KENNEDY CAKESHOP OPINION BAD NEWS FOR TRAVEL BAN | Majority Of Americans Disagree With Refusing Service To LGBTQ Community | More Civics Lessons, More Tolerance And Understanding
June 6, 2018
OVER IN THE HATE STATE
|Julie Turkewitz with The New York Times reports that back in Colorado — which used to be called the “Hate State” — people are celebrating a victory for JACK PHILLIPS. People arrived to his cake shop with American flags and cameras and balloons and Bibles. But as Turkewitz points out, “In a nation that has moved so far in the direction of gay rights in recent years, it wasn’t clear if Mr. Phillips’s victory would mean much for long.”
PLAYING FAVORITES
|“Supreme Court bemoans ‘hostility’ to religion in wedding cake case, but what about Trump’s ‘Muslim ban?'” That’s the title of the latest piece from David Savage with the Los Angeles Times. He explains JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY’S insistence on strict neutrality toward religion should spell trouble for the president’s travel ban. Law professor LEAH LITMAN is quoted saying, “If the court is serious about what it said, it should rule the entry ban violates the 1st Amendment because the process that resulted in the ban was infected by the president’s expressed animus and hostility toward Muslims.”
POLL DU JOUR
|A new Morning Consult poll conducted a day after the Supreme Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop decision revealed that 57% of Americans disagreed with businesses refusing to serve customers who identify as LGBT. The poll also found white evangelicals are the only Christian group with a majority (51%) who viewed such refusals of service as a reinforcement of their religious freedom.
CIVICS FORWARD
|There’s some good news this week for former JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNORand JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, both champions of civic education: there is a renewed effort nationwide to address our failing efforts to provide more civics lessons to students in high school and college. In the last few years, and partly in response to the election of DONALD J. TRUMP, educators are working on improving students’ understanding of and trust in civic institutions by repairing the disconnect spurred by limited civics education and intolerance for those who think and act differently. Alina Tugend reports in The New York Times.
FEELING ALL THE FEELS
|Folks are still reeling from the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of JACK PHILLIPS, with opinions coming every which way about the narrow decision from justices. Their threading of the needle on the issue was just right, they didn’t go far enough to stop discrimination against LGBTQ people, their decision is far from harmless — read all these opinions and more below…
SCOTUS VIEWS
The Supreme Court Wasn't Ready To Decide On The Wedding Cake. Neither Are We.
The Washington Post“The problem is that we aren’t ready to. What we are missing is an overarching idea of the common good, one that all citizens have bought into and can share. Because the only way to decide which of two competing rights wins out is to decide which best points us toward the larger good we want to achieve, and prioritize that.”
Gay Wedding Cake Ruling Reaffirms That Businesses Can't Discriminate
CNN“Notably, the court limited its decision to the specifics of this case – mainly how the Colorado Civil Rights Commission handled Phillips’ claim. The court did not rule that the Constitution grants the right to discriminate but maintained the longstanding principle that business owners cannot deny equal access to goods and services. The court stated that it may face the constitutional question in future cases that present different circumstances – Monday’s ruling is likely not the final word.”
Actually, Kennedy's Masterpiece Cakeshop Opinion Doesn't Conflict With His Gay Rights Legacy
Los Angeles Times“The Masterpiece Cakeshop decision — consensus-driven, limited, respectful of competing sides — seems the antithesis of the polarizing, slash-and-burn approach of our politics, right down to the fact that the court has done its job of resolving a dispute, while the House and Senate mostly fight bitterly to no end.Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission leaves to another day broad constitutional questions, but it resolves the case before it, keeps the peace and points the way forward for compromise among bitter opponents. A fair and characteristic outcome for the ‘Kennedy court.'”
The Masterpiece Decision Isn't Harmless
The New York Times“People like the Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, seem to think they are the only ones who have ownership over God and belief, and certainly over Christianity. Thankfully, not all those who share his faith agree with his position. But the Supreme Court decision will fuel the fires of this particular battle in the culture wars. People like Mr. Phillips believe their religious liberty trumps everyone else’s, and surely it overrules my own since I am a gay man.”
The Baker Isn't The Only Winner In The Wedding Cake Ruling
The Washington Post“We as a culture would do well to cultivate tolerance for good-faith differences of opinion on same-sex marriage. Colorado is particularly in need of that. As the Supreme Court observed in its opinion, the state was ‘neither tolerant nor respectful of Phillips’ religious beliefs.’ The court’s decision announced that the government was wrong to punish Phillips for living according to his beliefs about marriage. Those beliefs must be respected. Let’s hope government officials throughout the country get that message.”