I'm surprised that no one in the thread has made this point: whatever you think about Molly's opinion and whether she should be expressing it on Instagram, what's objectionable is the manner in which she expresses it. Giving the middle finger (doubly) is just raw hatred. It's like spitting at someone with whom you disagree, instead of engaging with their arguments. We need more civil discourse and this sets a horrible example for young people who might follow and admire Molly.
OP here. Why would I think negatively about gays or trans? Where in my post did I say this?
My post is about the lack of class of a has-been marathoner striving to remain relevant. She could have expressed her opinion without the attention-seeking flipping of the birds.
OP here. Why would I think negatively about gays or trans? Where in my post did I say this?
My post is about the lack of class of a has-been marathoner striving to remain relevant. She could have expressed her opinion without the attention-seeking flipping of the birds.
Maybe she wanted to reach a larger audience. And for posting about it and spreading her message, she probably thanks you.
The website designer has a first amendment right to not make things she disagrees with religiously. On the other hand, affirmative action violated the equal protection clause.
I'm trying to understand the position that says website designers can discriminate against LGBTQ customers but Harvard and UNC can't discriminate against Asians.
I'm also trying to understand the position that says website designers can't discriminate against LGBTQ customers but Harvard and UNC can discriminate against Asians.
Please help me out.
Agreed, private businesses should be able to provide or not provide their services to any adult they choose, for whatever reason they choose.
I suppose the tricky thing with Harvard and UNC is they take money from the govt in the form of financial aid. So in that sense, they are duty bound to act however the people who provided that money (the tax payers) want. Of course, the solution is to get the govt out of higher ed, and then return to a more just system where adults can make their own choices on who they patron as a customer, and who they serve as a business.
I'm trying to understand the position that says website designers can discriminate against LGBTQ customers but Harvard and UNC can't discriminate against Asians.
I'm also trying to understand the position that says website designers can't discriminate against LGBTQ customers but Harvard and UNC can discriminate against Asians.
Please help me out.
Agreed, private businesses should be able to provide or not provide their services to any adult they choose, for whatever reason they choose.
I suppose the tricky thing with Harvard and UNC is they take money from the govt in the form of financial aid. So in that sense, they are duty bound to act however the people who provided that money (the tax payers) want. Of course, the solution is to get the govt out of higher ed, and then return to a more just system where adults can make their own choices on who they patron as a customer, and who they serve as a business.
Yeah, I also think it’s the acceptance of federal funding that is key here. Private golf clubs have the right to establish restrictive membership criteria.
The website designer has a first amendment right to not make things she disagrees with religiously. On the other hand, affirmative action violated the equal protection clause.
The holding is even narrower than that. It's limited to compelled speech. The First Amendment wouldn't apply if it's just a service that you find immoral. The service has to consist of expressing a message.
The original First Amendment Supreme Court case is West Virginia v. Barnette, which held that public school students can't be compelled to say the pledge of allegiance. Seriously; before Barnette, the First Amendment hadn't really been enforced federally. Pretty much all of our First Amendment doctrine flows from that case. The Court said:
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
So, 303 Creative isn't a novel case. It's a pretty straightforward application of existing First Amendment doctrine.
Now, a lot of people have been asking questions about the implications of this case, particularly about how broadly people might be able to claim a First Amendment right not to provide other goods and services. Generally, the right is going to be pretty narrow. There is such a thing as "expressive conduct," and there are a couple of questions that courts ask to determine if it's protected or not:
First, the conduct has to be (1) intended to convey a message and (2) likely to be understood by others as conveying a message. If it fails either of those prongs, then it's just conduct, and the First Amendment doesn't apply.
BUT, even if it passes that test, that's not the end of the inquiry. If the government regulation is aimed at the non-expressive part of the conduct, then the First Amendment also doesn't apply. The classic example is flag burning. If you burn a flag in protest, you can be arrested for violating an ordinance against lighting fires in a place where it's prohibited.
On the other hand, an ordinance that prohibits burning flags (but nothing else) would be unconstitutional because it's aimed at the expressive aspect of the conduct. Moreover, if you have evidence that the facially neutral "no fires" ordinance is never enforced except against flag burners, then you'd have an "as applied" challenge because the enforcement policy is targeted as the expressive aspect of the conduct. The "trigger" for the regulation has to be something non-expressive to be constitutional.
