution,” he said, “and today’s decision reminds us that we must elect leaders who will defend that right and appoint judges who support religious freedom.”
Kristin Waggoner with Alliance Defending Freedom, the group that brought Smith’s case, said the court had “rightly reaffirmed that the government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe”.
In a six to three vote, split down ideological lines, the highest court ruled that the first amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing the website designer to create expressive designs with which the designer disagreed.
In the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the free speech amendment in the constitution “envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands”.
Gorsuch also invoked George Orwell, writing that “if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
The liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor responded to Gorsuch, writing that “the majority’s repeated invocation of this Orwellian thought policing is revealing of just how much it misunderstands this case”.
This is what happens when Dominionists/Christofascists gain a foothold in government. Here’s hoping the rest of the world will accept US refugees in the future.
See, this actually is something I’ve been worrying about for a long time, but no one really takes me seriously when I bring it up:
The U.S. is in a perfect storm of massive debt, failing infrastructure, a collapsing economy, and disaster after disaster because of climate change. This is what’s been driving the rise of fascism in this country – and that’s functionally what this shit is, no swastikas required – and it’s apparent to anybody with any insight that the Supreme Court doing this is driving the final nail in the coffin of a once-great people.
And by that I mean it’s going to cause civil war, and a genocide attempt. This is the kind of shit that happens in countries whose people turn against each other – go read about the collapse of Yugoslavia in the late 20th century, and the Rwandan genocide, and the path the U.S. has been following is very, very similar to the one those countries went down.
I am gravely, gravely worried that because of this ruling, and the one banning abortion, and especially the other one banning forgiveness of student loan debt, that that’s going to put Americans in a position so catastrophic they’ll have no choice but to fight each other not just to survive, but to be allowed to exist on the soil they were born on. It’s like watching the Serbs pick on the Bosnians all over again, the Hutus getting riled up by their radio media to annihilate the Tutsis.
Many red states are passing constitutional carry laws and I beg everyone of the LGBTQ+ affiliation, and everyone else on the left really, to avail yourselves of that. Forget about stupid fucking gun control, this is not the time or the place for that; those motherfuckers WILL come for you and if you care about yourself and your families, then you’ll heed my warning and prepare now.
USA has always had serious sociological problems, back in the 70’s it at least looked like there was a will for progress, but not so much anymore. Yes there are still good people in USA, but there is an overwhelmingly large portion of people who actively desire and even work towards making conditions worse.
If it gives you any comfort, I was recently thinking about the Civil Rights era and how many of the old Trunp supporters you see were alive through that era. These are people who grew up in a time where Civil Rights were not a given. Same for LGBT rights. People out there still remember an era where that hate was normalized. There are young people that are anti-LGBT or explicitly racist, but they’re exceptions to the trends. So find comfort in the fact that we’re still in an era of transition and that these fuckers will die out sooner than the rest of us. Also, when it comes to war it’s the young who fight and these old fascists are overwhelmingly geriatric.
In 1988 when I was in hair school and instructor was diagnosed with HIV and was fired. He wasn’t allowed to do hair anymore either. Lost his job and cosmetology license. Wasn’t allowed to touch people. We weren’t even allowed to talk about it. HIV and AIDS were running rampant and it was buried for years. People were treated as lepers. Wasn’t until a young boy was infected from a blood transfusion that they even took it somewhat seriously. Only 35 years ago.
Had a friend who died from AIDS in 1992 that was infected from a breast implant surgery and tons of folks wouldn’t go to her funeral!
Kinda sounds like it’s time to start refusing to do business with churches.
Way ahead of you…
bUt iTs jUsT a dIffErEnCe iN oPiniOns
If I can cite my beliefs as a reason not to follow the law then there is no law.
Wait: isn’t this that manufactured process with the fake victims created by the creeps from ADF only to gain some more court discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community?
