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This week on CounterSpin: The Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that a Denver baker was not legally liable for his refusal—based, he claimed, on his religious beliefs—to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. It wasn’t that Jack Phillips’ free speech would have been violated, the Court’s majority said in their decision on Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and it isn’t that it’s legal for businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people, but: members of the Commission had exhibited “hostility” toward Phillips’ religion—one supposed smoking gun being a commissioner’s statement that religion had historically been used “an excuse to hurt others”—and thus violated his right to its free exercise. So, a “narrow” ruling that should be read mainly as an affirmation of human rights? Or a foot in the door for a legal perspective that argues that demanding equal rights can be construed as constraining the liberties of those who say equal rights are against their religion? We’ll hear about Masterpiece Cakeshop with Jennifer Pizer, law and policy director for Lambda Legal.
Transcript: ‘Religion Cannot Be Used to Justify Discriminatory Conduct in the Marketplace’
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Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at coverage of antisemitism and the 2018 elections.
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Banter @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin180608Banter.mp3″]
I personally don’t see why businesses in developed areas shouldn’t be allowed the retain the right to refuse service to anyone for almost any reason. If you don’t like their policies, go somewhere else. There would of course have to be certain exceptions like the only gas station on a stretch of open road, supermarkets, etc., but if it can’t be construed as critical to inter-state transportation or general health and welfare then let the businesses do what they want and what their customer base will support. A cake shop isn’t critical to anyone. Nobody ever died from lack of cake. Heck, my favorite bakery often runs out of my favorite goodies before noon. If I saunter in at three in the afternoon and they don’t have a cookie is that a basis to sue? It’s ridiculous. In the end what it represents is a legal way to sue for hurting someone’s feelings. I don’t support that.
Next thing you know these wonderful businessmen would be refusing to serve black and Hispanic customers. We would be right back to Jim Crow.
First off, this case has nothing to do with interstate transport. This is a STATE law, with a STATE action. Therefore, interstate commerce, which is the pervue of the Federal Government, isn’t needed here. The State of Colorado has the right, and obligation, to regulate intrastate commerce within their state.
Secondly, you don’t understand the burden that discrimination puts on people. You’re acting like it was no big deal. Would you say it was a no big deal when Rosa Parks was asked to move to the back of the bus? Would you say it was no big deal when the people commiting the sit-in for the Greensboro Woolworth’s Lunch Counter refused to take no for an answer? What about the Freedom Riders, which tested their constitutional rights to not be discriminated against. Kennedy clearly saw that gay people have the right to not be discriminated against: “It is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons, just as it can protect other classes of individuals, in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public. And there are no doubt innumerable goods and services that no one could argue implicate the First Amendment. Petitioners conceded, moreover, that if a baker refused to sell any goods or any cakes for gay weddings, that would be a different matter and the State would have a strong case under this Court’s precedents that this would be a denial of goods and services that went beyond any protected rights of a baker who offers goods and services to the general public and is subject to a neutrally applied and generally applicable public accommodations law.”
So, gay people have the right to not be discriminated against, plain and simple. Why should gay people have to ask permission before getting the full and equal treatment of the goods and services of straight people? Why should, for instance, gay people be forced to rent a two-bedroom apartment at a higher rent, because the landlord wants to think of them as not lovers, but as roommates? Why should, for instance, gay people be unable to buy a casket for the love one at a funeral home? Why should gay people have to suffer the indignity of being refused service just because of who they are?
Your analogies are flawed. Nobody needs cake! A bus ride or employment or housing or medical treatment or education, or student loans or bank loans or credit cards and a thousand other “essential” services should all be protected classes where no discrimination whatsoever is allowed. But a cake? A haircut? Go to a different bakery or barber. There should be no legal right to compel the purveyor of a non-essential sundry item(s) to make or sell his or her product. As I said before all it represents is a legal justification to sue for hurt feelings or disrespect by way of a sidelong glance. It’s ridiculous.