Under this standard, there won't be that many businesses that can take advantage of this ruling. Even many "creative" services wouldn't qualify as "speech" under existing precedent. For instance, in Masterpiece Cakeshop, a leading First Amendment scholar authored a brief arguing that custom cakes, no matter how artistic, aren't sufficiently expressive to be understood by most people as a form of speech, so the petitioner should lose. (The scholar agreed that if the cakes were speech, however, then the petitioner should clearly win.) To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the conduct/speech distinction is always super easy to draw. There can be close cases. But it's something that courts have been dealing with for decades, and for the most part, they've been coming to fairly consistent and predictable results. SCOTUS didn't open a can of worms.
There have also been a lot of people talking about what I would call "retaliation hypotheticals." E.g., creatives saying that they should just refuse to serve Trump supporters or Christians or whites. To the extent that the refusal is status based--targeted at the individual rather than what message they are asking the creative professional to convey, that wouldn't be protected under 303 Creative. On the other hand, there is absolutely no question that a black website designer could refuse to design a KKK website. It's worth keeping in mind that many states have public accommodations laws that include political discrimination, so if 303 came out the other way, Neo-Nazis really would have the legal right to demand that people help them spread their message.
I suppose the tricky thing with Harvard and UNC is they take money from the govt in the form of financial aid. So in that sense, they are duty bound to act however the people who provided that money (the tax payers) want. Of course, the solution is to get the govt out of higher ed, and then return to a more just system where adults can make their own choices on who they patron as a customer, and who they serve as a business.
UNC is a public school, so the 14th Amendment applies to it directly. It's a state actor, and it's prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race just like every other government institution.
With Harvard, government funding is indeed the hook, but it's not because that funding automatically makes Harvard a state actor, subject to the Constitution. It's that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 only applies to recipients of federal funds, and courts have said that Title VI is a codification of equal protection doctrine. Justice Gorsuch actually argued that Title VI does not precisely codify equal protection doctrine, but that under the plain text of Title VI, the policies at issue are illegal anyway.
Check out her IG post where she’s giving the finger. Yet she fails to understand the SCOTUS ruling. Typical of someone like her striving to remain relevant.
Yes, if you go to the first page and click on the link, you'll be brought to an instagram post where Huddle argues that a person should be forced against their will to provide their labor to someone else (that is, slavery)
You don’t even know what runner we are talking about. Typical.
The website designer has a first amendment right to not make things she disagrees with religiously. On the other hand, affirmative action violated the equal protection clause.
once again the "truth" posts the exact opposite.......
When you're side is sending around activists to target the one Cristian conservative web designer or the one Christian conservative cake maker in the state to file lawsuits against them you know you're definitely on the right side of history.
Fun fact, in the cake make case the cake maker who was sued didn't even deny service to gay couple. He was willing to make them a cake just not the specific cake they wanted. Good times in Colorado. I think this whole pride hysteria has about six months left to finish running its course before the woke brigade completely finished off the job of passing off the majority of Americans.
you do know that in the website case the "christian" web designer created a fake request for a website and lied about that right?
I do think Molly's two middle finger salute lacks class.
I'm unsure what "Trans" rights she is arguing for: Males in females' jail cells? Males in women's sports? Mutilating minors? Forcing the use of pronouns favored by gender dysphoric people? Requiring belief that somebody becomes something merely by identifying as that something? Sorry, but I am opposed to those things.
What gay rights is she arguing for? Same-sex marriage? Well I guess that was forced upon us in the USA by judicial decree (Obergefell v. Hodges) in 2015. I, like the vast, vast, vast, majority of people who ever lived, don't think that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage. And I don't think it is in the best interests, generally, to place an adoptee with a same-sex couple.
I do think Molly's two middle finger salute lacks class.
I'm unsure what "Trans" rights she is arguing for: Males in females' jail cells? Males in women's sports? Mutilating minors? Forcing the use of pronouns favored by gender dysphoric people? Requiring belief that somebody becomes something merely by identifying as that something? Sorry, but I am opposed to those things.
What gay rights is she arguing for? Same-sex marriage? Well I guess that was forced upon us in the USA by judicial decree (Obergefell v. Hodges) in 2015. I, like the vast, vast, vast, majority of people who ever lived, don't think that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage. And I don't think it is in the best interests, generally, to place an adoptee with a same-sex couple.