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 ...
Lodging has long been one of the “public accommodations” that have been covered in these laws. While I sympathize with the appellant, I can see this one as clearly distinguished from celebratory cakes and wedding photography.
An artist using his talents for creative expression IS protected speech and should fall within First Amendment protection.
So much for the Suprems as a backstop to tyranny.
Who makes that decision not to review a lower court ruling - Roberts? Do they take a vote?
IMHO, a B&B is different from a bakery. A B&B is a place of public accommodation, but a bakery is not, and should be able to refuse service to anyone, for any reason.
A bakery might be liable for discrimination charges if they are also a restaurant....that is, they serve food and/or drink for consumption on the premises.
My question is, how did the B & B owner know they were a couple of sexual deviants? “In Yo Face?”
In most cases, the justices vote. If I recall correctly, then need four votes to take a case.
Finding for the plaintiffs in this one would have risked undermining the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That’s why they won’t go near it.
I agree. It’s different. Giving someone a room for the night or serving them the same restaurant food service as anyone else is not the same thing as photo shooting or catering a gay wedding. It would also be a pretty mistake-prone standard, unlike working at a gay wedding.
Proof of why cohabitation and sodomy laws were and are needed. In their stead, we have further deterioration and perversion of civil Western society, which is precisely what the Regressive Leftists want.
I’ll take this seriously when lezzies go to a muzzy place and demand to be served. Instead, they deliberately choose a Christian place.
Really? In a free society like ours you want to give the government the power to regulate sexual activity between adults? Holy crap, want to talk about a police state. It is no business of the government if my wife and I want to engage in sodomy(which in most states was defined as anal or oral sex) in the privacy of our own home. You might as well convert to Islam, I think you’d love sharia law.
“Finding for the plaintiffs in this one would have risked undermining the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That’s why they won’t go near it”
What does the behavior of eating at the Y have to do with civil rights?
Back in ‘64 they used the argument of public accommodations to get the thing passed. Find for the plaintiffs here and some yahoo will soon be claiming that his religion won’t let him rent to black people. Not the same thing I know, but that’s enough to scare the courts away from this.
Click on the article link and you will find a photo of the two womyn. Now, assuming the B & B owner is sighted and not blind, your question is probably answered.
Also, the bakery did not refuse to sell them a cake. They refused to decorate the cake in the way the customer asked.
Bakeries refuse to decorate cakes in a requested way all the time. Because the request is lewd and crude, violates copyright law, etc.
“I agree. It’s different. Giving someone a room for the night or serving them the same restaurant food service as anyone else is not the same thing as photo shooting or catering a gay wedding.”
A room for the night and a ‘bed-N-breakfast’ are totally different things.
Are your other guests going to want to eat at the same table as a couple fruitcakes smooching?
Guests at a motel wouldn’t have to have any contact with the fruits, not so in a ‘bed-N-breakfast.
“Back in ‘64 they used the argument of public accommodations to get the thing passed.”
It was unconstitutional but now the courts are going to extend the encroachment on private property and the freedom of association to include any victim group under the sun. Wonderful.
I don’t see why a B and B should be forced to host lez couples. They should be able to refuse to be in a business that profits from homosexual activity. That’s not how they want to earn a living.
The Lizzie’s can avoid that place and the B and B can sink or swim. That is not sharia. That’s free market.
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