Lessons of History and Trying To Avoid the Same Mistakes

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

The Supreme Court is set to deliver a ruling Friday—the final day of the term—about whether state anti-discrimination laws violate the First Amendment right to free speech. The decision could be a civil rights nightmare by allowing businesses open to the public to refuse to serve people based on their race, religion, or sexual orientation. The case at issue was already shady, but new reporting suggests it’s even more questionable than we knew.

Lorie Smith is a Colorado website designer who, importantly, has never made wedding websites. However, she filed a lawsuit claiming that she wants to, but, because she opposes marriage equality, she disagrees with a state law that would make her accept gay clients. To be clear: This means Smith had not gotten in trouble with the state, she merely feared potential consequences down the line. She should not have standing to sue, but here we are. The court isn’t hearing the case on religious grounds, rather on free speech grounds, specifically whether state laws “compel an artist to speak or stay silent.” (Smith’s business name is 303 Creative; the case is 303 Creative v. Elenis.)


(full article online)

Turns Out the Supreme Court's Gay Wedding Website Case May Be Based on a Lie

Lorie Smith has never made wedding websites, but she claims she was asked to by a gay couple. New reporting suggests the request was bogus.

jezebel.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Activists have long warned that the right-wing's hysterical, anti-trans demonization campaign would provoke violence — and it inevitably did, with a triple stabbing in a gender class in which the assailant wanted to make a "statement" about gender identity. Luckily, the perpetrator in Toronto couldn't just walk into a Wal-Mart and buy an assault rifle like he could have in the United States.


(full article online)

Police say the stabbings of three people during a gender class in Canada were motivated by hate

A suspect in the stabbing of a professor and two students during a class on gender issues at a university in the Canadian city of Waterloo has been charged in what police are calling a hate-motivated attack.

apnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

A new Florida law that prohibits some Chinese citizens from buying property in the state violates the federal Fair Housing Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, the Justice Department said in a filing this week.

The legislation, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law last month, also restricts — though it does not ban — land purchases by some citizens of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela.


Republican legislators in other states have proposed bills to ban Chinese citizens from buying or owning property, but Florida’s was the first to be signed into law.

"These unlawful provisions will cause serious harm to people simply because of their national origin, contravene federal civil rights laws, undermine constitutional rights, and will not advance the State’s purported goal of increasing public safety," the Justice Department wrote in support of a lawsuit seeking to block the law.

The law, known as SB 264, which is set to take effect Saturday, places two sets of restrictions on land ownership in Florida, according to the filing.

The first set of restrictions prohibits non-U.S. citizens from "foreign countries of concern" from buying or owning land within 10 miles of any “military installation” or “critical infrastructure facility” in Florida.

Property buyers or sellers who violate the restriction could face up to 60 days in prison and a $500 fine.

DOJ says Florida law signed by Ron DeSantis limiting Chinese land ownership is unconstitutional

DeSantis, who is running for the White House, said the law was designed to counter what he called “the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party."

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

In light of the fact that, on Thursday, the Supreme Court validated the golden dreams of every bigot who ever called a talk show, I think I'l just let Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson take the lead here.

With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces “colorblindness for all” by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that UNC and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems.

No one benefits from ignorance. Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better. The best that can be said of the majority’s perspective is that it proceeds (ostrich-like) from the hope that preventing consideration of race will end racism. But if that is its motivation, the majority proceeds in vain. If the colleges of this country are required to ignore a thing that matters, it will not just go away. It will take longer for racism to leave us. And, ultimately, ignoring race just makes it matter more.

Chief Justice John Roberts got the chance to complete the Day of Jubilee he declared in Shelby County. The 14th Amendment is now magically and completely converted into a vehicle for white victimhood. Justice Clarence Thomas gets to take his twisted self-loathing out for another walk. And affirmative action is now as dead as Roger Taney because, you know, colorblind. By deciding Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the carefully manufactured conservative majority on the Supreme Court kept faith with conservatism's multi-decade alliance with the remnants of American apartheid. As Garrett Epps pointed out on the electric Twitter machine, when Roberts was just starting out, he tried to get Ronald Reagan to abolish affirmative action by executive order. Roberts has been in this for the long haul.

