Posted on 03/18/2019 10:29:39 AM PDT by Simon Green
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to a lower court ruling that found that the owner of a Hawaii bed and breakfast violated a state anti-discrimination law by turning away a lesbian couple, citing Christian beliefs.
The justices refused to hear an appeal by Phyllis Young, who runs the three-room Aloha Bed & Breakfast in Honolulu, of the ruling that she ran afoul of Hawaii’s public accommodation law by refusing to rent a room to Diane Cervilli and Taeko Bufford in 2007. Litigation will now continue that will determine what penalty Young might face.
The case was appealed to the nine justices in the wake of the high court’s narrow 2018 decision siding with a baker from Colorado who refused based on his Christian faith to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
That decision did not resolve the question of whether business owners can claim religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. Young said her decision to turn away the same-sex couple was protected by her right to free exercise of her religious beliefs under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The Supreme Court in the baker case also did not address important claims including whether baking a cake is a kind of expressive act protected by the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee, a question not raised in the Hawaii case.
The conservative-majority court could yet weigh in soon on both issues as it has a separate appeal pending involving a different bakery in Oregon that refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
But they’re not right if it was all based on blackmailing Roberts.
Yes, but under that logic they could also refuse to rent to a straight couple who weren’t married. Nope. I can support a religious exemption when you are using artistic talent to design something. You open up a bed and breakfast that is supported by the roads and utilities we all pay for you don’t get to use your religion as an excuse to not provide service. .
“You open up a bed and breakfast that is supported by the roads and utilities we all pay for you don’t get to use your religion as an excuse to not provide service. .”
Obama, is that you? It used to be called private property.
No it’s Elizabeth “You didn’t build that” Warren
So if I demand that the protected class of Ilhan Omar bake me some pies that express the sentiment "Farook farooking Molesterman Mohammed!"...that's gonna happen?
So you are saying the State supersedes any system of morals?
I don’t want a country like that.
Are you and your wife libertarian and libertine and atheist or just libertarian?
Air BnB has already declared that they will not support any establishment that will not host homosexuals. Personally, I wouldn’t have such an establishment. Too much liability.
It's a lot of words, so you may want to practice reading WITHOUT something/somebody in your mouth.
The law as it’s currently written makes no such distinctions between the immutability of skin color and homosexual behavior. Both are protected in a special class, as you know.
You’re right logically, of course. But the law and logic are often perpendicular to each other.
"protected class"
Interesting choice of words.
Noting that I don't know the specifics of this case, it's déjà vu of the 3th Amendment (3A) imo which prohibits the feds from quartering soldiers in private homes, the incident certainly running against the grain of that amendment, 3A applied to the states by the 14th Amendment.
"3rd Amendment: No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner [emphasis added], nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."
In fact, consider Justice Joseph Story's insight to 3A.
"§ 1893. This provision speaks for itself. Its plain object is to secure the perfect enjoyment of that great right of the common law, that a man's house shall be his own castle, privileged against all civil and military intrusion [!!! emphasis added]. The billetting of soldiers in time of peace upon the people has been a common resort of arbitrary princes, and is full of inconvenience and peril. In the petition of right (3 Charles I.), it was declared by parliament to be a great grievance." — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§ 1893
Note common law mentioned above is a constitutional term. So I question the constitutional integrity of the Court's response to this Hawaii case. The common law “castle” would support the 2nd Amendment and other enumerated protections too.
Insights welcome.
Sometimes I think that you could ask even conservative, post-FDR era Supreme Court justices what year the Constitution was ratified and hear them say in 1942 when the Supremes wrongly decided Wickard v. Filburn in Congress’s favor. /sarc
Also, since you mentioned protected classes, note that the Founding States made the following constitutional clauses to prohibit the feds and the states establishing privileged / protected classes which HI's law, along with the Court’s response, effectively does for LGBT people imo.
"Article I, Section 9, Clause 8: No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States [emphasis added]: And no person holding any office or profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state."
"Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility [emphasis added]."
In fact, since the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect so-called LGBT agenda “rights,” we’re seeing politically correct state rights trump constitutionally enumerated rights.
Again, insights welcome.
I'm convinced that possibly many FReepers are constitutionally savvy to the extent that they can decide Supreme Court cases with more constitutional integrity than the Supremes can.
"The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary, as distinguished from technical, meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction and no excuse for interpolation or addition [emphasis added].” —United States v. Sprague, 1931.
Your house is private property, you open up a business you then are subject to public accommodation laws. In the Colorado cake case the owner was being asked to decorate a cake for a specific event. To force someone to use their artistic talent to support something that go’s against their religious beliefs is, in my opinion, unconstitutional. He even told the couple that they could take a cake that he had already made and take it somewhere else to be decorated.
Just like those Somali taxi drivers In Minneapolis that were refusing to carry passengers that had alcohol or dogs. They tried to argue religious freedom with the state and were shot down, and rightfully so.
“Conservative” court? No way.
Disagreed with their opinion in that case. Never understood why some conservative will rail against government intrusion into their lives but seem quite fine with it in the consensual sex lives of adults. Of course considering the high school insult you threw at me you might have a hard time understanding that. What my wife and I (and I’m male by the way) do or have done over the course of our 25+ year relationship is our business, not the governments. Maybe if you had a woman you’d understand.
Sixty years ago — and I’m old enough to remember — rights guaranteed to Americans under the Constitution were protected, and we were a freer and better country because of it. Freedom of religion and speech, as well as the right to life and to keep and bear arms were accommodated, not under constant attack as they are today. Cohabitation and sodomy laws were on the books primarily to protect women & children and to guard against the corroding influences of prostitution, homosexuality, lesbianism, and pedophilia. The creature comforts and fingertip technologies were not as ubiquitous as today, but it was a good, modern life for most, with intact, God-fearing families and lower rates of crime. I’m not aware of any married couple being prosecuted for private, consensual sexual behavior, although it may have occurred in isolated instances. In any case, I’m a conservative in most matters, not a libertarian, and I do say America was more virtuous overall in 1959 than it is in 2019.
Homosexuality is a protected class?
Food consumption is common to all mankind. Homosexuality is not.
Well, I've had yours. Though you are right, that's not much of an example.
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