The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay $800,000 in attorney fees to settle a case with a Christian photographer who fought to protect her religious and free speech rights over the years of litigation. Louisville ultimately spent a fortune to force Chelsey Nelson to photograph same sex marriages under its nondiscrimination laws. When combined with its own litigation costs, the case likely cost the city and the courts millions to deny Nelson her constitutional rights.
In prior columns, academic articles, and my book, “The Indispensable Right, I discussed the never-ending litigation targeting Jack Phillips, the Christian baker who declined to make cakes that violated his religious beliefs.
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in what many of us hoped would be a final resolution of this conflict. I had long criticized the framing of the case (and other cases) under the religious clauses rather than treating it as a matter of free speech. In the end, the Supreme Court punted in a maddening 2018 decision that technically ruled in favor of Phillips based on a finding that the Commission showed anti-religious bias against Phillips.
In 2023, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory for free speech in 303 Creative v. Elenis, when it ruled that Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer, could refuse to provide services for a same-sex marriage. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, “the framers designed the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to protect the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think.’ … They did so because they saw the freedom of speech ‘both as an end and as a means.’”
In the September ruling, the court cited 303 Creative:
“That 2023 decision confirmed this Court’s 2022 interpretation of the First Amendment to bar the City of Louisville from enforcing an ordinance prohibiting wedding photographer Chelsey Nelson from stating her traditional (now dissenting) views on traditional marriage or declining to participate in those ceremonies.”
Louisville is only the latest blue city to spend millions trying to force individuals to create products — from cakes to wedding albums — that violate their religious, speech, and associational rights.
The settlement is a victory not just for Nelson but also for the Alliance Defending Freedom.
All you need to know. Craig Greenberg is the current Mayor of Louisville, Kentucky. He is a Democrat and assumed office on January 2, 2023, as the 51st mayor of the consolidated city-county.
Gregg Fischer was the previous Mayor. The past mayor of Louisville, serving as the 50th mayor and the city’s first three-term Metro mayor from 2011 to 2023. A Democrat and former businessperson, his tenure focused on economic development, job growth, and navigating major events like the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 racial justice protests. Two keep your mouths shut and stay in line Mayors since 2011. A man once sang “Freedom up.” Now the tune of the hypocrites is named “Freedom down.”
The copyrights on their new tune have cost the taxpayers of Louisville a cool eight hundred grand.
Nothing is quite as satisfying as a good comeuppance. Let them pay.
The main beneficiaries of this lawsuit are the attorneys on each side. The main losers are the taxpayers who have to foot the bill for the attorney fees on each side.
edwardmahl, the main beneficiaries of this lawsuit are the American taxpayers who will no longer be forced to do things that their conscience finds unacceptable. Many millions of dollars have been spent to defend your right to freely speak your mind on this forum and yes the lawyers were there arguing your case and being paid to protect even you. Would you then prohibit a lawyer to speak on behalf of your defense? Sometimes thoughts of cynicism are well spent but often they are not.
Poorly thought out comment; makes no sense.
Anonymous would have it that there would be no lawyers to come to her defense if the government decided that the words she posts on this forum were used to destroy her means of livelihood. But oh, let us recall how she has come to the defense of the lawyers arguing on behalf of her liberal friends before the Supreme Court. These lawyers remain the love of her life.
What we can expect from Anonymous is a trite statement with no rebuttal of the main points of an opposing argument. Such responses as in previous situations have remained juvenile day after day after day. Responsive arguments like from a mouth with no teeth gumming its gruel.
An argument may indeed be poorly thought out but no argument presented in response reveals the shallow mind of the complainer. Sadly it seems that an argument that takes longer to read than fifteen seconds is just too much for her attention span to handle.
Give me break! Ambulance chasers, slip and fall billionaire lawyers create enormous pass through costs to the public while getting their 33.3% plus fees of any award. They sue insurance agents that increase the premiums that we all have to contend with. Did you know Professional Engineers cannot advertise and are held personally liable for errors and omissions and negligence? Not so for the wordsmiths, a bill board or commercial at every intersection, a good honest lawyer is few and far between, it’s a rigged judicial process game.
