The SCOTUS ruled in favor of a person’s religious “right” NOT to build a hypothetical LGBT website – in a bizarre event for a situation that never happened!
Article 1 of 3 regarding the recent U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Rulings.
The U.S. Supreme Court Conservative Majority decided on several cases that will reshape the way U.S. legislation could be affected for generations to come. This is the first of a three articles’ series covering the SCOTUS recent ruling, and what does it mean to America. Let’s take a look at the Hypothetical LGBTQ website.
In the following articles we will also talk about the Affirmative Action, and the Student Loan Forgiveness cases. This article will be stating facts, and some of these facts might be harder for some readers than others. I will also be providing my assessment on these events and why they are so important. For anybody who is not aware, this could reshape America for generations to come. Some would argue that these are for the best, and a huge segment of the population will argue that these are detrimental for our country. The decision is yours, but my intent with this article is to ensure you are understanding datapoints that tend to be camouflaged. Your final determination might surprise you.
So, what is the big deal?
It is a huge deal actually. Unless you are subscribing got a particular religious denomination which advocates for “disagreeing” with the right for other people chose to love and spend their lives with whomever they consensually chose to spend their lives with. Let’s delve into the actual case premise for you to understand what I mean by that.
There was a web designer from Colorado. She has very “deep” religious convictions, and posed a hypothetical case that went all the way to the supreme court. Her premise was that IF a same-sex couple EVER asked to make a website for their wedding, she should not be forced to do so because of her “deeply held religious beliefs.” Sure, whatever… I don’t agree with that but sure… so what’s the deal? That request for a same-sex-wedding website NEVER happened! She’s been fighting this in court for seven-plus years, and in that time not one same-sex couple ever asked her to do a website for their wedding.
Despite this, her hypothetical same-sex-wedding-website case went up all the way to the Supreme court after the case was appealed in Colorado. The case was decided on June 30, 2023 since it made it to the SCOTUS on December 5, 2022. And to be honest, I am baffled for several reasons. Mainly, why does she even needed to pose this question. There has to be at least hundreds of web-site developers in the local area around where she lives, and I’ll go on a limb to say that most same-sex couples would prefer not to do business with somebody who has distain for consensually loving who they love and chose to spend their life together.
And even if there are no one near their town in Colorado, there are certainly millions of web developers around the world. And guess what? It is a website so you don’t need to do business with somebody in your own town if you don’t want to. For example, I own web development company, and customers from all over the world are welcome because the WORLD WIDE WEB is GLOBAL.
Colorado is not unique to a Supreme Court case to be won over discriminating against same-sex marriage. In 2023 a dude who own a bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a same sex couple, again because of his “deep religious beliefs.” The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the conservative majority (however slim at the time) ruled in favor of this man to refuse service to patrons who are same-sex. That is because HE (the baker) is against what these people who consensually love each other choose to celebrate their union. And I have always been curious about this obsession some “deeply religious” people have about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home.
I am currently serving in the U.S. Navy. And we are celebrating pride month. And yes, we have plenty of LGBTQ service members serving in the very ship I am currently attached to. And yes, many of them are married to another person of the same sex. And yes, some of those same-sex couples are actually religious or God-fearing, mostly from one of many Christian denominations. And yes, it is illegal (as it should be) to discriminate against any of them. In other words, they are all Sailors who are serving honorably, and it is nobody’s business who they choose to consensually share their lives together with. In other words, it is very possible to life in peace and respectfully in harmony without having to judge what other people do with their lives as consenting adults. Keep in mind, this is about having the opportunity to consensually share their lives with the person they love.
A protected segment of the population.
This SCOTUS decision breaks an important precedent when it comes to discriminating against a protected segment of the population. And to me what it is most insidious of all it is because it opens a Pandora’ box onto other potentially hate-like discrimination practices. I understand that people have all kinds of “deeply held religious beliefs.” But where does that blur the line from being an “obedient religious follower” to bigotry?
The attorney, Kristen Waggoner for Lorie Smith, the religious-leaning woman who owns this Colorado-based web development business says that they are protecting “free speech.” And they go on to say that it was the State of Colorado who was forcing them to accept clients who might go against their “deeply held religious beliefs.” But again, if you are pragmatic about this, it is just an opportunity to disenfranchise LGBTQ people, plain and simple. If that is not the intent, that is what they created. Let me explain to you why.
