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Supreme court case on the wedding cake
8 years ago
General
So I been mauling this in my head in a while before I realized there is far greater implications to people on this platform that people gloss over in this war of religion and gay rights. Namely the right of artistic expression and right to deny a person a commission in the USA. Depending on the supreme court take a hatchet or scalpel to this can affect many artists here in the long term. While most people wouldn't go to court over it, there area select few who might invoke this ruling to smite artists who have their preferences on what to draw. And forcing people to do this might have a knock on effect of killing some artists off as they fear being called a bigot or other unsavory thing because they won't draw a dick on a chick.
Know that these fears might be unfounded, but I just want people to know that is something I noticed being a underlying theme in the court case that is being used as a defense.
Know that these fears might be unfounded, but I just want people to know that is something I noticed being a underlying theme in the court case that is being used as a defense.
Could the kkk force a black Persian to do something similar for example cause that's sorta what this could lead to
There's a couple of points that you need to keep in mind to get a complete understanding of the entire situation.
This isn't over a simple denial of services, although that is part of it. That's kind of the easy part. The problem is that as a business, you're held to different standards. In order to actually get a business license, you have to agree to follow certain rules according to your local jurisdictions. In general, that business license implies that protected classes are protected classes, and it's illegal to discriminate against customers because of one of those protected classes. You could deny service to someone because they've cussed out an employee, but you wouldn't be able to deny service because they're in a wheelchair. Right now, sexuality isn't directly a protected class, but it can be argued that it is an offshoot of gender protections. The reasoning used is that if either of the persons involved was a different gender, then this wouldn't be an issue, which would imply that it does fall under gender discrimination. That's an argument that has gone up to my state's supreme court, and they didn't agree with it, but I imagine that once it hits the federal level, it will be held up.
The second part that needs to be brought up is that the entire case isn't about just denying services. The business owners, after denying service, essentially instigated a harassment campaign against the couple wanting the cake. This is where things REALLY get dicey.
- They raised half a million dollars for legal costs before this all got started.
- They publicized information about the couple online, and encouraged people to harass them.
- They encouraged people to start petitions to get the couple's kids taken away. (They had adopted the children of a mutual friend who had passed, and that was why they wanted to get married in the first place, because of the adoption.)
- The couple had to move because of the harassment and death threats that they had been receiving.
This is the whole crux of the issue. It's not just a simple denial of service. There are definitely going to be implications, but it's not going to affect artists in any meaningful way. You can still decline services because of reasons that aren't protected classes. You don't have to enter into an agreement. You don't have to go and get a business license. You don't have to provide services to hate groups. You don't have to provide services to assholes.