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Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case[W:455]

Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

matchlight said:
Whether a state's law defines an entity as a public accommodation sometimes does not depend on whether the entity is engaged in buying and selling in the marketplace. And the freedom of association may be relevant to discrimination by a public accommodation on the basis of sexual preference, as it was in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale.
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The Boy Scouts is an organization that people can choose to associate with, not a business that buys and sells products or services. As such, it promotes ideas which are protected as free speech. Selling flowers is not the same thing. Customers do not join the florist 'organization" as a means of association, they engage in discrete business transactions.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

Athanasius68 said:
The Muslim caterer does not offer pork chops due to the religious objections to selling the product.
The florist did not sell to the gay wedding due to her religious objections to selling the product.
The religious objections are now the issue, and products cannot be declined to be offered due to religious issues.

And it's not just religion. A fellow can't be refused to purchase clothes from a woman's clothing store. But is that clothing store discriminating against men because it refuses to sell men's clothes?
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That is nonsense, the muslim caterer does not carry/stock/sell pork chops to anyone. Sure it has to do with his religion, but a Mormon with a herbal tea and cupcake joint (if there is such a Mormon doing that) will not sell coffee in his herbal tea and cupcake joint because Mormon's and coffee and regular tea is a no-no. They however do not discriminate against anybody with that policy. They have cut themselves a niche market (in most states except Utah of course) but that is their right to do so.

The florist however does offer her product to all straight couples that want to buy that product from her but not gay couples, and that is the prototypical behavior someone who discriminates. The florist does stock/sell/make that product just not to gays. That is not objecting to the selling of a product, just the discriminatory (and illegal/banned) practice of singling out people who you refuse to sell too.

Not the same thing so a false analogy/fake comparison.

And the clothing example is an even faker comparison. You don't go to an optometrist to buy earring, is that optometrist discriminating against people who want to buy earrings, NO, he is an optometrist, not a jeweler. The same with clothes, if you go to a women's clothing shop you cannot expect them to be forced to sell men's clothes as well because you went to a women's clothing store, if you want men's clothing you go to a men's clothing store. Now if a woman comes into a men's clothing store and is refused as a customer because she wants to buy men's clothing than that is discrimination (and vice versa).
 
Mac77 said:
no I agree with you

homosexuality is a disease that people catch or that they choose to engag in rather than an immutable genetic flaw as some people claim
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Weird, there is no evidence that homosexuality is a disease either.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

chromium said:
Anyway, that case resolves this issue, since the only others in over 50 years that have limited the public accomodations laws are merely clarifications - that private non profits can discriminate and it's also permitted in situations that would greatly infringe free speech. There has been no ruling that found a conflict between association or religion
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This woman apparently did not succeed with a freedom of speech argument, and she then objected on religious grounds. I think that arguments based on the Free Exercise Clause or on state religious freedom restoration acts are less likely to succeed, in most of these cases, than ones based on the freedom of speech. The more directly the private owner or operator of a public accommodation in forced by law to be involved in a celebration of homosexual marriage against his will--the more clearly the speech he is compelled to engage is an endorsement of that form of marriage--the more likely the law will violate his freedom of speech.

Consider an artist who both believed homosexual marriage was immoral and sold his work to the public out of a studio, which the applicable state law defined as a public accommodation. His artwork would be expressive speech protected by the First Amendment. Say he were to be punished under that law for refusing a commission for a painting to commemorate a homosexual wedding by portraying the happy couple in front of the chapel in their finery. If so, he would have a very strong argument that the law as applied compelled him to express a view he disagreed with and was therefore unconstitutional.
 
Mac77 said:
are you kiddong?

homosexuals are the evidence
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The existence of Trump supporters is evidence of inbreeding.

See, I can make baseless assertions too.
 
[

Hatuey said:
The existence of Trump supporters is evidence of inbreeding.

See, I can make baseless assertions too.
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they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

but your assertion is only an imitation of the real thing
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

Hatuey said:
You do realize that the 'in large numbers' child molesters in this country tend to be social conservatives or people that conservatives stand behind? Warren Jeffs, Catholic priests, Muslim imams, Boy Scout leaders, Hastert,....

