The state’s public accommodation law forbids discrimination based on race, religion and sexual orientation, but the DOJ agreed that requiring Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple would violate his constitutional rights.http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/doj-sides-baker-same-sex-wedding-cake-case-article-1.3479277
In a filing with the high court Thursday, the Justice Department argued it would create an “intrusion” of the First Amendment “where public accommodations law compels someone to create expression for a particular person or entity and to participate, literally or figuratively, in a ceremony or other expressive event.
“Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights,” the Justice Department wrote in an amicus brief ahead of arguments in the case.
Sounds like....First Amendment rights beats lifestyles.
That’s how I see it. It reminds me of the deli that had served an openly homosexual couple for a long time and the couple asked them to cater their wedding. They refused due to religious beliefs. The couple said they were discriminating against them. But the case is hard to make when they had been serving them for a long time.
This is what people need to grasp here: When you refuse to work this sort of event as a baker, florist, photographer, etc., you are not discriminating against people. You are discriminating against an EVENT. And that is a classic free speech issue.
Legally, these alphabet people can pound sand.