What lobbyists group is one of if not the largest donor to the Democratic Party? Everyone knows this crap is unconstitutional and against the civil rights of the entrepreneurs yet it still has gone to battle after battle instead of immediately being defeated.
edwardmahl, the main. beneficiaries of this lawsuit are the American taxpayers who will no longer be forced to do things that their conscience finds unacceptable.
=====
TY Captain Obvious. I’m pretty sure Edward was just pointing out that it was ridiculous to spend that type of money on something so crystal clear as free speech, and when they do spend that kind of money it harms the taxpayers tremendously because that $$$ could have been spent on things that are truly needed by the public…
Yep, needed a new Cadillac.
Right.
It is ad that the people who make laws, mostly lawyers, would never expect a lawyer to be required to take a case that (s)he did not feel comfortable taking but have no problem putting such a demand on others.
I was expecting more interesting responses from the trolls about this column, but whatever.
The question that comes immediately to my mind is how shop owners refusing service on account of their faith is different from racists refusing service on account of their prejudice? I think a layman’s answer (being a layman, myself) is that shop owners must offer services to anyone of any race or faith, as long as the request is in line with what the shop owner is willing to offer and the customer’s comportment is within societal norms.
How would liberals like being forced to sell NAZI paraphernalia to skinheads? I think that should clarify the matter even for trolls, but they’ll never admit it.
Second question, can a shop owner morally justify refusing a patron due to the shop owner’s politics? Again, if the customer is willing to settle for what the shop owner offers others and the customer displays generally acceptable comportment, refusing service on account of politics alone is immoral. The legality of it is another question entirely.
How would liberals like being kicked out of restaurants because they support abortion? Again, that clarifies the question.
Now liberals will argue that kicking illegal immigrants out of the country is a crime and justifies kicking a governor out of a restaurant. This doesn’t even qualify as sophistry; it’s just sophomoric. Enforcing immigration law has been the norm for centuries all over the world. Not doing so as a matter of policy is a recent development and highly controversial.
One could just as easily argue the immorality of open borders, based on crime rates, cost of living, etc. Want to be kicked out of the Red Hen for that?
The left basically is saying sell what we tell you and think what we tell you or get out. This is why I fear and resent the left.
Diogenes,
Great comment. It does seem they want to tell everyone what to think and then go as far as forcing people to conduct themselves as they would see it.
But as you point out, if we were to flip the issue and demand someone leave based on their pro-abortion stance, that business would face public backlash, and possibly a lawsuit.
As Sam noted below the difference between the Ds and the Rs. Ds try to use force on people against their will or point of view on a subject.
Rs, they pay for their meal, get up and leave.
Governor Sanders has shown remarkable composure, UpstateFarmer. I might have made a scene. She did the right thing in leaving. Better to leave than have liberals spit in her soup. That’s a health question, and as we know, liberals are capable of anything.
I hope the restaurant fails. That’s the way to bet. Little Rock ain’t Chicongo.
The issue in all the cases cited by JT is not refusing service. It is refusing customization. JT has done other articles on this. The “Christian Baker” suit wasn’t that he refused service, in fact they offered to sell them anything in the shop. However, it was requested a customized cake be created for something he disagreed with. This was compelled speech.
Creating a custom cake, custom website, professional artist (painter/photographer), or any other unique item for a customer, falls directly under speech. The fact that the objection was religious turned it more into that argument. Felt more like political framing.
As with your examples, if you switch “religion” with “politics” in these situations, it would be more properly framed as a free speech issue.
Again, that has been something JT has discussed in multiple articles as a pet peeve of his. For the simple reason that if you remove religion from this equation, it is still unconstitutional to compel speech.
Right. Refusing service is something liberals did twice to Sarah Sanders. Refusing customization is something conservatives support on free speech grounds. The former is unconstitutional and the latter is not. You clarified an important distinction.
