In this day of increase violence against the Supreme Court throws in a monkey wrench!
AP NewsBy Jessica GreskoJune 27, 2023The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to make it more difficult to convict a person of making a violent threat, including against the president or other elected officials.The Biden administration had warned that the internet and social media have expanded the number and kinds of threats in recent years, including online harassment, intimidation and stalking. And they warned the case could affect the ability to prosecute threats against public officials, which have increased in recent years.The high court was ruling in a case that involves a man who was sentenced to more than four years in prison in Colorado for sending threatening Facebook messages. The man’s lawyers had argued that he suffers from mental illness and never intended his messages to be threatening.The question for the court was whether prosecutors must show that a person being prosecuted for making a threat knew their behavior was threatening or whether prosecutors just have to prove that a reasonable person would see it as threatening.
So as a member of the community receiving the threats… this sucks!
You pick up the phone or you open your email and there is a threat to your life. You have to go on the assumption that it is for real. You are frighten stiff! It scares the s**t out of you! You don’t know what to do, you call the police and they have to take it for a real threat.
“Threats of violence against public officials in particular have proliferated in recent years, including threats against Members of Congress, judges, local officials, and election workers,” the Biden administration had noted, saying the case could affect prosecutions in those cases.
One of the things that I have learned is that the bias crime laws don’t kick in until a threat is made. They can say anything but until they make a threat it is not a bias crime… now that just became obsolete. They have to be in their “right mind” for it to be a legitimate threat.
Speech of all kinds is generally protected by the free speech clause in the Constitution’s First Amendment but so-called “true threats” are an exception.
Now… now that isn’t true anymore.
We worry that the guy making the call or emailing us is crazy, that he will act out on the threats.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, whose office prosecuted Counterman, said in a statement that the decision will make it “more difficult to stop stalkers from tormenting their victims.”
What about the target of the threats don't we have rights? To live without fear and worry?
The hand picked court with a hand picked case.
This case was entirely theoretical. The only human presence in the case was the business owner. For us, it was never about a cake – or a website. It's about equality.USA TodayBy Charlie Craig and David Mullins Opinion contributorsJune 30, 2023The Supreme Court’s decision Friday in the 303 Creative case greenlights discrimination in spite of civil rights laws. It brought back difficult memories for us.In 2018, we were walking up the court’s marble steps hoping the justices would uphold Colorado’s anti-discrimination law that protects LGBTQ+ individuals by providing equal access to public accommodations.In 2012, we were denied service at a Colorado bakery simply for being two men who wanted a wedding cake. We were not turned away because of any special design or unusual request – once the owner knew the cake was for us, the conversation was over. And our case began.Ultimately, the Supreme Court made a very narrow ruling in our case, leaving the big legal question – the religious license to discriminate – unanswered. Since then, we have considered it our responsibility to publicly share our story and our love for each other by putting human faces to the harm caused to LGTBQ+ individuals who are denied equal access to public accommodations.
So they designed a case to be reheard by the Supreme Court because in the 2018 Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still on the court. But now they had a could they dreamed of and they created a case just for the new court.
ADF manufactured the 303 Creative case as something of a legal do-over with one notable distinction: There are no pesky gay people involved who can personalize the harms of discrimination. And that’s purely by design, because there was no injury caused to anyone in this new, somewhat made-up case. It involves one business owner and her fear that “if” she were to design websites for engaged couples, then she “might” have to design one for a gay couple.
The results of the ruling will be felt far and wide!
Nashville TennesseanBy Angele Latham and Liam AdamsJune 30, 2023The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday in favor of a Colorado website designer and upheld that expressive speech was not subject to anti-discrimination laws — allowing some businesses to restrict services to the public based on religious beliefs.The 6-3 decision affirmed that Lorie Smith, a website designer and owner of 303 Creative, can refuse her wedding website services to LGBTQ people based on her religious beliefs.[…]Justice Sonya Sotomayor penned the passionate dissent, calling the decision a slippery slope and a "threat to Balkanize the market and allow the exclusion of other groups from many services.""How quickly we forget that opposition to interracial marriage was often because 'Almighty God' did not intend for races to mix," she said. "Yet the reason for discrimination need not even be religious, as this case arises under the Free Speech Clause. A stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple because she opposes their having a child. A large retail store could reserve its family portrait services for 'traditional' families. And so on."
How long before we see signs out saying... "We Don't Serve Blacks"? or "No Jews Allowed"? or No Single Allowed"?
Sotomayor stated that the court was "asking the wrong questions" in the case, because "the law in question targets conduct — not speech — for regulation, and the act of discrimination has never constituted protected expression under the First Amendment. Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group."
Justice Sotomayor is right, they focused just on one small part of the Constitution and ignored the whole Constitution.
And this ruling will affect Connecticut non-discrimination laws. They just went out the window!
And it was all done on a lie! There was no man asking about a gay wedding cake... it was designer case.
It was all planned out! It had all the trigger points but none of it was real.
CNNBy Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes LybrandJune 30, 2023
The Colorado web designer who wanted to refuse LGBTQ customers and just won her case at the Supreme Court had claimed in court filings that a man inquired about her services for his same-sex wedding.But the man says he never reached out to Lorie Smith, the web designer who argued at the Supreme Court that she shouldn’t be forced to create same-sex wedding websites because of her religious objections. In fact, the man says he’s straight and married to a woman.The man was identified as “Stewart” in court filings and as someone who requested graphic designs for invitations and other materials for a same-sex wedding with his fiancé, Mike. CNN contacted Stewart through information in court filings. He asked for his last name, which is not in the filing, not to be used.In an interview with CNN Friday, Stewart said that he “did not submit a request” to the company, 303 Creative, and is a “happily married man to a woman of 15 years.”“I don’t know Mike,” Stewart said. “I’ve never asked anybody to design a website for me, so it’s all very strange. I certainly didn’t contact her, and whatever the information in that request is, is fake.”
She does not make websites, she did not make wedding websites, and there was no request to make a website, and the person who "requested the website" does not exist. It was all faked and design to go all the way to the Supreme Court, it contained exactly what the Trump's Christian court was looking for. It was made for the Supreme Court.
Stewart called the Supreme Court’s decision Friday morning “disgraceful” and said that “it does seem like the entire case has been somewhat concocted to achieve a specific outcome.”
Yup.
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