Epps also reminds us of Walter Dellinger's assessment of Justice Thomas: "Clarence Thomas believes white racism exists and he is its only victim." Thomas's concurrence reeks of self-congratulatory derision. For example, there's this beauty from the former Holy Cross affirmative action admit:

It may be the case that exposure to different perspectives and thoughts can foster debate, sharpen young minds, and hone students’ reasoning skills. But, it is not clear how diversity with respect to race, qua race, furthers this goal. Two white students, one from rural Appalachia and one from a wealthy San Francisco suburb, may well have more diverse outlooks on this metric than two students from Manhattan’s Upper East Side attending its most elite schools, one of whom is white and other of whom is black.

Of course, which of these four hypothetical students would you least like to be if you were stopped at midnight by the police? Thought so.

Justice Sotomayor brought us around to somewhere like the world most of us live in.


(full article online)

The Supreme Court Has Validated Every Bigot Who Ever Called a Talk Show

The 14th Amendment is now magically and completely converted into a vehicle for white victimhood.

www.esquire.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

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[Stryker___777]

There needs to be a way to disable a forum user from replying to his own post infinitely forcing it to the top of the board and turning it into his personal blog

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Too young to be politically motivated, to have any idea of what the facts are about anything, since all of the truth she knows comes from her parents and Trump. Very easy to be caught up in the cheering. ]

 

[Sixties Fan]

There needs to be a way to disable a forum user from replying to his own post infinitely forcing it to the top of the board and turning it into his personal blog

What? You do not have any answer to any of the posts? Yes, or no?
What are you waiting for to discuss any of what is being said in any of the posts?

Trumpbraindead? Is that the issue?

Find an issue you do not agree with and discuss it.

No? Oh, you only like to show a bellyache to see if it works and the people go away, hey?

Kvetch, buddy, Kvetch !!!

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 1

It’s been a long term of Court, the third with the full wave of Trump appointees‚ Neal Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett on the bench. It’s increasingly clear that the conservative justices’ ability to ignore doctrines like standing so it can hear cases it wants to and to look past established precedent so it can reach desired results will be the hallmark of the Roberts Court. And it’s often mean-spirited, ignoring the impact the conservative agenda has on the lives of real people who have looked to the law for decades to protect them and their civil rights. Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution nailed it, as he so often does, when it came to the affirmative action cases that were decided last week.



As if the death of affirmative action wasn’t enough to leave us with as Justices Thomas and Alito slipped off with dreams of luxury vacations with billionaires in their heads, they gave us 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, this term’s disingenuous effort to discriminate against the LGBTQ community under the guise of protecting First Amendment religious rights. A Colorado “creative” and graphics designer named Lorie Smith wanted to expand her business. She wanted to branch out into wedding website design, but she didn’t want to make websites for gay couples. So she wanted to post a notice that she wouldn’t design for them because of her strongly held religious belief that marriage was between a man and a woman. That notice would have violated a Colorado law that prohibits discrimination.

The Court, of course, held in Smith’s favor. The outcome of the case is a disappointment, even coming from this Court. As Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote in dissent, the First Amendment has never before been used to issue a license to discriminate.

Enough with the Court

(but one last thing)

joycevance.substack.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 2

Two observations on the case:

1. There was reporting just ahead of the release of the decision, that the basis for bringing the lawsuit in the first place was (you’ll forgive me), trumped up.

The plaintiff claimed in her pleadings that in 2016, a gay man named Stewart asked her to help with his upcoming wedding to Mike. She alleged that a message sent to her website said, “We are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website.”

