Published September 07, 2017 Fox News

The Justice Department on Thursday filed a brief supporting the Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple on faith-based grounds, in the latest religious freedom case to be considered before the nation's highest court.

Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, had refused to sell a customized cake for a gay couple's union, claiming a religious exemption to the state's anti-discrimination law.

“When Phillips designs and creates a custom wedding cake for a specific couple and a specific wedding, he plays an active role in enabling that ritual, and he associates himself with the celebratory message conveyed,” Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey B. Wall wrote in the brief.

Wall added, “Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights.”

The Supreme Court announced in June it will hear the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case. State courts had ruled against the businessman.

The high court will now decide whether applying Colorado's public accommodations law to compel the baker to create "expression" -- a wedding cake -- violates his constitutionally protected Christian beliefs about marriage.

“I never thought the government would try to take away my freedoms and force me to create something that goes against my morals,” Phillips told Fox News on Thursday.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday accused the Trump administration, through the DOJ brief, of advocating for “nothing short of a constitutional right to discriminate.”

“This Justice Department has already made its hostility to the rights of LGBT people and so many others crystal clear,” Louise Melling, the deputy legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement. “But this brief was shocking, even for this administration.”

Backers of Phillips, like Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, though, call it a “freedom of expression case” that “extends far more broadly than a religious liberty case.”

“What matters is how our laws can be brought to bear against those who believe,” Lee said Thursday. “The government cannot force you to speak where you would choose to remain silent. These are foundational pillars of Constitution.”

SUPREME COURT TO HEAR CASE OF BAKER’S REFUSAL TO MAKE WEDDING CAKE FOR GAY COUPLE

Phillips has told the Supreme Court he has free speech and religious rights under the First Amendment that should protect him. He said he should not be compelled to bake a cake specifically to honor a same-sex marriage.

Colorado's anti-discrimination law, though, protects people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Charlie Craig and David Mullins had filed a complaint against Phillips and his suburban Denver shop after Phillips said he would not create and decorate a cake in honor of their marriage.

Colorado did not permit same-sex couples to marry until 2014. Two years earlier, Craig and Mullin were planning to fly to Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage was legal, and host a reception in Denver upon their return to Colorado. They wanted a cake for the occasion.

The case will be another in a series of "religious liberty" disputes the justices have reviewed in recent years, and could be an important First Amendment test of the extent anti-discrimination laws apply to gay Americans.

Oral arguments will likely be held in court's term beginning in the fall.

Link

Hopefully the ruling will be reversed and the shitbags will have to pay restitution to the bakery.

Sexual orientation should not be a protected class. Why is it? Who made it so and on what basis?

He owns a private business. He has the right to refuse service to any one for any reason.

quote:

Originally posted by 4859:
He owns a private business. He has the right to refuse service to any one for any reason.

When I was growing up in N. Idaho, and when I left there to join the army, virtually every public business (bars, coffee shops, billiard parlors, etc etc) had a sign on the wall saying they reserved the right to refuse service to anyone. Had nothing to do with politics, at least at that time. It had everything to do with the business owners rights to control their own business.

This is good example of why laws that create "hate crime" and "anti-discrimination" into "protections" being applied incorrectly are a travesty.

They do not promote a better society, nor one safer for the supposed "protected classes". What they do accomplish is the overstepping and meddling of those who seek position in government, and create environments with which these people in government and those who support/vote for them, to bully and manipulate for themselves, a different "standard", and circumvent the proper class of "all men are created equal", and the understanding of the rights granted by the Creator, applicable to all.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” -- C.S. Lewis

I am so freaking sick of gay cakes, let a businessman(woman) run their business as they see fit, end of discussion.

Unless it's a government entity or a company with a monopoly on cake creation, then let them exercise their 1st amendment rights. It's pretty damn simple, baker doesn't approve of your sexual orientation, don't give him your hard earned dollars.

Why would someone fight in court to give money to a person who thinks their marriage is an abomination? I certainly wouldn't. I wouldn't hire a racist to bake a cake for my future mixed race marriage. Nor if I was marrying a dude hire someone who was so strongly entrenched in their religious beliefs as to loose business by excluding those who violated his religious beliefs.

Pick a fucking different baker, save the legal costs for a super duper awesome gay honeymoon. How does it benefit a man's love for his husband to fight in court for ten years against the guy who they would have preferred to make their cake? Wouldn't their marriage be better if they picked the next best baker, and enjoyed their bliss associated with their wedding?

Skins,

It's not about the cake. It's about suppression of beliefs and expression of the same that they find offensive. They're the enlightened class and have a right to not be exposed to your thoughts and ideas. The deliberate identification and targeting of these businesses (which is still happening) was merely a precursor to Antifa.

Same fascism. Same fascists.

-Rob

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
I am so freaking sick of gay cakes, let a businessman(woman) run their business as they see fit, end of discussion.

Unless it's a government entity or a company with a monopoly on cake creation, then let them exercise their 1st amendment rights. It's pretty damn simple, baker doesn't approve of your sexual orientation, don't give him your hard earned dollars.

