 Well, it seems as if our far-right rogue Supreme Court is poised to permit discrimination against LGBTQ plus people now It's not a foregone conclusion at this point in time But when you listen to how receptive they are to the arguments of somebody who wants the right to discriminate against queer people It seems likely that they are going to roll in their favor now the individual in question here is a Website designer and she hasn't had to turn away a queer couple yet But she just wants to make sure that she has the right to discriminate in the event one of them seek out her services So the Washington Post explains the Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed sympathetic Monday to an evangelical Christian graphic artist From Colorado who does not want to create wedding websites for same-sex couples despite the state's protective anti-discrimination law Those justices seemed amenable to businesswoman Laurie Smith's argument that the state may not compel her to create speech That violates her religious belief that marriage is only between a man and a woman But several appeared to be looking for ways to narrow their decision saying both sides in the dispute agreed For example that not all wedding vendors should receive such exemptions The case is something of a follow-up to the court's decision in 2018 when it ruled narrowly for Colorado baker Jack Phillips Who refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple the court left undisturbed however, Colorado's law that forbids companies open to the public from denying goods or services to customers based on disability race Creed color sex sexual orientation marital status national origin or ancestry Graphic designer Smith says that law violates her deeply held religious views and free speech rights by forcing her to create messages She does not believe now of course the state cannot compel you to say something that you don't believe but this is a business owner Who is open to the public who doesn't want to accommodate people on the basis of their sexual orientation? It is inherently discriminatory because if she's allowed to discriminate against same-sex couples Can she also discriminate against interracial couples? if a Christian store owner Doesn't want to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, but he offers wedding cakes to heterosexual couples Will this case lead to that being permissible it's hard to say and once you open the door to this things can get ugly So if this person can say oh this violates my deeply held religious beliefs Can other graphic designers say that they don't want to do designs for black people? Can people discriminate against I don't know somebody for being black and say look You can't come to my establishment. This is for whites only Jewish people aren't allowed Like you understand why this is a really old conversation that we had decades ago that it seemed like we solved But because bigots want the ability to discriminate Well, here we are again and this far-right rogue Supreme Court seems poised to side with her It just is shocking that in 2022 we're actually questioning whether or not somebody who has a business that is open to the public Can explicitly discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or race? It's just it's ridiculous But all these hypotheticals that I kind of talked about just now the same thing was happening with the Supreme Court So for example Katanji Brown Jackson brought up the example of well what if a mall Santa wanted to be artistic and reject a photograph with a black child because they wanted to create a you know, it's a wonderful life type of Ambience or something of that nature. Well, this is the way that Alito responded to that and keep in mind This is a Supreme Court justice who's going to say idiotic things like we're about to hear justice Jackson's example of the the Santa in the mall who Doesn't want his picture taken with black children. So if There's a black Santa at the other end of the mall and he doesn't want To have his picture taken with a child who's dressed up in a Ku Klux Klan Outfit that the black Santa has to do that. No, because Ku Klux Klan outfits are not protected characteristics under public accommodation laws And presumably that would be the same Ku Klux Klan outfit regardless whether of the child was black or white or any other Characteristic you do say you do see a lot of black children Ku Klux Klan All the time suppose it I Mean Hilarious, let me remind you. This is a Supreme Court justice who's actually asking questions like this. Let me answer it for you Alito If the mall Santa turned away a black child who was wearing a Klan outfit Yes, that would be principal because the basis for discrimination in that instance is the political message and not the identity of the child See you can turn away someone if they show up with a swastika But you can't turn away someone if they're gay or black because these are immutable characteristics There's a difference between identity and political message. I feel like a Supreme Court justice should know this But it's Alito and he is deeply Unserious and I think probably pretty stupid as well But I think that justice Sotomayor put it best if the court ruled against Colorado Just as Sonya Sotomayor said it would be the first time in the Supreme Court's history that it would allow a Business open to the public to refuse to serve a customer based on race sex Religion or sexual orientation and let's say that the court narrowly rules here and says that only LGBTQ plus discrimination is permissible Well, this case would then be used as precedent in future cases where a Christian business owner or a Nazi business owner doesn't want their business open to black people and Once you establish this precedent again once you open Pandora's box How do you go back from that now the court is Trying to pretend as if the question that they're answering here is a matter of well Does applying this public accommodation law to compel somebody to say or do speech that they don't believe in a violation of the First Amendment When that's not really the question that they should be trying to answer here The question is if somebody has a business and they accommodate the public are they allowed to discriminate on the basis of identity on the basis of someone's Immutable characteristic, but that's not the question that they're answering here And when you frame it in their way well prior precedent makes it likely that the attorneys for Smith here are going to be Successful because in 1995 the court unanimously ruled in hurly the Irish American gay lesbian and bisexual group of Boston That a public accommodation law could not be used to compel organizers of Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade to admit a gay rights group in other words if the court already said that excluding gays from public Accommodation laws is permissible then does it also apply to an artist as well? Are they not also exempt from a public accommodation law? Except the details matter here, right? So in the event that parade said we're not allowing any civil rights floats and they turned down all Political messaging well, they're not just singling out gay people in the event The artist in this instance Smith said all right look I'm not gonna provide wedding websites for anyone straights or gays that would be fine That's one way that the public accommodation law Wouldn't force her effectively to design a website for a gay couple in the event that came up But she wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to offer her business to the public But discriminate on the basis of immutable characteristics and that's just something that is inherently Unconstitutional, but yet this court seems poised to side with the bigot here So do you understand how we're moving backwards further and further again? We don't know how they're going to rule here in this case but when you listen to the way that they're responding the way that Alito is joking about this and not taking this seriously, it just seems like I Would expect them at this point to say LGBTQ plus discrimination is a okay