This is the kind of thoughtful discussion Democrats don’t want us to have.
It’s like forcing Bruce Sprinsteen to sing at Trump’s inaugural ball. But the Dems went after that CO baker for years and years and they wouldn’t give up. They are fascist little pigs.
Agree
Pigs you say? Self-aware much?
The baker might have, should have filed against the harassing parties for time and cost loss. I fault the baker for that error, civil suit.
Oh, I do not fear or resent the left. They are not worthy of such attentions. Mock them, ridicule them, point out how absurd they are. But fear them? Certainly not.
🙂
“Not worthy of attention …
Really. You truly are laughable.
You and those fools commenting above spend 10 hours a day each on the site screaming at liberals, insulting anyone who you don’t agree with.
You are a stupid commenter.
Apparently you spend 12 hours a day.
Diogenes, the basic distinction is simple. A shop has to serve anyone, but it does not have to sell everything. You cannot refuse a sandwich because the customer is black or Catholic, but you can refuse to create a message you find immoral. A Jewish printer should not be forced to design a “Hitler Was Right” banner for skinheads, even though he must sell them the same off‑the‑shelf goods he sells everyone else.
Fully agree. Now if we could convince one Democrat of that.
Sadly you can’t.
IKR
While I find discrimination abhorrent, I contend that the state has overreached by reclassifying private enterprises as public accommodations. The exercise of discretion is an inherent liberty and remains valid regardless of whether it is socially understood or legally recognized.
Discrimination you say? But you and the clown crew practice it here every day, all day long. Self-aware much?
Did you read any of the comments? If you did and understood them, could you not make a more interesting comment than this ignorant one?
SM, I believe I found the source of this Troll’s moral center.
All the judgmental language about God’s wrath and absolute moral laws regarding homosexuality, abortion, and the distinctions between men and women have now been removed, making a much smaller book. Instead, you’ll open up the Morally Gray Edition and find lots of QR codes that point you to YouTube videos from progressive pastors telling you that everything is OK.
https://babylonbee.com/news/bible-receives-modern-update-with-morally-gray-edition
OLLY,
Good one!!
🙂
It’s hard to describe his type. Maybe this word does, Floccinaucinihilipilificatious:
WTF are you babbling about man? From photog to Hitler in one sentence. You don’t tick right old man.
There is a valid connection between those two. Both are an issue of compelled speech, the very topic of today’s article. Photography and banner design are both expressive activities, which the First Amendment protects from compulsion. Olly “ticks” just fine.
Thanks oldman. I was just ignoring him as a broken clock has a better track record than that troll does. In other words he doesn’t tick at all.
Haha – nice Olly!
People can refuse anyone for the reason–> I don’t want to. CRA 1964 is for immutable reasons as in genetics. Race, color, gender, and creed goes to Jewish genetics. Religions aren’t immutable otherwise.
If congress want to change the CRA they can with a simple majority vote. It’s not a Constitutional question. 😏. Refuse commerce private or public for any reason based on genetics suffices. CRA 1964 thought gender is immutable. Reason being genetics.
I don’t want to because I’m free.
“CRA 1964” is not the issue in Nelson’s case; the First Amendment is. This was not about a claimed right to refuse commerce for any reason. It was about Louisville trying to force an artist to create custom celebratory speech she would not create for anyone. That is compelled speech, and 303 Creative makes clear that no statute, old or new, can authorize it.
When things become overly broad and reduce precious freedoms, those things eventually cause more harm than good.
The case I remember is Ollie’s Barbecue, a local restaurant that discriminated against blacks. I don’t like such discrimination, but it is not the responsibility of the government to prevent such discrimination.
The problem was solvable without the government. Someone could build a barbecue that isn’t racist, and it could steal business from the one that was. Remember, many people wanted their businesses freed from such racism but were prevented by local rules and public opinion. Letting the market function naturally solves such problems.
One of the best examples is the Cantor Fitzgerald story.