One step closer to race discrimination too. 🤬
i’m glad we’ve all decided to ignore rule 10 😁
Report post and hope mods actually clean it up.
I guess we just have to wait for some of these supreme court justices to drop dead or retire and hope for the best. I’m not surprised, given how the supreme court is stacked right now. I think it’s sad that the supreme court is all about politics now. These conservative justices don’t even bother reading the constitution much. They might not even know it inside and out at all. I have the sensation that they kind of just decide before hearing the case based on their political position or personal opinion. After formulating their predetermined opinion they scan the constitution briefly to see what might fit with their opinion and just try to make it all fit together in a weak way. Why bother presenting a case if it isn’t even going to be considered? They’ve already made up their mind before the proceedings.
There’s a fun thing about the US court system.
The only thing mandated by the US Constitution is the existence of a Supreme Court, and that justices of that Supreme Court “hold their offices during good behavior” (fancy speak for “lifetime appointments”).
The size of the court, the entire federal system of lower courts, the circuits, appeals courts, the whole thing is decided on by Congress. Congress literally passes legislation that dictates what the Court systems look like.
If Congress wanted, it could obliterate every federal court in the country, and every single federal crime would need to be tried by the Supreme Court.
Should one party with a majority wish it and have the political will, that party could expand the Supreme Court by any number of seats. Of course, it would immediately trigger an arms race as control of Congress flipped around, more and more seats would be added (or removed) until the legitimacy of the Court was in shambles.
But then, we’re already at “shambles” aren’t we. Might as well dillute the power of those 9 un-elected individuals by a factor of 50 or so.
We need a new system of government and this Supreme Court stacking bullshit is why.
I don’t think it has to do with the system of government. I think it has more to do with how undeserving individuals don’t take their jobs seriously. The job of supreme court justice is to uphold the constitution. The newer appointees of Republican presidents do not do their job as they are supposed to. They just decide based on their personal opinions without examining the law and the proceedings. You can pretty much predict what the supreme court will decide before any lawyers start arguing their case based on the topic at hand. There’s no intellectual interpretation of the constitution here. It’s just whatever they “feel” about it.
Oh, that’s obvious, and don’t worry, I agree. That’s not just an individual problem though, those are serious flaws in the system a literal cult are exploiting to get their way, with no actual legal recourse.
Like say we found out Clarence Thomas was bribed to rule in favor of the web designer in this case. Like, there’s actual video of money passing hands in exchange for a ruling of the buyer’s choice. What happens then?
This ruling alone should be enough to justify recalling justices, if the system we’re under wasn’t so broken, but there are no systemic or legal means to get rid of corrupt Supreme Court judges, so the system is broken and in my not so humble opinion needs to be replaced.
I get what you’re saying, that if we were a nation of people in good faith then this wouldn’t be happening, but if there’s anything we’re all learning, it’s that we can’t assume that our politicians or business owners or neighbors are acting in our best interests, and we need a system that takes that into account, and allows swift and effective accountability and removal for all corrupt members of government.
Why are so many leaders in the USA not just evil, but like cartoonishly evil? Like bond villain level evil. If this is the result of a free and fair democracy then maybe democracies are overrated. It is basically a popularity contest, which when you think about it, basic means who ever has the most money is probably going to win.
That’s not a plug for any other “-ism” btw so all you tankies can settle the f*** down.
It’s just that you never just see a normal Joe on the podium. They’re always the same kind of person. The same wide smile, charm, and smooth talk. I’m starting to think that we as a species need to evolve to the point where we savagely kill people like that on the spot.
That’s obviously a joke, but also, why are humans so bad at spotting the most egregious grifters? Why are we so compelled to follow a “leader” anyway? Do we actually need one or is this just a hangover from the last few thousand years of monarchism? Maybe we’re not as creative as we think.