Apparently, no one contacted Stewart as the controversy worked its way through the courts. But it turns out that although he was a real person, ironically a graphics designer with a significant following whose email address and phone number could have been accessed on his website at the time the message was sent to Smith, he didn’t send the message. It turns out that Stewart, in fact, has been happily married to a woman for the last 15 years. He was unaware that he was nominally the raison d'être for the lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court. “I can confirm I did not contact 303 Creative about a website,” he told the Guardian when a reporter reached out to him. He said he how no idea how his name became connected to the request for the plaintiff’s services.

Although the state certainly could have tried to contact Stewart and figured this out, lawyers are obligated to make sure that everything they file in court is truthful and accurate. That burden was on Smith’s lawyers and it appears that they failed to me it. Harvard Law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe had some thoughts about how the Court should handle the situation.



There is no indication, at least at this moment, that the Court will consider taking any steps to hold the lawyers accountable or consider whether the case was properly in front of them.

Enough with the Court

(but one last thing)

joycevance.substack.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 3

1. Some people seem to be confused about how far the ruling in this case extends.

The plaintiff in this case said she was willing to work with gay people—this isn’t a case about whether you can outright refuse to work with someone who is a member of a protected group. She said in her pleadings that she wouldn’t design their wedding websites because she didn’t want her name attached to something she was against. In other words, this isn’t a case about refusing to serve Black people because of the color of the skin. It’s more like refusing to make a website promoting their belief that all people should be treated equally no matter the color of their skin, because your spiritual leader tells you that’s not true. It’s a fine line distinction; in truth, too fine line for me. But it’s important to what use the case may be put to going forward.

All the folks you see putting signs in their shop windows saying “MAGAs not served here” are taking the case further than the Supreme Court did. The plaintiff in 303 Creative was willing to “serve” gay people, but just not all the types of food she’d make for other people. Her argument was that creating websites was her “speech” and the state couldn’t compel her to say anything that violated her religious beliefs.

Justice Sotomayor, in dissent, saw that argument as being just another way to get around engaging in commerce with people who were part of a protected class that you didn’t like.



Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion, argued that the website designer’s business provided “expressive,” individualized services, which he characterized as “pure speech,” literal written words. In the dissent, Justice Sotomayor explained that the law established that what the plaintiff was objecting to was conduct, not speech, which doesn’t fall within the First Amendment. She also made the compelling point that the First Amendment has never operated to protect discrimination. There’s a slippery slope here. Think of all the ways someone could claim their First Amendment free speech rights are being violated because they’re being forced to do something contrary to their religious beliefs. That’s the track for an ever expanding wave of litigation designed to let an individuals religious beliefs trump other people’s rights based on 303 Creative.



Technically, that the Court has not agreed to reverse decades of cases that, for instance, required an Alabama BBQ joint named Ollie’s to serve Black people at its counters rather than forcing them to get take-out. On July 31, 1964, Ollie's Barbecue filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act, which President Lyndon Johnson had signed into law earlier that month. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, an Alabamian who had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan before rejecting those ties and becoming one of the Court’s most liberal members at the time, signed an order staying the lower court’s order in favor of Ollie’s Barbecue request for continued segregation. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled, in a case called Katzenbach v. McClung, that public accommodations like restaurants and hotels had to desegregate and treat Black people equally. Those types of equal service requirements aren’t directly implicated by the holding in 303 Creative.

But there is an opening here here to use the First Amendment to establish the primacy of one group’s religious views in a way that is antithetical to the Founding Father’s vision of a religiously-neutral government. That’s the slippery slope here, and the rate of descent depends on how far this Court is willing to go. So, no undue optimism here.

Justice Sotomayor explained why the right to public accommodation is so important in our society.



Consider keeping her explanation in your arsenal of responses when people tell you it’s only about a wedding website, because it isn’t. Some folks might suggest that gay couples could just avoid people who don’t want to celebrate their marriages with them. But that’s not how rights work in our society. It’s about the fundamental dignity that all people are entitled to. Unfortunately, this Supreme Court seems to be of the view that it’s only people who share their beliefs who get to have the ladder up.

Enough with the Court

(but one last thing)

joycevance.substack.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Wind, Solar, and now Wave Energy. Cheers to the future]