Today we discuss a recent Supreme Court ruling permitting businesses to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community. It has been alleged that the case was based on a fake document. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent Christian organization, was heavily involved in the case and the Mormon Church submitted an amicus brief supporting the discrimination. Join us as we briefly examine some of this contentious case’s facts.
Brenton Erickson – Public Defender
Mormon Stories Thanks Our Generous Donors!
Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today:
Our Platforms:
Contact us:
MormonStories@gmail.com
PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117
Very interesting! Good job. Thanks, Gerardo!
We had a very similar REAL case such as this in the United Kingdom – “Lee v Ashers Bakers Company and Others” – 2018. Gareth Lee brought the case after Ashers refused to make a wedding cake promoting gay marriage – citing the religious beliefs of the bakery owners. Various courts, including I believe the Court of Appeal, held in favour of Lee. But this was overturned by the UK Supreme Court finding for the bakery owners, who said, in their judgement that “People in the United Kingdom could not legally be forced to promote a message they fundamentally disagreed with”.
While I am a person who accepts wholeheartedly the right to gay marriage and abhors discrimination, my own view is that the UK Supreme Court got it right. One cannot compel people to work for something to which they are opposed – in my view.
If for example I were a web designer, and the British National Party ( a minority neo-nazi outfit, sort of equivalent to the Ku Klux Klan) asked me to design them a website, I would not want or expect legally to be forced to comply with that. If the law required it, it would surely lead to some very strange outcomes.
Here is the Wikepedia link to “Lee v Ashers Bakers Company” 2018.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_v_Ashers_Baking_Company_Ltd_and_others#:~:text=They%20ruled%20that%20the%20McArthurs,the%20Human%20Rights%20Act%201998.
The justices of Britain’s supreme court recognised that had a gay person simply asked for a cake to be made, it would have been discriminatory and hence unlawful – for the baker to have refused. However asking the baker to include some words promoting gay marriage was an entirely different marriage – that they could not lawfully be obliged to do.
Similarly in the case which is the subject of this Mormon Stories podcast, the US Supreme Court would presumably have upheld a claim for discrimination had it simply been a case of a person known to be gay asking for a website to be created. But where the website designer was being asked to design something that would promote or encourage gayness, or gay marriage, that was a different thing altogether.
In last post, in fourth line down “marriage” should read “matter”.
This case shows how poisonous the LDS church and its members are. I’m always surprised at how complimentary you are towards parents who leave the church because their child comes out as LGBTQ+. These are people who are perfectly fine discriminating against and hating people outside their family. It’s a craven attitude.