People sometimes say that democracy is a bad system, it’s just that all the other ones are worse. I think that’s convenient for those people because you don’t have to think any further than that. If you do, you start to wonder… Semi-modern humans have been around for a few hundred thousand years at least… And during that period there have been some very clever humans, surely many that aren’t in the historical record… Is this really the best idea we have on how to get large groups of humans to work together toward common goals?
I don’t buy it. Look I’m not saying I have the answer. But this has all gotten so ridiculous. America, please get your shit together. If you haven’t noticed it’s getting a bit hot in here and we have some very real common goals (like not going extinct) that we need to address, and like soonish m’kay.
PS. Gay people exist. Trans people exist. It’s fine. The bible is just a book. All your politicians serve one master: money. It isn’t a conspiracy, they’re pretty open about it. The earth is round. Water is wet. Reality is here folks, it’s all around you. Put down your phone and go outside.
Wasn’t it already legal to refuse to make cakes for gay couples citing religious beliefs? The precedent was already set, how does this ruling change anything?
They actually ruled in favor of the couple who wanted the cake. Link to the wiki here
This is a very difficult position to be in. One the one hand no one should be refused service for any reason except the they were causing a disturbance or were extremely rude, unruly or criminal.
On the other hand no one should be forced to do something that clashes with their beliefs. If a fat 5 client approaches you to make a gay website and you’ll be putting up pictures of sexual acts etc which might disagree with you 4 beliefs or conscience, you should have the right to say “sorry but this job is not for me. It makes me uncomfortable and I cannot bring myself to do it. Please find another web designer” they should also have that right. It’s not discrimination because he’s not doing it to cause then harm, he’s just saying he’s not comfortable to do that. And that’s fine. No one should be able to force him.
Hopefully this law protects the rights of both parties.
The problem is that the courts are creating a two-tier society. One for non-religious people, and another for people who don’t want to be nice because their in-group says they don’t have to be.
If your beliefs include denying service to people based on stupid reasons like sexual orientation or race, then you best believe other people’s rights supercede yours. You can’t have a country of rights without mutual respect, and that means everyone gets equal access to businesses and society.
Retail and service are different than speech ( which includes any creative work).
This wasn’t the only web designer available. They weren’t denied access to all web designers or website makers.
If they refused them use of a make your own website service that would be illegal, as it is a retail product at that point.
If it were neo nazis demanding a pro hate website with swasticas and such do you think a jewish person should be forced to make them a website?
That wasn’t the only burger joint available. That wasn’t the only hotel available. That wasn’t the only apartment complex they could’ve rented from. That wasn’t the only place they could’ve worked at. That wasn’t the only grocery store they could’ve bought food at.
If they refused them use of the back dumpster to dig food out of, the local park to sleep in, and the pond to bathe in, that would be illegal, as only then would denial of services by businesses that make up the system of access to resources our society depends on to survive illegal.
And if all of that sounds absurd to you, remember that ruling enables all of it.
Creative vs retail.
Individual Speech vs business product/service.
That is the whole point.
My cooking is a creative process you filthy [insert pejorative here] do not deserve and are not entitled to. You don’t like it? Go hit up the place down the street
Who will then ban and ban and ban.
But keep justifying discrimination and oppression, I’m sure your kids and grandkids are going to be real proud of finding out they’re related to a modern-day fascist when they find this one day
Fascism swings both ways.
Am i forced to hate one person but forced to serve another?
Neither are things that happen to free people.
This was a case about forcing someone to act against their beliefs.
So i ask again, do you force the jewish web designer to make the nazi website?
Only in your fantasy world where you need to use sophistry to justify hate.
You see, by your logic, the Jewish web designer would never have to make the Nazi website, because the Nazis were clearly gay and this law protects his right to refuse service to gays, hence, problem solved. What, they claim they’re not gay? Well, it’s obvious they are. They’re goose-stepping in ornate Nazi uniforms that are tight in all of the right places. They had to have done that for each other’s pleasure. The plaintiff rests.
See how dumb discrimination is?