Sure SM, in theory someone could open a competing restaurant and drive the racist one out of business. That is the Hallmark‑movie version of markets. The real world is not that clean. We tried ‘let the market fix it’ for generations, and the result was entrenched segregation with no realistic alternative for black customers in whole regions of the country. Race‑based discrimination in public accommodations is illegal because equal access to basic commerce is precisely the lane we have assigned to government, not because legislators suddenly forgot about freedom.
Olly, the real world is cleaner than you think. They could have opened a barbecue for blacks and whites to compete with Olies Barbecue and did well, but for the fact that the Rule of Law was not complete, and it was illegal laws that prevented this from happening.
1) State-Mandated discrimination: Example: In many locations, it was illegal to serve black and white customers together. Therefore, this idea was doomed to failure and even more difficult because it was the state that had the guns and could enforce such illegal laws.
2) 1964: Dismantled the local statutes that made segregation compulsory. There was no need to invade the individual’s space and private property.
3 Economics. Businesses do not survive as well as they can by limiting the customers based on things not pertinent to the business.
All that was necessary was property rights and the right to contract, all under the Rule of Law. The Supreme Court entered where it shouldn’t have. Earlier, I left you with the example, Cantor-Fitzgerald. That proves my point, and happens without infringing on the personal right to be discriminatory, which is an important part of human existence.
SM, opening a competing business is fine if someone with the capital, time, and appetite for risk actually does it. Often they do not. That is why we also have rights‑enforcement mechanisms. When your civil rights are violated, you are not only permitted but arguably obligated to use the legal remedies available, not just for yourself but for everyone else who would face the same barrier if it goes unchallenged. Markets sometimes correct abuses; law exists to ensure they do not have to do all the work alone.
Opening any business that can serve 100% of the population rather than 70% is a good venture. Likely, most of the businesses would never have discriminated but for the illegal discriminatory local laws. Lots of money is spent to fight racism. What better way than hitting people in the pocket?
We don’t need race-specific laws. We need adherence to the Rule of Law. You seem to be accepting of race-specific laws. Am I misreading you?
I would not have interfered with Ollies Barbecue, but I would have fought to end state discriminatory laws that were illegal. That is what Rosa Parks attempted when she refused to go to the back of the bus. We didn’t need a law saying first come gets the seat. It already was the higher law for municipal services. Check out the Montgomery Bus Boycott that dealt with municipal and private buses.
You are reading me correctly.
The “rule of law” you keep invoking lived quite happily alongside Jim Crow. It did not magically clean itself up. In Montgomery, buses were desegregated when a federal court in Browder v. Gayle struck down the segregation rules, not because the market woke up one morning and grew a conscience. In Ollie’s case, Congress had to pass the Civil Rights Act and the Court had to uphold it in Katzenbach v. McClung to stop restaurants from excluding Black customers.
So yes, some race‑conscious civil‑rights laws were necessary. Abstract talk about property and contract did not get Black Americans a seat at the counter. That is why Congress acted, and why simply chanting “rule of law” today without that history is empty.
If I could briefly interject. Statutory anti-discrimination laws are a product of legislative actions, which involve a balancing of competing social policy goals. Once the legislation is duly enacted – that is, passed in compliance with the law concerning process – the people have spoken through their elected representatives. The question then becomes, is that law permissible, in other words, is it allowed by the Constitution? If so, then fine, any further change must be through amending or repealing legislation. If not, then it should be invalidated through a court challenge.
The above applies whether the law mandates segregation, or precludes it. Where it mandates segregation, such as in the Rosa Parks situation with the Montgomery city ordinance, it was invalid from the start, and so Rosa Parks had no legal obligation to sit at the back of the bus. Her actions forced a court challenge which confirmed the law’s invalidity.
If the law precludes discrimination, then it is only valid to the point it infringes people’s constitutional rights, such as their 1A right not to be compelled to speak a message they disagree with. To the extent the government tries to enforce it in an unconstitutional manner, the citizen can refuse to comply and use constitutional invalidity as a defense to any prosecution. Or, if prosecution is sure to happen, the citizen can be the plaintiff and file a declaratory judgment action and seek such a judgment and an injunction.
