Civil rights groups and Democrats reacted angrily to the US supreme court decision in favor of the Colorado web designer Lorie Smith, who argued she had a first amendment right to refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages. Critics of the court’s decision say it ushers in a new era of prejudice in America.
“This ruling on LGBTQ+ rights by the Maga-right activist wing of the supreme court is a giant step backward for human rights and equal protection in America,” said the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a statement. “We will continue to fight to ensure that all Americans, including LGBTQ+ Americans, have equal protection under the law.”
The progressive Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib called for term limits of justices on the conservative-dominated supreme court which has now ushered in a series of decisions rolling back well-established rights, such as overturning federal protections on abortion and affirmative action.
“End lifetime appointments for supreme court justices. Enforce a binding code of ethics. Expand the court,” Tlaib posted on Twitter.
The New York congressman Ritchie Torres said: “Scotus invokes religious liberty to license discrimination against LGBTQ people. The LGBTQ community might be the first victim of the supreme court’s decision but it won’t be the last. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Civil rights groups were also vocal in their shock and warned of the impact on LGTBQ+ communities across the US who see it as opening the way for people and businesses to legally refuse services to LGBTQ+ people.
“This decision will have a devastating ripple effect across the country by creating a permission structure, backed by the force of law, to discriminate and endanger LGBTQ+ people and trans youth who are already so at risk,” said the Rev Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and chief executive of the Interfaith Alliance.
“Discrimination under the guise of religious freedom is not just unconstitutional, but antithetical to our values,” added Darcy Hirsh, director of policy and advocacy at the group. “Just as people are free to explore matters of faith and personal conscience, people should also be free to express their sexual orientation and gender identity without fear of discrimination or harm.”
The Human Rights Campaign, one of America’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, called the ruling in the case, known as 303 Creative LLC v Elenis, “unprecedented” and a decision that “will have sweeping and harmful impacts on the LGBTQ+ community and is a dangerous step backwards”.
“Our nation has been on a path of progress – deciding over the course of many decades that businesses should be open regardless of race, disability or religion. People deserve to have commercial spaces that are safe and welcoming,” said the organisation’s president, Kelley Robinson, in a statement.
But the Republican former vice-president Mike Pence, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and popular with rightwing evangelicals, praised the court’s decision.
“Religious freedom is the bedrock of our constitution,” he said, “and today’s decision reminds us that we must elect leaders who will defend that right and appoint judges who support religious freedom.”
Kristin Waggoner with Alliance Defending Freedom, the group that brought Smith’s case, said the court had “rightly reaffirmed that the government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe”.
In a six to three vote, split down ideological lines, the highest court ruled that the first amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing the website designer to create expressive designs with which the designer disagreed.
In the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the free speech amendment in the constitution “envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands”.
Gorsuch also invoked George Orwell, writing that “if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
The liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor responded to Gorsuch, writing that “the majority’s repeated invocation of this Orwellian thought policing is revealing of just how much it misunderstands this case”.
This is a very difficult position to be in. One the one hand no one should be refused service for any reason except the they were causing a disturbance or were extremely rude, unruly or criminal.
On the other hand no one should be forced to do something that clashes with their beliefs. If a fat 5 client approaches you to make a gay website and you’ll be putting up pictures of sexual acts etc which might disagree with you 4 beliefs or conscience, you should have the right to say “sorry but this job is not for me. It makes me uncomfortable and I cannot bring myself to do it. Please find another web designer” they should also have that right. It’s not discrimination because he’s not doing it to cause then harm, he’s just saying he’s not comfortable to do that. And that’s fine. No one should be able to force him.
Hopefully this law protects the rights of both parties.
The problem is that the courts are creating a two-tier society. One for non-religious people, and another for people who don’t want to be nice because their in-group says they don’t have to be.
If your beliefs include denying service to people based on stupid reasons like sexual orientation or race, then you best believe other people’s rights supercede yours. You can’t have a country of rights without mutual respect, and that means everyone gets equal access to businesses and society.
Retail and service are different than speech ( which includes any creative work).
This wasn’t the only web designer available. They weren’t denied access to all web designers or website makers.
If they refused them use of a make your own website service that would be illegal, as it is a retail product at that point.
If it were neo nazis demanding a pro hate website with swasticas and such do you think a jewish person should be forced to make them a website?
That wasn’t the only burger joint available. That wasn’t the only hotel available. That wasn’t the only apartment complex they could’ve rented from. That wasn’t the only place they could’ve worked at. That wasn’t the only grocery store they could’ve bought food at.
If they refused them use of the back dumpster to dig food out of, the local park to sleep in, and the pond to bathe in, that would be illegal, as only then would denial of services by businesses that make up the system of access to resources our society depends on to survive illegal.
And if all of that sounds absurd to you, remember that ruling enables all of it.
Creative vs retail.
Individual Speech vs business product/service.
That is the whole point.
My cooking is a creative process you filthy [insert pejorative here] do not deserve and are not entitled to. You don’t like it? Go hit up the place down the street
Who will then ban and ban and ban.
But keep justifying discrimination and oppression, I’m sure your kids and grandkids are going to be real proud of finding out they’re related to a modern-day fascist when they find this one day
Fascism swings both ways.
Am i forced to hate one person but forced to serve another?
Neither are things that happen to free people.
This was a case about forcing someone to act against their beliefs.
So i ask again, do you force the jewish web designer to make the nazi website?
Only in your fantasy world where you need to use sophistry to justify hate.
You see, by your logic, the Jewish web designer would never have to make the Nazi website, because the Nazis were clearly gay and this law protects his right to refuse service to gays, hence, problem solved. What, they claim they’re not gay? Well, it’s obvious they are. They’re goose-stepping in ornate Nazi uniforms that are tight in all of the right places. They had to have done that for each other’s pleasure. The plaintiff rests.
See how dumb discrimination is?
I’m not going to spend time to design websites for churches and other religious groups even for compensation. Artistic or engineering services are not beholden to anti discrimination doctrine the same way that hiring, retail, and public services are because the job requires you to make things to order, and if I fundamentally disagree with the order then I can just refuse the job.
It goes both ways. If these people can refuse doing paid design work for gay weddings, I can refuse doing paid design work for Christian weddings or arranged marriages. If I was forced to do so I’d sooner quit. That’s the point I think you’re not getting. If someone has the right to quit doing the work they do for any reason, they also have a right to refuse to work for anyone, and that fundamentally includes contracting work, not just direct employment.
TL;DR: if I can refuse a job offer for any reason, or quit my job for any reason, then I can refuse to do a freelance contract for any reason.