Why would someone fight in court to give money to a person who thinks their marriage is an abomination? I certainly wouldn't. I wouldn't hire a racist to bake a cake for my future mixed race marriage. Nor if I was marrying a dude hire someone who was so strongly entrenched in their religious beliefs as to loose business by excluding those who violated his religious beliefs.

Pick a fucking different baker, save the legal costs for a super duper awesome gay honeymoon. How does it benefit a man's love for his husband to fight in court for ten years against the guy who they would have preferred to make their cake? Wouldn't their marriage be better if they picked the next best baker, and enjoyed their bliss associated with their wedding?

The leftist/commie agenda is to punish and destroy all those who disagree with them. This is not about cake or steak. This is about liberty vs tyranny. I'm glad we have a minimum of 4 years to try to undo the GDC policies of the last 8 years.

The reason this is news is that the DOJ filed a brief supporting the baker.

That would be unthinkable in the DOJ run by the God Damned Commies.

There have been some harsh things written here about AG Sessions. We need to recognize that there is a new order of things. Some parts of the swamp are drier than others.

I agree a business should be able to decide who, what, where, when, and how the provide a service. I do wonder if this baker was trying to make a case and make a point. Otherwise, I would think that a simple conversation with the gay couple something like this would have served his purpose better. "I do not want to bake your cake. But if you insist, I can't promise that it won't look like shit and taste even worse. How would you like to pay your deposit, cash or credit?

quote:

Originally posted by straightshooter01:
I agree a business should be able to decide who, what, where, when, and how the provide a service. I do wonder if this baker was trying to make a case and make a point.

Turn it around. Many a Christen business will display a fish or cross. It's entirely possible the gay couple singled the bakery out and expected rejection.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
I am so freaking sick of gay cakes, let a businessman(woman) run their business as they see fit, end of discussion.
Unless it's a government entity or a company with a monopoly on cake creation, then let them exercise their 1st amendment rights. It's pretty damn simple, baker doesn't approve of your sexual orientation, don't give him your hard earned dollars.
Why would someone fight in court to give money to a person who thinks their marriage is an abomination? I certainly wouldn't. I wouldn't hire a racist to bake a cake for my future mixed race marriage. Nor if I was marrying a dude hire someone who was so strongly entrenched in their religious beliefs as to loose business by excluding those who violated his religious beliefs.
Pick a fucking different baker, save the legal costs for a super duper awesome gay honeymoon. How does it benefit a man's love for his husband to fight in court for ten years against the guy who they would have preferred to make their cake? Wouldn't their marriage be better if they picked the next best baker, and enjoyed their bliss associated with their wedding?

The leftist/commie agenda is to punish and destroy all those who disagree with them. This is not about cake or steak. This is about liberty vs tyranny. I'm glad we have a minimum of 4 years to try to undo the GDC policies of the last 8 years.

Both of ^^^these^^...TRUTH!

quote:

Originally posted by Elk Hunter:

quote:

Originally posted by 4859:
He owns a private business. He has the right to refuse service to any one for any reason.

When I was growing up in N. Idaho, and when I left there to join the army, virtually every public business (bars, coffee shops, billiard parlors, etc etc) had a sign on the wall saying they reserved the right to refuse service to anyone. Had nothing to do with politics, at least at that time. It had everything to do with the business owners rights to control their own business.

They are still up in many places here in Montana and back in North Dakota where I grew up.

I'm filing a class action suit because Chick Fil A refuses to serve me on Sunday.

The signs are not effective where the refusal of service is based on a prohibited characteristic, race, sex, color, religion, previous condition of servitude, etc.

You can refuse service to someone nit wearung shoes, for example, but those barefoot folk had better not be all black, or female, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by 4859:
He owns a private business. He has the right to refuse service to any one for any reason.

Ding!

Regardless of ANYTHING else, this is the correct answer for me.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
The signs are not effective where the refusal of service is based on a prohibited characteristic, race, sex, color, religion, previous condition of servitude, etc.

You can refuse service to someone nit wearung shoes, for example, but those barefoot folk had better not be all black, or female, etc.

But isn't this a case of protecting religious freedom? The State can't compel the Baker to violate his religious beliefs. The customer has no religious ground to stand on (that I know of), they can simply go to another bakery and be served.

I could be way off here, but I'll take a stab. A violation of your rights is like losing your virginity. Once it's done, it's done. In the case of being forced to violate your religious beliefs, it is out of the State's purview to make you whole again.

As I read this, it sounds crazy.

Religious or not, if I don't want to bake you a cake because you have a t-shirt on, or green eyes, or skittles, or any other reason I may have - I ought not have to, nor should they. Nobody owns my skills and output, unless I agree to sell it to them and it's entirely and solely my choice. It's as simple as that. Else, I (or they or we) are not truly free.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
This is good example of why laws that create "hate crime" and "anti-discrimination" into "protections" being applied incorrectly are a travesty.

They do not promote a better society, nor one safer for the supposed "protected classes". What they do accomplish is the overstepping and meddling of those who seek position in government, and create environments with which these people in government and those who support/vote for them, to bully and manipulate for themselves, a different "standard", and circumvent the proper class of "all men are created equal", and the understanding of the rights granted by the Creator, applicable to all.

Treat everyone the same - no protected classes or hate crime designations at all.