That is a clear and helpful way to frame it, oldman. It captures the sequence well: legislatures set the anti‑discrimination rules, courts then prune back applications that collide with constitutional limits, whether in Jim Crow cases like Parks or compelled‑speech cases like Nelson and 303 Creative.
Oldman, your input is showing the gears of government at work, where there is no disagreement. Congress does not have absolute power, so while it is creating law, it can run into a constitutional roadblock, such as the 14th Amendment
In this case, I reference the 14th Amendment put a leash on government. No State could deny a person equal protection under the law. It didn’t prevent private citizens from discriminating. The 10th Amendment reserves all other powers to the State or the people. The government used a hatchet with the commerce clause so that instead of the 10th Amendment prevailing, the government used the hatchet to open ALL doors to private property.
What was Ollie’s Barbacue? A local restaurant that so happened to buy meat, some of which crossed state borders. The intent of the 14Th Amendment wasn’t a negative right to prevent people from discriminating. It was directed at the State to prevent it from discriminating.
Do I have it right?
Olly, we aren’t disagreeing on the moral necessity of equality; The disagreement is in the mechanism of enforcement.
My position is as follows: We must separate State-enforced segregation, which is a clear violation of the Rule of Law and the 14th Amendment, from private preference, which, if you want a free people, must remain outside the reach of the state. From your writings, you always appeared to be a staunch advocate for the Natural Rights of man. If that is true, then the Rule of Law must protect those rights without interference of individual liberty.
“The “rule of law” you keep invoking lived quite happily alongside Jim Crow” only because the Rule of Law was not enforced.”
The ‘Rule of Law’ didn’t ‘live happily’ with Jim Crow; it was strangled by it. The State used force to mandate exclusion, and the 14th Amendment prevents that. The problem is the thrust of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went beyond correction (specifically in Ollie’s Barbecue) and instead policed private associations.
Jim Crow was the State using its monopoly on force to mandate exclusion. The 14th Amendment was the corrective to that State overreach. However, specifically in the case of Ollie’s Barbecue, the government went beyond correcting State action and began policing private association.
Can you reconcile the following point? If, under the guise of the Commerce Clause, you dictate who a private citizen serves in a local business, then private property effectively disappears. The fact that a person has some commerce across state borders should not make his grill subject to the preference of the federal government. That is not the Rule of Law, but a legal evisceration of Natural Rights.
The choice need not be between equality and liberty. Instead, we can ensure the State doesn’t use the law to enforce discrimination and instead lets the private citizen, free to manage his own private property.
“I find no constitutional basis for the exercise of federal regulatory power in these two areas… I believe that the federal government has no business telling a man who he must hire or who he must serve in his private place of business.” __ Barry Goldwater.
SM, I am and will always be a defender of natural rights. But I am also a realist. We are not living in the state of nature. In a state of nature, ‘let people choose’ is the whole story. In civil society, it is only the beginning.
Once you move from purely private life into running a business that invites the community in, you are not just exercising a private whim. You are holding yourself out as a public seller of defined goods and services.
If you run a big‑and‑tall shop, no one expects you to sell petite sizes. Your catalog defines what you offer. The point is that anyone who walks in and meets your neutral conditions gets the same access to what is in that catalog, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation. You can still remove the customer who is disruptive or who invades others’ rights. What you cannot do, under the civil‑rights framework we adopted as a society, is say ‘we do not sell to your kind’ when the only thing “wrong” with them is who they are.
That is not some free‑floating ‘natural right to discriminate.’ It is precisely what the law has told you, for sixty years, you gave up when you chose to enter the public marketplace.
“SM, I am and will always be a defender of natural rights.”
OLLY, I am sure you are, but being a realist might mean that you can see where the law erred in fixing a problem we all recognized.
