The US Supreme Court

[Tero]

We can only blame Anita Hill and the pubic hair on the Coke can for Thomas.
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/10/56971680 ... nce-thomas

[Tero]

On ideological lines, the conservative-supermajority Supreme Court today voted 6-3 to allow a Colorado web designer to refuse to design websites for same-sex couples.

No doubt, Republicans and others on the right will celebrate this decision, 303 Creative v. Elenis, in broad terms: businesses may now “turn away the gays.”

But Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the Court’s opinion, insists otherwise. No, no, no, Justice Gorsuch assures us: you can’t turn away the gays, you can only turn away gay weddings.

Justice Gorsuch is definitely right on the technical details of the law. The web designer in the case, Lorie Smith, has stipulated that she’ll make a website for anyone, queers included. What she won’t do, though, is make a website celebrating a gay wedding, because she thinks those weddings are “false.”
in Justice Sotomayor’s words, quoting an earlier case, 303 Creative “cannot define their service as ‘opposite-sex wedding [websites]’ any more than a hotel can recast its services as ‘whites-only lodgings.’”

....Moreover, Justice Sotomayor continued, Smith isn’t just saying she personally won’t type the words for a website. She’s saying that her for-profit company, 303 Creative, wants to publicly advertise their services to everyone, but then withhold them categorically from all gay customers.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/supreme-c ... rimination

[L'Emmerdeur]

That case was brought in what appears to be complete bad faith. The supposed gay couple was invented. Not that it matters to Gorsuch, who has lied before to pursue his Dominionist agenda.

'The Supreme Court Doesn’t Care That the Gay Wedding Website Case Is Based on Fiction'

If the Supreme Court persists in making rulings based on fiction, how can we take any ruling seriously?

Certainly, this is not a sentiment uniquely inspired by or limited to the opinions the court has issued in its latest term, which ended today with rulings on anti-discrimination law and student debt relief. One of the cases handed down today was brought by a Christian website designer who wants to reject the business of same-sex couples who have in fact never sought her services and may have been invented, while the other involved a student loan debt servicer as an unwilling plaintiff in an effort to end President Biden’s student debt forgiveness program. Just these two cases alone should be enough to throw the court’s legitimacy into question—but they join a long line of recent rulings based on shaky (at best) claims and pure wish fulfillment of the militant Christian right.

...

[Plaintiff] Smith further claimed, in past sworn statements and in filings submitted to the Supreme Court, that she received an inquiry from a same-sex couple named Stewart and Mike to build them a wedding website. Contact information for Stewart, who made the request, was included in a copy of the inquiry in the lawsuit. On Tuesday, I called Stewart. Not only did he have no idea that he was named in a filing in this legal challenge to upend an anti-LGBTQ discrimination law—a challenge he would never support—he told me that he never made this inquiry.

[Stewart is not gay and has been married to a woman for well over a decade.]

[Brian Peacock]

Happily married to the same woman for over a decade? What a dark horse.

[JimC]

It is not surprising that conservatives want to abolish any form of affirmative action. The basis for such action is that society has, partly for historical reasons, systemic inequalities which allow the wealthy and mostly white population continuing their positions of power and wealth generation after generation, while poor people (a very high proportion of the non-white population, plus many white working class people as well) have continuing disadvantage through their generations. Conservatives must deny such systemic problems, clinging instead to the myth where anyone, from any background, by dint of hard work can rise to the top. The occasional examples of this are much trumpeted, and the fact that on average disadvantage remains entrenched is to be ignored...

[Tero]

Had to look this up. Roberts two votes were inconsistent. He seems to say some kind of right to abortion is allowed. But then states can randomly rule the week where it is allowed. The original court came up with a week where the fetus would likely survive as the end week.

[rainbow]

It is not surprising that conservatives want to abolish any form of affirmative action. The basis for such action is that society has, partly for historical reasons, systemic inequalities which allow the wealthy and mostly white population continuing their positions of power and wealth generation after generation, while poor people (a very high proportion of the non-white population, plus many white working class people as well) have continuing disadvantage through their generations. Conservatives must deny such systemic problems, clinging instead to the myth where anyone, from any background, by dint of hard work can rise to the top. The occasional examples of this are much trumpeted, and the fact that on average disadvantage remains entrenched is to be ignored...

Affirmative Action should be based on Class, not the pseudo-scientific concept of race.

[JimC]

And of course, it's not just a matter of admission, but money. The scions of wealthy families will have their university fees paid, pleasant accomodation provided, with no need for tiring part time jobs. Given equal basic abilities, they will, on average, succeed in their tertiary studies to a greater degree in comparison to the struggling poor...

[rainbow]

So there was someone arguing that AA is against Meritocracy.

If that is the objective all education should be free, and University places only given to those with the best abilities. I think some European countries do that.

[Svartalf]

meritocracy is overrated anyway, when I see the human garbage that emerges from our most exclusive greater schools, I'm just happy I never could attend those and be molded in that image

[Woodbutcher]

So there was someone arguing that AA is against Meritocracy.

If that is the objective all education should be free, and University places only given to those with the best abilities. I think some European countries do that.

Alcoholics Anonymous?

[rainbow]

So there was someone arguing that AA is against Meritocracy.

If that is the objective all education should be free, and University places only given to those with the best abilities. I think some European countries do that.

Alcoholics Anonymous?

hic

[L'Emmerdeur]

That didn't take long ...

'Citing “Free Speech,” a Michigan Hair Salon Refuses to Serve Transgender People'

When the Supreme Court ruled, on June 30, in favor of a Colorado web designer who sought to refuse to make wedding websites for (theoretical) gay couples, activists and legal experts warned it would open the door to all kinds of businesses discriminating against LGBTQ+ Americans.

Days later, at least one such case has popped up. Last week, a hair salon in Traverse City, Michigan, announced that it would not serve transgender clients, comparing them to animals.

“If a human identifies as anything other than a man/woman please seek services at a local pet groomer,” a Facebook post from Studio 8 Hair Lab read. “You are not welcome at this salon.”

In reference to a Michigan hate crime law from March that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, the salon’s owner added, “[kiss emoji] my ASS Governor Witchmere.”

[pErvinalia]

Conservatives are nice people, aren't they?

[Svartalf]

but only to other cons*

(con in the French meaning)