Anti-gay marriage Oregon bakery defies state order to pay damages to couple

[aquietpath]

Originally Posted by jjrose

I have never seen any wedding cake at a wedding, they are served at the reception after the wedding. In this case the wedding was in a different state and the reception was taking place in Oregon on a separate date.
There was no way possible the bakers would have been involved in the wedding since it would have already happened in a different state.

I meant the reception.....my error. At our bakeries delivery and set up was included in the price. I suppose the owners felt any type of service they provided to the lesbian marriage was abhorrent to them.

I still say they could have avoided all the trouble and just said they were unable to fill the request due to conflicting orders. I don't know why people have to climb on their soapbox and make a huge deal out of it. That goes for the bakers as well as the gay couple.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by bus man

So why is it that a Constitutional guarantee is being subordinated in favor of something that not only is not in the Constitution, but wasn't even legal anywhere until the last 10 years or so?

I'll tell you why. The Supreme Court decided so. You see, the Supreme Court has the job of interpreting the Constitution (which obviously couldn't foresee modern issues on a case by case issue) and the Court decides what is and isn't constitutional. And they decided Gay marriage is a constitutional right. And that's that.

I learned all this stuff in civics class back in, oh, 1958 or so.

[TwinbrookNine]

This whole issue reminds me of the gas station on the corner where I grew up, which kept an "out of order" sign on the bathroom door at all times lest a black customer come in to use the toilet.

Same thing going on here in my book.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by bus man

No, it's not. And neither is homosexual marriage. But freedom of religion is. So why is it that a Constitutional guarantee is being subordinated in favor of something that not only is not in the Constitution, but wasn't even legal anywhere until the last 10 years or so?

Freedom of religion does not equate to anything goes in religion.

[Sugah Ray]

A bank levy should fix this.

[Delahanty]

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

They should sell everything off and move to Mexico before their assets are seized.

Who do they think they are, O.J. Simpson?

[jjrose]

Originally Posted by Juram

On the radio an attorney was discussing this case and she feels that the judge in this case overstepped his bounds by issuing a gag order for this couple to not be able to talk or text about the case in any fashion and that $135,000 in damages was excessive since the couple didnt suffer any real, tangible loss. She said the odds are that the damages will be significantly reduced on appeal.

If the attorney thinks there was a gag order, then they must not have read the ruling.

The ruling said that they could not communicate in any way that they would refuse service in their business.
It did not say anything about talking about what has happened, or the case, or even that they shut down the business.

[threecats407]

Good. I hope they don't pay the hush money.

[Salmonburgher]

Originally Posted by jjrose

The first amendment does not trump all other law. Anyone can claim anything is a "religious belief". I could claim that hanging kittens is my religious belief, but I will still go to jail for animal abuse. People have claimed that marrying children is a religious belief, but they will still go to jail for child abuse if they do so.

The first amendment freedom of religion is not an absolute.

Am I posting to a wall? Are you reading anything I have posted?

Of course no right is absolute.

But, when we limit a right that is secured to us by the Constitution because our exercise thereof conflicts with an other person's legitimate right, we need to BALANCE these competing rights, and if the Government will limit one party's right, it needs to show a COMPELLING INTEREST in needing to enforce such limit.

Come on. I've already addressed this issue.

[Salmonburgher]

Originally Posted by jazzarama

Though I see the point you make in distinguishing between discrimination against a person because of sexual orientation vs refusing to serve a marriage, I don't think any administrative agency or court has upheld that distinction.

The same holds for relying on the Constitution to protect the bakers or other business owners. The push for and backlash against Religious Freedom Restoration laws is because your view of the 1st Amendment has lost.

For the time being. Maybe forever. Maybe not.

In any event, I believe that my view is correct. We know what the Framers meant. We know the historical context of their words. There really is not much to debate.

However, since the Civil War, we as a nation have been moving away from the Constitution as it was meant to be observed. Our Founding Fathers predicted this would happen. And it is happening, in a snow-ball effect way. We now have a president who openly complains that the Constitution binds and limits his power. Well, yeah! That is the major purpose, along with securing the People's individual liberties, of the US Constitution.

I am amazed at how many Americans are completely ignorant of the purpose of the Constitution, and of its supremacy over all other laws/statutes/regulations. If one really has difficulty understanding the Constitution, one should read the Declaration of Independence. The DOI explains the intent of our Founders and informs us as to how to interpret the Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence is the first of the Organic Laws of the USA.

To understand the clear meaning of the 1st Amendment, one simply needs to understand the purpose of the US Constitution, to which the 1st Amendment was attached. We all know the importance of the Bill of Rights in getting the US Constitution passed, so I am not going to address that. I'll just note that the 1st Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights.

So, what is the purpose of the US Constitution?

When the Americans fought the Revolutionary War to free themselves from England's rule, they justified their revolt as a struggle to protect the liberty of the people from an oppressive government.

The Americans drafted the Declaration to announce their independence and to justify their revolt. The Declaration is, appearing on Page 1 of Volume 1 of the U.S. Statutes at Large, and the US Congress has placed it at the head of the United States Code, under the caption, “The Organic Laws of the United States of America.” Thus, the Declaration “sets the framework” for reading the Constitution from the perspective that natural rights define the limits of government, even of a democratic government.

Thomas Jefferson authored the Declaration, and he often expressed his mistrust and fear of government:

I own that I am not a friend of energetic government. It is always oppressive.

We know how he felt... he wrote about his mistrust of government often, and most famously in the Declaration:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The Declaration of Independence clearly instructs us how to approach and interpret the US Constitution.

Its true that the Founding Fathers debated the proper power of a federal government and limits upon the same. During the many debates on the adoption of the Constitution, opponents argued that the Constitution as drafted without the Bill of Rights would open the way to tyranny by the federal government. The violations of civil rights by the English before and during the Revolution (as identified in the Declaration) were still vivid memories. They demanded a "bill of rights" that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Let's say that again: INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS. The rights protected in the US Constitution are the rights of INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS. We are all protected.

The Founding Fathers of the US believed that liberty, i.e., the general absence of interference, and individual rights, are natural and that governmental restrictions on personal liberty and individual rights must be as few as possible and rigorously justified.