Is one’s private life separate from their small business? I don’t see it that way, rather I see the business as an extension of the person. The 1964 Civil Rights Law broke the barrier between the State and the person. Today, we see the results of that poor Supreme Court decision whenever a person looking for a fight enters a shop and demands that the person forget his personhood and recognize his small business as State property. It was not necessary to take the carefully designed vessel created by our founders and completly break it opening the gates to virtually everything being under the rule of the Federal government based on the stretching of the Commerce clause or anyclause in the Constitution.
Olly, I don’t think we should confuse a ‘Public Marketplace’ with ‘Public Property’. An owner of a business can, as an act of private association, invite others in. This private property and personal preference does not make his marketplace into a part of the Federal government so that the government can seize hia property. If you think so then the 10th Amendment is dead, for the Federal Government no longer has the fiduciary restrictions of the Constitution to keep it out of our personal lives.
The logic: The “14th Amendment put a leash on government. No State could deny a person equal protection under the law. It didn’t prevent private citizens from discriminating.”
“The 10th Amendment reserves all other powers to the State or the people.”
Which Constitutional principle do you wish to destroy? Any clause in the Constitution can be stretched to provide the federal government with any power it wishes, despite the 10th Amendment.
(I copied some of my words said to Oldman, and they are in quotes.)
SM, I believe I finally understand your full position. I wonder whether there was a path between the extremes. One could imagine the CRA doing what you and I think the Constitution plainly allows: dismantling State‑imposed Jim Crow and returning us to the original baseline where government may not enforce caste. At the same time, Congress might have adopted narrowly tailored anti‑discrimination rules for private public accommodations as transitional measures, explicitly time‑limited, on the understanding that their purpose was to unwind an entrenched caste system and to help form a culture fit for self‑government, not to confer on Washington a permanent supervisory role over all private association. Would such a sunsetted, remedial regime have addressed the unique legacy of Jim Crow without destroying the structural limits you rightly see in the Fourteenth and Tenth Amendments?
“I wonder whether there was a path between the extremes”
OLLY, are you asking to compromise on what the Founders wrote by expanding their clear statements to satisfy understandable emotions? The CRA didn’t have to permit the Federal State to reword the 14th Amendment and should never have tried to increase its power by using the manipulation of words to bypass the 10th Amendment. The CRA could have extinguished the desire of many to provide the State with the right to invade our privacy by taking small steps to prevent individual States from passing laws to enforce racist ideas. If we had taken smaller steps, we would not have the problems seen today.
The reason Ollie’s Barbecue could remain in the competitive market was that the State forcibly removed the competition of a better model, which would have permitted both races to eat in the same place. Again, that law didn’t end the racism in the financial field. The racism ended more powerfully when Cantor (Cantor-Fitzgerald… was there a Fitzgerald or was that just a name used to provide confidence in normality, a Christian name to counterbalance the Jewish one?)
I don’t think we need race-specific laws. If, however, there is a problem I am not seeing, we could use the Constitutional amendment pathway.
SM, after working through this, I agree that even my idea of sunsetted federal anti‑discrimination rules would be a departure from the constitutional structure. The purist path is the one you have outlined: restore the baseline by confining the federal role to dismantling State‑imposed caste systems, then leave the remaining injustice to be addressed, however slowly, by State choices, markets, civic pressure, and time. On that model, our effort to form a more perfect union may take longer and the moral cost is higher in the near term, but the constitutional architecture is preserved rather than bent in response to even the gravest abuses.
Thank you so much, OLLY. Coming from you is the best compliment one can ask for.
SM, I have to tell you that this process we’ve gone through reached a conclusion that aligned with what my heart was telling me, but that my mind was not. The heart is what my instincts tell me and my mind is what I try to rationalize. If they are in alignment, then I call that “peace of principles”. I wasn’t feeling that peace the entire ‘debate’, and only when I gave you my last comment did I feel that peace. Thank you for having the patience to take me through that process.
Olly, along with proof of dedication and study, you proved you have a good heart, as I think all should feel a sense of repugnance when racism is discussed. It is natural for the heart and mind to turn to the quickest solution, which might stop the pain, but cannot stop the racism.