Liberals don't need to go after your imaginary pedophile voting block, because well... most of the ones who haven't been caught are backed by GOP congressmen. They remain conservatives after they're caught.

:lol:
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Great stuff there. LOL! Child molesters tend to be "social conservatives", HA HA. What a foolish argument to make! I think you ought to roll that one back a bit, eh?
 
danarhea said:
The vote was unanimous, and is in line with almost every other court decision in the nation which uphold that whoever walks into a business with money is a customer in the eyes of the law. You don't get to cherry pick who you serve. That was decided decades ago in the matter of who could eat at lunch counters. SCOTUS will quickly knock down any appeal. The act of selling your product is not free speech, which is what the south claimed back then. Don't like gays? Don't like Muslims? Don't like black people? You are free to talk to your heart's content about your hatred towards others, but if you do business with the public, you are not allowed to act on that hatred by refusing to do business with them. That is illegal, and unamerican too.

Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case
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The florist never refused to serve gay customers, she refused to service a homosexual marriage.

This is an untested SCOTUS area, and circuit courts don't like to make politically unpopular decisions because it stops their career advancement, I'm 60% certain a court with Trumps appointee sitting on it may reverse this decision.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

MaggieD said:
And that was because of their sexual orientation... a protected class in our country.
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in WA state, not in our country, homosexuality is not federally a protected class.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

Praxas said:
Providing flowers is not taking part in their wedding. That's like saying the company that makes napkins is participating in the wedding.
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No, the customer wanted the florist to go to the wedding and provide the arraingements on site, which is what the argument was about, she did not want to participate in a homosexual marriage on religious grounds, the customer wanted on site service.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

Kal'Stang said:
When her defense involves her religious Rights then yes, it does matter. You may think that it doesn't. But it most certainly does.
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Nope it simply doesn't religion is not a blanket for all excuses and a get out of jail free card. Her religion doesn't matter just like if she was caught speeding, or stealing. Her claiming it was based on her feelings is just a stupid as a rapist saying "she was wearing a skirt and asking for it". And now I'm not comparing this to rape as you will try to twist and say I am, I'm comparing how meaningless the feelings, views and opinions of the coronals are in the examples.



Kal'Stang said:
You made a horrible comparison then. Because no ones Rights may be violated by another persons Rights. IE: Your Rights end where someone else's Rights begin.
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Nope the comparison is spot on, your made a horrible assumption or strawman about my comparison which had nothing to do with what you assumed.
Kal'Stang said:
Bold: Are you saying that there is no Right to buy flowers? Are you agreeing with me?
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I'm not saying that or necessarily agreeing with "you" that's just a fact of the matter. There is no right to buy flowers which doesn;t matter to this case or anything I have actually said. This is where you are of track since the beginning, you are forming your own counter argument against things that aren't in play here, which makes them irrelevant.


Kal'Stang said:
Nope. It was actually quite relevant to what you said. "Her religion and feelings doesn't give her the right to break the law, that's the point." If the only way to challenge an unjust law or a law that violates their Rights then a person does have a Right to break the law. Evidence for that is in the fact that if a person wins a case based on a law being unjust or a violation of ones Rights then that person is not punished for breaking the law.
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They still have nothign to do with it, that's why she lost. No rights of her's were violated in anyway, she is just a criminal who broke the law.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

EMNofSeattle said:
in WA state, not in our country, homosexuality is not federally a protected class.
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I'm wrong. I just looked it up. It's not a Federal protected class either. Thanks for calling that to my attention. Huh. Surprised.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

MaggieD said:
I'm wrong. I just looked it up. It's not a Federal protected class either. Thanks for calling that to my attention. Huh. Surprised.
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Hence why in some places in the country it is perfectly legal to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation.
 
