Two Issues, Two Answers: Time for SCOTUS to Make Some Hard Choices

The Supreme Court is facing two First Amendment issues, and we are at risk of having two different answers – ones that can only further confuse an already confusing selection of legal precedents.

One is Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which hinges on a privately owned business's ability to pick and choose its customers based on religious beliefs. The other case is National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Xavier Becerra, which focuses on the rights of private, non-profit crisis pregnancy centers established by pro-life organizations and individuals to operate without being forced to advocate for abortion.

On the one side of the coin (setting aside the "protected" status of so-called marriage rights for same-sex couples, which has become a political third rail), there are the public accommodation laws that were passed, beginning in the '60s, to guarantee that hotels, restaurants, and other "public accommodations" could not legally discriminate against someone based on his race (in that case, almost exclusively black). Public accommodation laws were unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court in Katzenbach v. McClung in 1964. Those laws may have deprived some racist business owners of the right to practice their racism, but they extended a uniform right to all Americans, regardless of skin color, to have access to those public accommodations.

On the other side of the coin is the right, established by the courts when confronting demands stemming from Obamacare, of faith-based employers to refrain from offering insurance for services they find religiously unacceptable, such as abortion or birth control. The Supreme Court upheld faith-based employers' rights not to offer such insurance in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby in 2014.

Thank you for referencing that article Kaslin. As usual, please note that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.

Patriots are reminded that if school children were being taught the fed's constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood, then school children would probably be able to resolve the cases referenced in the OP more reasonably than post-FDR era, institutionally indoctrinated, state sovereignty-clueless Supreme Court justices can.

In a nutshell, just as liberals unthinkingly pull the "race card" to justify all kinds of hate crimes against conservatives, corrupt Congress uses the perversion of Congress's Commerce Clause powers (1.8.3) by FDR's crony Supreme Court justices in Wickard v. Filburn to justify all kinds federal laws and regulations that the states have actually never expressly constitutionally delegated to the feds the specific powers to make.

”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.

Regardless what the post-FDR era Supreme Court wants everybody to think about the federal government's "Commerce Clause card," the Court wrongly ignores that a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified the following limits on Congress's Commerce Clause powers.

"State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added]." -Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

In fact, note that the only race and sex-based rights that the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect deal only with voting rights, evidenced by the 15th and 19th Amendments.

15th Amendment:
"Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Section 2: The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation [emphasis added].”
19th Amendment:
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation [emphasis added]."

In other words, federal race and sex protection laws outside the scope of voting rights issues are unconstitutional imo.

Consider that post-17th Amendment (17A) ratification career lawmakers exploit the low-information voters who elected them, promising such voters race and sex protection laws not related to voting issues in exchange for their votes, such voters evidently not understanding that the feds don't have the express constitutional power to make such laws.

The clear remedy for an unconstitutionally big federal government that 17A has helped to foster …

In order to make sure that Pres. Trump's vision for MAGA last for many generations, patriots should now be doing the following. They should be making sure that there are plenty of Trump-supporting, state sovereignty-respecting candidates on the primary ballots who will commit to express-laning a ConCon for the specific purpose of repealing the 16th (16A) and ill-conceived 17th Amendments.

For those patriots concerned about a possible overthrow of the country by a pirated ConCon, note that the product of a ConCon is never a new amendment to the Constitution, but a proposed amendment that the states can either reject or ratify.

Consider that repealing 16 & 17A will also effectively secede the states from the unconstitutionally big federal government imo. (Are you listening Gov. Brown?)

Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!

I think “public accommodation” is key. No one “needs” a wedding cake. They won’t starve without it.

I think if they were the only baker in town, there would be a better case for this, but it is obvious that the left deliberately provoked this controversy in order to bring a lawsuit.

What if every person in NYC demanded to have a cake baked by one particular baker? When they are exhausted and start saying no, can they be sued?

What about doctors who refuse to take new patients or patients without preferred insurers? Can they be forced to do so?

IMO this is a frivolous lawsuit that was deliberately engineered to cause trouble. It should have been thrown out long before this.

Don’t tread on me.

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