“A shop has to serve anyone,”
What is your moral basis for that requirement, and how do you reconcile it with the Fourth Amendment? I’ll save you the trouble: you lack one; you cannot.
My private ‘moral basis’ is irrelevant. We are talking about what the law requires, not what you or I happen to like. Public‑accommodations duties exist because elected lawmakers enacted them under constitutional authority. You do not erase a statute by demanding a peek into my conscience.
Diogenes– “How would liberals like being forced to sell NAZI paraphernalia to skinheads”
I am beginning to suspect they would like it since they seem to have embraced Nazi ideals.
Yep
You clown. The garbage you spew is laughable. Now do it in Latin. LOL.
Diogenes
The provision of the Civil Rights Act that allowed Government to concoct “Public accomodation laws” are deeply flawed and should have been found unconstitutional.
The result is we have a mess.
The Correct, both morally, and constitutionally solution is that buyers and sellors are each FREE to transact or not for whatever reasons they wish.
If “racists” do not wish to sell to blacks – they should be free to do so. And the rest of us can boycott them if we wish.
In reality the types of prejudice that the left fixates on are rare and mild. Absolutely people CHOOSE their own tribe all else being equal.
Businesses hire people from the same college, sam high school, same church. It is extremely rare when hiring to have only a few choices.
Most people hiring are NOT going to spend 1000 man hours of effort to interview 100 people for one job. Contra the presumptions of the law and the left – employers are Rarely looking for the Best candidate – they are looking for one that is good enough, without spending more effort hiring than the job is worth.
So when you have whittled down the stack of applicants from 100 to 20, using often stupid criteria like spelling errors. or visual appeal or whatever, the person hiring will look for anything that connects them with one of those candidates that are left. Common college, church, social groups, race, sex, age.
I have detailed the fact that hiring decisions are based atleast partly on subjective criteria – even very minor degrees of connection, will differentiate between getting hired and not.
But MOST buying and selling decisions are the same. How do you pick whether to go to Wendy’s or McDonald’s for lunch ? Or Lowes rather than HomeDepot ?
Often we are not consciously aware of the reasons that result in the final decisions we make regarding buying or selling.
And you can not legislate how a process that is inherently subjective will be made.
Lest we forget Jim Crow was a series of laws in the south to FORCE businesses to discriminate by race.
Why would it be necescary to FORCE late 19th century busiesses to discriminate against blacks ?
Because southern whites were NOT sufficiently racist for those with the power to make laws.
Just as people do not know why they pick home depot over Lowes, people will buy or sell across race, religion, sex, … even when they are very predjudiced, because they are more driven by Green than Black or White, or because a buyer or sellor accross the street is preferable to one of the right race, sex, …. that is 2miles away.
I noted above how almost any connection will tip the balance in hiring. The same is true of buying and selling. And sometimes the connection that tips the balance is just conveinience.
If you want things to work efficiently – which gets you the highest overall standard of living, you must keep government OUT of exchange.
You must trust that ever though some people of one race will absolutely refuse to do business with those of another race, that all these preferences will mostly even out in the end, and that trying to FORCE them one way or the other – actually harms everyone more than the consequences of small predjudices.
In another post Turley notes that Gov. Huckabey was asked to leave a Resturaunt again puportedly because snowflake staff were uncomfortable.
Absolutely resturaunts must be free to discriminate based on politics or ANY OTHER BASIS they choose.
And Absolutely customers must be free to discriminate based on politics or ANY OTHER BASIS they choose.
Most of us will grow tired of this – and that is a GOOD THING we are all best off the more our decisions are based on meaningful criteria such as cost, convenience and capability, rather than politics.
But it is WRONG for government to step in and try to control the reasons that we make decisions. It is WRONG because it is inefficent, and it is wrong because ultimately it is unenforceable.
In the Case here – this photographer decided to go to court – to make this the hill she wanted to die on.