Mac77 said:
no I agree with you

homosexuality is a disease that people catch or that they choose to engag in rather than an immutable genetic flaw as some people claim
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Please go and peddle this nonsense somewhere else.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

Grim17 said:
What she did was not discrimination. The man was a welcomed customer of hers for 10 years and she never refused service to him, or treated him in a discriminatory manner. She chose not to do the floral arrangements for his gay wedding, because gay marriage violates her religious beliefs. She even directed him to other florists in the area that would gladly cater to his wedding.

The woman did not turn down the man's request to do the floral arrangement because he was gay, as 10 years of conducting business with the man establishes. She turned him down because same sex marriage violates her religious beliefs and couldn't in good conscience contribute, or be a part of the ceremony.

This may come as a shock to you, but tolerance is a 2 way street.

.
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By definition she most definitely discriminated. And it was because he was gay, dishonest double talk saying it was something else is just dishonest drivel. It's really this simply, if the person was not gay would she have done the wedding? YEP . . case closed and that's why this criminal lost.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

EMNofSeattle said:
No, the customer wanted the florist to go to the wedding and provide the arraingements on site, which is what the argument was about, she did not want to participate in a homosexual marriage on religious grounds, the customer wanted on site service.
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There is no participation in anything by delivering and arranging flowers in an empty room. They were not asked to throw petals in the path of the new couple or to be present or participate in any way.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

This is another example of how activist judges are a bad thing.

The Washington supreme court is now entirely packed with liberals, and they're making rulings to force the state to conform with a social agenda, recently for example they basically on their own repealed a law permitting rural residents to dig wells without a permit provided they use less then 1000 gallons per day at the request of a group that wants to end suburban development in favor of urban development.

in another decision they struck down a voter initiative permitting charter schools (which I voted against BTW) in a decision that was criticized by ALL 5 SURVIVING STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL (Ken Eickenberry, Slade Gorton, Christine Gregoire, Rob McKenna, and the current AG Bob Ferguson)

They are now using an education ruling to force the legislature to adopt a progressive income tax when the vast majority of WA voters want NO state income tax as we currently have no state income tax.

The WA state supreme court could be called a kangaroo court, the law does not apply.

now, as far as the facts of this case, this should be an easy case in favor of the florist, all mainstream religions do not consider homosexual marriages to be valid marriages, and the constitutional standard for invalidation of a religious liberty claim should be strict scrutiny, that the measure sought by the state serves a compelling state interest and the action taken is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. in a case where the customers could easily find the services elsewhere there is no state interests in protecting the claim of the plaintiffs.

not only that, but the State AG is also suing the florist personally for costs of bringing the suit after having detailed twice as much staff as normal cases to this lawsuit so he can financially ruin her as punishment for seeking redress in the courts.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

Kal'Stang said:
Wrong. In order to survive in this society you HAVE to conduct business transactions. You can choose the type of job that you're in. But you cannot choose to not conduct business transactions. Doesn't matter if you're an employer or an employee.
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How does that address what I said?
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

Anthony60 said:
Great stuff there. LOL! Child molesters tend to be "social conservatives", HA HA. What a foolish argument to make! I think you ought to roll that one back a bit, eh?
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The guy saying liberals will take in pedophiles as a voting bloc wants me to tone down the hyperbole.

Hookay.
 
Mac77 said:
they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - but your assertion is only an imitation of the real thing
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I definitely understand that you're really making baseless assertions.
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

AGENT J said:
Can anybody name one FACTUAL right that was FACTUALLY infringed on by this ruling . . . . one . . . . :)
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Still waiting . . .anybody?
 
Re: Washington court rules against florist in gay wedding case

Always fun watching people lose thier **** over equal rights winning and spreading through the country. They rehash all the same failed and or bigoted arguments that were tried against equal rights for religion, gender and race and they fail all over again. All those arguments were retarded and illogical years ago and they are even more retarded and illogical now because people should be educated enough to learn facts and from their mistakes. Its hilarious!

Defending this criminal with false claims like:
the criminal's religious rights were violated . . yet ZERO factual proof
the criminal didn't actually discriminate . . yest ZERO factual proof

makes me laugh because it lets people know who understand the laws and rights and facts that the other side has NOTHING but hurt feelings, opinions and or bigotry motivating them.
 
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