It opens an opportunity to any bigot out there to disenfranchise an LGBTQ person, citing “religious beliefs” as their inference for that decision. And with the SCOTUS ruling, this makes it possible now to discriminate against other protected groups under the guise of “speech.” Yes, this might seem redundant, but I want you to realize what it is really at stake here. The are a few segments (which are actually a religious groups) who have a huge problem with LGBTQ people. Whatever the reason they want to cite “hate the sin, not the sinner” or whatever other patronizing buzz-phrase or analogy they want to utilize. The fact is that they are bigoted against them. Dress it as whatever you like, they don’t want LGBTQ couples anywhere near them. Some might be more discrete in their distain than others, but a person would have to be too naïve to not realize that this level of discrimination exist around the world even in 2023.
Not too long ago, LGBTQ people were often categorized as the butt of a joke, or even considered a punchline in movies, and other tropes. And in many instances citing being them as an insult. This was not only happening in USA, but this was a phenomenon around the world. And yes, in some places in the world being LGBTQ is illegal, and there is no shortage of hate crimes perpetrated against them. I remember growing up in the 80’s and 90’s and the open levels of discrimination against LGBTQ was not only rampant, but commonplace.
I was in the Navy when they repealed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, where LGBTQ people would get administratively separated if they were found to be LGBTQ. When it was finally lifted, a lot of the more at-the-time bigoted people thought that the Navy was going to implode. Well, it has been well over a decade and we are still the greatest Navy in the world, in fact, we are better prepared now than we were back then.
Fast forward and we are celebrating Pride Month every year. In fact, we even have little pride-flags pins that we can use in our uniform to show solidarity. Yes, even straight people would wear them. Nothing nefarious as asserted by that more bigoted segments of the population inside and outside the lifelines said was going to happen happened. In fact, it was quite the opposite, we got to realize how warm, accepting, and welcoming are our Sailors to all brothers and sisters in arms. And that is good, because we fight for the rights and wellbeing of ALL people, regardless of any segment in our diversity.
And although some people might take exception by being called “bigoted” for overtly discriminating against LGBTQ, citing “deeply religious beliefs” – well, newsflash – that is religiously-sanctioned bigotry. Agreed or disagreed, the premise is the same, you will not serve a certain segment of the population because you disapprove of who they are, or who they consensually love. My question to them is, what is their (bigots) REAL problem with the LGBTQ community? And yes, I know you will cite their religious dogma, but I really want the actual answer. We all know what it is, but of course it will be disguised in legalize, or even dogmatic terms, because otherwise saying what they really feel out loud would make them sound like terrible people. Hence the outrage from anybody who is not a bigot, or a closeted-bigot, we can see right through the legal-jargon-bigotry-bullshit.
The double-edged sword of bigotry.
Until very recent memory it was the law of the land (in many countries to include the US) to discriminate against people of color, women, LGBTQ, or any other minority that was getting “vocal” against a particular oppressing status-quo. Ever heard about the Jim Crows Law? That was legal, and it was based on bigotry against black Americans.
There is a common denominator to all this, any disenfranchising law was sanctioned by a group of people in power that had “deeply held religious beliefs” to discriminate against others. That is NOT every religious person, but there are few very vocal ones who are tainting the image for many great people of faith out there. Until relatively recently it was illegal for people from different color skins to marry, it was illegal for women to vote, it was illegal for black people to sit in the same area as white people, it was illegal to own property in non-segregated areas, it was illegal to consensually marry who you loved, etc. For these and many other issues, there were people who fought and some even died to open an opportunity of true equality to every person, particularly in America.
But whereas anything would be illegal to discriminate against protected constitutional rights, “deeply held religious beliefs” are given a special place to negate some of these very principles. It can be tricky, and sadly very exploitable by some nefarious actors.
Think about it for a moment, what if any other type of business decides to negate service to a protected segment of the population? What would the aftermath would be? Let’s do a quick exercise.
Let’s us say that a person with deeply held religious beliefs against same sex marriage wants to take a vacation to a resort, they paid a non-refundable stay in the resort located in a remote area. The only way in-out of this resort is by a ferry. The owner of the ferry has a particular belief an ancient religion. And he fervently believes that if a person is God-of-the-bible-fearing it will sink his boat. He really, really believes this with all his heart. He even has nightmares about it. In fact, the previous ferry sank in an accident, and he attributed it to the fact that there was a God-of-the-bible passenger onboard. So he will deny service to any person who has an overt God-of-the-bible belief. Even if they show up announced or unannounced, does not matter, can’t get onboard. Can he do this? Why? Why not?
Yeah, fictitious example – never happened, much like the same-sex website example the lady who brought her case to the Supreme Court. But the fact is that this fictious man with peculiar beliefs as described in my example is now protected as speech under the same premise the SCOTUS ruled for. In fact, there is a correlation in his case, that is even more “evidence” than the case for the web-site lady.
But in either case we have to realize that correlation is not causation. This is a slippery slope, because if today it is constitutionally acceptable to discriminate against one segment of the population, then who will be next? Supposedly that was not the intent, but you would have to be extremely naïve or living under a rock not to see the patterns and trends.
