Low Hanging Fruit

LGBTQ people are the low hanging fruit that is easily picked but what about the other fruit, where do they stand once we are gone?

Cruz, Lee lead over 50 lawmakers urging Supreme Court to reaffirm religious liberty in artistic freedom case
A Colorado-based web designer says her religious beliefs do not allow her to create a website for same-sex couples
Fox News
By Kelly Laco
June 8, 2022


Over 50 Republicans in Congress are filing an amicus brief at the Supreme Court calling on the high court to reaffirm constitutionally protected free speech and religious liberty in a closely-watched case pitting religious freedom and artistic expression against LGBTQ rights.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, are leading the Supreme Court filing, which includes 20 Senate and 38 House of Representatives co-signers.

The case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, involves Colorado-based web designer Lorie Smith, who says her religious beliefs would not allow her to create a custom wedding website for same-sex couples.

The Court will decide whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

"A victory in favor of 303 Creative would mean a victory for religious freedom everywhere. Compelled speech against anyone’s religious beliefs is an egregious infringement on the most fundamental liberties our Constitution protects. Every American should have the freedom to pursue their professions without being forced to sacrifice their religious beliefs," Cruz told Fox News Digital.

Okay lets stop for a moment and think this through.

What they are saying is that it would be okay to discriminate against people because your religion tenets says it is okay.

What else in the past have they used their beliefs to discriminate?

An article in the Washington Post said,

Yet while the issues confronting the court are fresh, the larger tension between religious freedom and civil rights actually stretches far back in American history. In battles over slavery and racial segregation, religion and scripture were often cited as justification for maintaining inequality. Until the civil rights era, refusals to serve African Americans were often cloaked under the guise of religious freedom. As social norms changed, the religious justifications for this bigotry became legally untenable.

Religious freedom has been weaponized so frequently in civil liberties debates because of the cultural and constitutional weight it carries. Such appeals have the potential to reshape cultural and religious worlds: to make a group’s political convictions and cultural practices appear more “religious,” or more central to their religion, than they otherwise might have been. For this reason, the scope and meaning of religious freedom have been constantly contested throughout American history — for every group would like to use this powerful value to protect its other beliefs. Which is why religious freedom must always be balanced against other American ideals, lest we allow it to trample on other deeply held values.

In the 19th century, slaveholders and their sympathizers defended slavery by pointing to its presence in the Bible as evidence that it fit within God’s plan for social order. They also interpreted biblical stories like those about Cain and Abel and the supposed “curse of Ham” as proof that God had made “Negroes” to be slaves.

What about renting a room to an unmarried couple?

From an article in the LA Times,

In a pivotal test of religious rights versus fair-housing laws, the state Supreme Court agreed Thursday to decide whether landlords can cite their religious beliefs to refuse rentals to unmarried couples.

The high court, in a brief order signed by all seven justices, set aside a widely debated appellate court ruling that held that the constitutional right of a Downey couple to free exercise of religion would be violated by forcing them to rent to a woman and her boyfriend.

And interracial marriage?

From an article in VOX…

An event venue in Mississippi has issued an apology after its owner was shown on video saying that her “Christian belief” led her to decline hosting a wedding ceremony for an interracial couple.

“The owner took a look at my brother’s fiancée’s page and wrote her back to say they won’t be able to get married there because of her beliefs,” Welch told Deep South Voice on Sunday. “He told my mom and she contacted the owner through messenger to only get a ‘seen’ with no reply. That’s when I took it upon myself to go get clarification on her beliefs.”

It seems to me that just about any discrimination can be justified by claiming that it is a person’s religious beliefs.

In the past the courts have issued guidelines to determine if a law violates “religious freedom” the guidelines are called the “Lemon Test.” According to the Legal Dictionary,

The Lemon Test is a test courts use to determine whether governmental action violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution. For example, the Lemon Test is a court’s tool used to rule on whether the government tried to prohibit the freedom of religious expression.

[...]

This Test is a test the courts use to determine whether the government violated the First Amendment of the Constitution. For example, the Lemon Test decides whether the government either prohibited the freedom to express one’s religion, or promoted religion where it does not belong, like in a public school.

There are three prongs to this test; specifically, the government has violated the Constitution unless its actions meet the following examples of Lemon Test criteria:

• Have a secular, or non-religious, purpose
• Do not advance or inhibit a religion
• Do not promote an extreme entanglement with religion on the government’s part

We shall see if the Supreme Court will uphold the Lemon Test, if not all non-discriminations become null and void.

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On Thursday I wrote about Texas banning children from Drag shows well since Texas did it Florida had to follow that and lower the bar.

Bringing kids to drag shows could become felony in Florida
WFLA
By Jeff Patterson
June 9, 2022


Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says we should let children be children. The governor says a recent drag show in Texas was not appropriate for kids.

“You had these very young kids, I think 9 [or] 10 years old, go this ‘drag show’ and put money in the underwear of this — that is totally inappropriate,” DeSantis said. “That is not something that children should be exposed to.”

State Rep. Anthony Sabatini now wants to make it a felony for any parent to bring a child to a drag show.

The Republican from Howey-in-the-Hills said in a tweet, “I will be proposing legislation to charge with a felony and terminate parental rights of any adult who brings a child to these perverted sex shows.”

Sabatini did not respond to an email asking for a comment on the proposed bill.

The Paperback Book Exchange in Port Richey has hosted Drag Queen Story Hour for children in the past. The owner says anyone was allowed to attend.

I will make this prediction, when the courts strike down the laws the conservatives will call the courts “activist court” even though the judges were appointed by Trump.