Masterpiece cakeshop v. CCRC

Right"well first of all " and not to respond to his opening argument " he copied and pasted all of that information except for the last paragraph or two; 3/4 of your argument was someone else's. Also, you wanted to discuss the issues as they lay in the summary judgment decree that you posted, not any arguments made before the SCOTUS or any appellate arguments beyond summary judgment. So I do not understand why you are basing your argument on an argument of someone else"s after the ALJ delivered its decision for summary judgment. But that"s fine; I didn"t have to research anything outside of the summary judgment decree since I actually went to law school. I want to also clarify my position: I am making a LEGAL argument based on the court"s interpretations of first amendment protections and the extent of those protections. Therefore it is important to remember that the Instigator has formatted this debate as a legal one. I will try to break down legal concepts into more simplified explanations to support my argument. I am also NOT approaching my argument in the same manner as the SCOTUS heard. In fact, I haven"t even listened to their oral arguments or read their briefs. I was under the assumption we were making our own arguments based on the link to the summary judgment decree that the Instigator posted. The first amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In the case of the baker and the gay couple, the operative portion that was argued in court is, "Congress shall make no law"prohibiting the free exercise thereof (religion); or abridging the freedom of speech"" In order to understand how the court"s have interpreted the clause dealing with freedom of speech, they have laid out layers of precedent that explain what speech is - and how, when, where, and why the government may enact laws that directly limit or prohibit certain speech. In other words, this right is not unfettered; meaning there ARE times when it is in the public"s best interest to restrict speech, even if it violates that individual"s right. An example is yelling fire in a theater " it is technically free speech, yet the government has an interest in regulating it. Now, let"s look at what constitutes speech. Speech is not limited to words, in fact, the Supreme Court has ruled that even campaign donations count as speech, since the symbolic donation of money is an extension of that person"s beliefs. But does that mean that campaign donations cannot be capped? No. In fact, the courts have decided that it IS constitutional to limit the amount given since even the appearance of corruption is not conducive with the purpose of our electoral process. Now, facts are important when it comes to applying the law to any given situation. There are actually two issues at work here as it applies to the free speech clause: 1) Is the baker"s refusal considered a violation under the Colorado law? AND 2) Would the baker"s making of the cake be considered constitutionally protected speech? Here, the baker has not simply just refused to bake a cake for the men; he has EXPRESSED a discriminatory reason for his refusal " in violation of the Colorado law. If, for instance, the baker had simply stated that he did not want to make the cake for them because he didn"t like the color of their shoes, he would be in the clear. Colorado has their own civil rights laws to extend protections from the federal Civil Rights Act. These extensions can be made insofar as they do not violate any constitutional provisions (specifically the federal constitution, but the state constitution as well since it supersedes the state"s civil rights laws). Now let"s look at whether baking a cake is considered speech for first amendment purposes. As stated in the summary judgment decree, the ALJ has found that since there was no genuine issue of material fact (meaning that both the baker and the gay men agree on what happened at the bakery), they have found that the facts do not support any violation of the free speech or religious freedom clause of the first amendment. My opponent is stating that he disagrees with the CCRC"s decision and presumably their reasoning. Having looked through their reasoning, it is quite compelling, and even overwhelmingly so. The baker argues that baking a cake - in and of itself, knowing that these men are going to use it at their wedding/civil union - constitutes speech advocating for gay marriage, when the baker believes gay marriage is wrong. The problem here is that the baker would not have known the cake was for a gay marriage, had they not told them. He would"ve therefore made the same cake he chose not to make, and that cake would"ve been used for their wedding. How can the act of making a cake be considered a form of speech only when he/she knows what that cake is being used for? This seems like a large hurdle to get over. This is because baking the cake itself is not considered speech, for the purposes of the first amendment, unless the baker were to inscribe a message or a meaning on the cake that expressed something unique or personally held point of view. If the baker had been asked to celebrate the civil union with wording that said "Congratulations on your marriage!", or something that expressed acceptance of the marriage, the baker would have the right to deny service due to his religious beliefs (discussed later). But the court has consistently held that first amendment protections do not extend to actions that do not convey some sort of message " verbal or otherwise. This is just common first amendment precedent at work, which is why the summary judgment was not surprising to me. The baker"s lawyers, ironically, used an example of the Westboro Baptist Church asking an Islamic baker to bake a cake with degrading words towards the Quran on it, which actually supports the reason the court decided on summary judgment. So, as it pertains to the free speech clause in the first amendment, baking a cake without any type of message or meaning behind doesn't rise to the level of speech. Now let"s look at the second portion of the baker"s claim " freedom to practice one"s religion without government interference. But first, let's look at how Colorado's anti-discrimination law operates. Colorado's anti-discrimination law is constitutional, and forbids businesses from discriminating against customers/patrons based on their sexuality - very similar to the Civil Rights Act. If we look back to Jim Crow laws, these laws were deemed to be unconstitutional because even though businesses were technically not legally allowed to discriminate, they could as long as blacks had an alternative place to go (i.e.-white water fountain and a black water fountain; separate but equal). But this was deemed to still be in violation of the PURPOSE for having a prohibition on racial discrimination. In Colorado, the law closely mirrors this concept, meaning that the gay couple may have an alternative, but it defeats the purpose of the prohibition on discrimination over one"s sexuality. The baker has a valid religious freedom claim here, unlike the speech claim, yet it still falls short of affording him the protections since (as mentioned in the beginning) the government CAN restrict the exercise of one"s religion for a number of reasons. But let"s also imagine that the act of baking a cake is considered speech as well. Can the government still prohibit speech or religious practice? Yes. What"s important to note here is that the government must have a compelling governmental interest IF the law is neutral on its face (meaning that the law does not explicitly target the practice of one"s religion or speech) and the law incidentally prohibits someone from doing something that happens to be a part of their religious practice/beliefs or speech. An example of this is when the government was challenged on its ability to regulate marijuana use for someone who smoked it for legitimate religious purposes. Well, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was constitutional because the government had not made the law to specifically target those who used marijuana for religious purposes (neutral on its face), and that the government had a compelling governmental interest in (what they believed to be) regulating intrastate commerce. Here it is a similar situation, in that the Colorado law does not specifically target those who are religious and believe homosexuality is a sin. So, the level of scrutiny is affected by these facts, and the level of scrutiny does not rise to strict. Strict scrutiny is only used when the government makes a law that explicitly targets a religion or type of speech that is protected by the first amendment. If this were the case, then the government would need to have a VERY compelling governmental interest in this type of regulation, AND it must be narrowly tailored so that it doesn"t "chill" the first amendment protections too much. Since the court"s have clearly agreed that this does not rise to strict scrutiny, Colorado only needs to demonstrate that they have an interest in prohibiting discrimination. The Colorado law applies to all businesses, and compelling someone to go against one"s religious beliefs is only INCIDENTAL to the purpose of the law, which is to protect a minority population from discrimination.