All these cases that came to an end this past week were brewing in the backburner for decades. If you’re a conservative, sorry this might sting. I am not pawning this on you, but this trend is not making it a good case for conservatives. And I know for a fact a lot of Conservatives are not onboard with some of these rulings. For example the reversal of Roe Vs. Wade was also a religiously charged ruling, particular for certain Christian denominations. And yes, it affected conservatives, because not it negates care for women who have been victims of incest or rape, even if they are underage.
Which begs the question, is there a religious bias in the SCOTUS? Six out of the nine Supreme Court Justices are overtly religious-conservative. All six were instrumental in most cases that decided for some particular right-leaning-religious cases, even if they would arguably have to recuse themselves because of perceived conflicts. They didn’t and all Justices have been ruling over party lines.
For anybody who has been paying attention, we knew this is exactly what was going to happen. All right-wing Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, and Barrett all had had some sort of controversy, either during their time on the bench or while waiting to be confirmed by Congress. And this is not something that was under-wraps. When Former President Trump appointed these judges, he was very overt about them being selected in order to overturn what some consider “Liberal” rulings. But those are not liberal rulings, they are just rulings that were preventing groups from being disenfranchised after a lot of tribulations. At some point I’ll write in detail about Roe vs. Wade to have a deeper study into that.
For now, when Trump appointed Justices, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett were in front of Congress pending confirmation the Democratic side of Congress asked them over and over again if they would be working to reverse these rulings. They said no, well… the voting record is stating a different reality. And of course with a super majority of six to three, having only three dissenting judges (all women by the way) Justices Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagan – the rules are expected to go towards the deeply Conservative Justices. And with that, the partiality of the future decisions seems to be pre-destined. And I am not intending to be disrespectful, I am only citing the actual voting record. Look it up yourself. It is part of history. And the record states that it has been divided 6-3 in every single case being discussed at this point.
Needless to say, my point of view stands in the side of the dissent, in this case with Justices Sotomayor, Jackson and Kagan. And no, I am not a “Liberal.” To me, the reason for their dissent is common sense. As I said it opens a Pandora’s box to other people who are indeed bigots to use this ruling as a state-sanctioned discrimination against people they don’t like for whatever reason. I gave you the example of the peculiarly fictitious “ferry owner” – and you don’t need too much imagination that if a person would be discriminated in that manner, it would be very much become the subject of an overt outrage by any religious groups that fall under the discriminated-upon category.
Am I the only one dissenting?
Absolutely no, there are plenty of people outraged by this – from the current President of the United Sates to great majority of Americans. Yes, even some deeply religious Americans. You see, it would have even been different IF there was an ACTUAL same-sex couple requesting such a service, because then it would be an actual agent “forcing” this woman to do something she did not want to do. This case was based on a fictitious event. No same-sex couple EVER asked this woman for a website for their same-sex wedding. And even if that was the case there are millions of options (some even free) to do a website for a wedding.
Hey, in fact, I’ll be happy to build a same-sex wedding website, just visit us at www.beezeevision.com and we can arrange that for you, and I bet you it won’t be as expensive as this lady and we only care if you love each other in a consensual relationship.
The only people I won’t work with are those who are advocating for hate-speech or subjugating any group of people. In other words, if it infringes on the rights of other people, I will not be facilitating them with a platform. Why you think is that? Because that would be perpetuating criminal speech. Celebrating people’s love as long as it is consensual it is not criminal.
So to make it more simplified, as a web designer this would be my criteria based on this case:
- YES – to a same-sex wedding website
- YES – to an opposite-sex wedding website
- NO – to a site that promotes hate, discrimination, or crimes
- YES – to a religious website, so long they don’t advocate for hate, discrimination, or crime under their guise of “deeply held beliefs”
And if anybody disagrees the SCOTUS says I can refuse service if I want. Under the language, reserving the right to refuse service to a patron is constitutional. Who is to know my “deeply held beliefs?” – I am telling you, I advocate for people to be the person they are meant to be.
So let’s get something clear. I do not disagree with the right of provide or refuse service to patrons based on certain guidelines that could compromise the integrity of a business. For example, if somebody would come over and ask me to create a website that spies on people and steals their information and sells it to other parties, I would flatly refuse. Why? Because that would make me an accessory to criminal endeavors. So I can most definitely refuse something like that, unless I want to be a defendant sitting next to the patron who asked me to do something illegal. Which I would not do.
But for example, if am making a website about a person who has a garage band, and I just do not like their genre of music at this time. Even if I am ok with their lyrics… just don’t like their music. I cannot refuse service to them. And why should I? They are paying customers, and even if I don’t like their music, somebody does enjoy it. The message they want to provide belongs to the patron; we as the web-developers are just a facilitator of a platform for them to express their message. And if for whatever reason I really, really want to express that I don’t like their stuff, I could even add a line that says that the content is entirely the opinion and art from the artists. This is not hard to understand.
But at the same time, if an artist or a patron already senses that we are not seeing eye-to-eye on a project… a project they are paying perhaps a lot of money for, then guess what? They have choices! There are literally millions of web-developer options out there. Some are better than others, but it is most definitely not a monopolized market.
So, being that the case – why on Earth would I want to be the person who will burn that bridge? Did you know for example that The Beatles and many other major bands were rejected at first by somebody that did not “like” their style? Well, that should be a wake-up call to anybody.
To be honest, I am not sure what is the market to wedding websites in Colorado right at this second, but what I can assess is that if a person has money to spend on a customized website, that means that they are a fairly affluent client. Why do I say that? Because even business go for whatever generic site, they can afford in order to have a site for their customers to visit, and mostly it is a landing page to promote their social media – especially if monetized.
What I cannot get over in this case is that there were ZERO clients asking this lady this lady to do a same-sex-wedding site. And to be sure, the fact that a web developer is putting a site together, that does not automatically mean that they are the content providers. In other words, normally there would be a separated photographer for the images that twill go in said site. Actually, the photos, text files, etc., are usually provided by the customer. Why? Because of copyright. There are actual laws associated with that type of content, you cannot just slap random stuff, put into a URL, and call it a day. ESPECIALLY if this site was done for profit, in other words, if somebody paid somebody to make this site they have to abide by some rules.
Getting a site also means getting a domain name, getting a hosting, and a bunch of other stuff that is associated with the site. So the fact that this fictious client that never existed would go through all those steps to create a site with a person who shuns at their lifestyle and what the customer considers dear to their heart – sounds incredibly counterintuitive to me.
For example, let’s say that I am a customer and I want to do a website. But the web-developer is a bit of an asshole towards me for whatever reason in their “deep religious beliefs” feels it is ok to discriminate against me. Why on this green Earth would I even want to give them my hard-earned money when there are millions of viable choices. Let’s say for example that I am doing a website for a wedding, but in my case, it is no same sex but “interracial” (in this example as I am Latin and my wife is Caucasian) and that is apparently something that this fictitious bigoted web developer creeps out. Again, why would I want to do business with this person? Let’s see what I would need to agree to be linked to this person that for whatever reason “does not approve of MY marriage.”
- Reserve a Domain name (that’s the web address), and pay for however many years this domain will be active – which is about $10.00 a year or so. So let’s say I say five years, so right off the bat $50.00
- Get the hosting for my site. Depending how big it is or what the visitors are supposed to when they visit the cost will go up or down. So let’s say another $75.oo for the first year to get a .com, an SSL, a dedicated IP, and 24/7 hosting support.
- Get the actual site created. And that depending on how fancy the content and what type of bells and whistles they want will be anywhere from a couple of grand or even pretty high as to 6-7 thousand bucks. You know, for example RSVPs or any automated features, links to social media stuff, and counters, and calendars, links to gift sites, maps, etc., you get the point… the customer can get as creative as they wish. And that means that somebody needs to provide the content (pictures and text). Otherwise, if we need to take photos that will also be added based on the cost for photographers, graphic artists, availability, number of images, bandwidth, voice overs, any specialized graphic design, Search Engine Optimization, all that (and more) stuff…etc.
So, if anybody is going to spend at least a couple-thousand dollars in a site to celebrate the happiest day of their life, why on Earth would they give that hard-earned money to somebody who is for whatever reason cringing about working on it? Well, the answer is obvious, there were ZERO customers asking her for a site of that type, so the only thing she was able to affirm is that she’s homophobic based on her “deep religious beliefs.” And that she rather miss a paying customer than let them be happy.
She can be as homophobic and closeted bigoted all she wants, that is her right. Wha I am saying is that it was never an issue in the first place, she was not going to have somebody in a same-sex wedding asking her for this service. People do research before choosing a provider, they would have had their suspicions that she would be difficult or impossible to work with, and steer clear. Well now, the entire world knows her stance. And that means that if she had any LGBTQ customers, they might be looking for a different provider, because directly or indirectly she already asserted she does not approve of their lifestyle. Why would they want to keep giving her money? Ever heard of web-maintenance? Yeah, that is a thing.
Meanwhile if you need any website to celebrate your consensual love, marriage, wedding, business, or anything you hold dear visit me at www.beezeevision.com – we along with many others are an option for you. I can’t speak for anybody else directly, but this is my information in case you find this relevant. Thank you for reading this far. HLC