But she could equally easily have engaged in passive aggression against idiotic laws like these.
She could have accepted bookings for gay weddings, and failed to show up, or done a bad job. or any of myriads of unproveable subtle resistance that made FORCED hiring her to do a job she did not want as bad for those hiring her as possible. Which begs the question – Why on earth would you buy services that are important to you – such as wedding photographs from someone who has been FORCED to provide you those services.
Free markets work because buyers and sellors deliberately choose to offer to others the service they want in return for something the sellor wants.
It is the freedom to choose that results in the continual improvement of service and products.
Exactly. But my answer was more concise 😉
So how is a refusal to sell based on race different from refusal to sell to same sex marriage patrons, Diogenes? It isn’t a Christian same sex marriage nor Moslem marriage etc.
You are missing the core facts. Nelson did not refuse to sell standard goods to same sex couples. She refused to produce a specific message she believes to be false, and she would refuse that message for any client. Civil rights laws can forbid race based exclusion from ordinary services; they cannot be used to draft photographers or writers to recite whatever creed city hall prefers.
I suppose it mutable v. Immutable. Religion isn’t immutable. Idk
It’s genetics 😂 that is immutable. Marriage is very mutable. 😂 stupid case.
“refusing service on account of x alone is immoral”
Sorry, but no. It is the legitimate owner of private property who decides how that property will be distributed, to who, and for what compensation. A mutually agreeable trade between a seller and a buyer is always proper, as is failure to reach such an agreement, no matter what the reason for that failure. Such transactions are, of necessity, voluntary to all parties involved.
“Sorry, but . . .”
Spot on!
I my opinion, these were badly decided cases. Moose Lodge, etc. The first amendment covers discrimination by the government, not private individuals. It was wrong to try to extend this “right” to the private sector because of some tangential connection to the government, such as state liquor licenses, etc. I don’t see the govt interest in barring a private business from discrimination in any area. If you want your business to restrict blacks, jews, homosexuals, and Sarah Sanders, so be it. I find it abhorrent but I don’t see why the state needs to police this. I believe that a business should have the right to serve whomever it chooses. If restrictions exist, then the free market can decide how it wants to treat that.
You are free to dislike these outcomes, but you are not describing current law. The First and Fourteenth Amendments limit government discrimination, which is why the Court in Moose Lodge treated the racist club as private conduct beyond the reach of equal protection. Precisely because the Constitution does not itself reach private businesses, Congress used its commerce power to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and bar race discrimination in public accommodations. You may think that was a policy mistake, but there is no general ‘right’ under existing law for businesses open to the public to exclude blacks, Jews or anyone else and simply ‘let the market decide.’
The Democrat Party has always ranted that conservatives and most Republicans are destroying democracy and disregarding the Constitution. In actuality, that Party is following the traditional Marxist way of taking over a society. In fact, the Democrat Party yells and screams at conservatives and many Republicans for taking actions that Dems themselves have engaged in over the years. The Democrat Party is no longer for Americans it is for those politicians who are actually anti-American and pro-Marxist. Inote that I’ve called it the Democrat Party, not the Democratic Party as it is anything but democratic.)
Iran has earned hundreds of millions of dollars of extra income from oil sales since the start of the war, benefiting from a surge in the price of its crude after it became the only major exporter able to use the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran is benefiting twofold from price moves since the start of the war. Its flagship crude grade is selling to customers, mostly in China, at the slimmest discount in more than 10 months to Brent. And the international benchmark itself has surged well above US$100 a barrel since the bombing began.
Iran’s oil has grown more valuable compared with international benchmark Brent, narrowing to a discount of US$2.10 a barrel at the start of this week, the smallest in almost a year. The differential was wider than US$10 before the war.
Iran’s exports are estimated to have remained close to prewar levels of about 1.6 million barrels a day this month. Ships carrying Iranian crude continue to load at the Kharg Island terminal and exit the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz — with activity gaining pace recently.
Tehran stands to gain even further after Washington, seeking to mitigate the war’s impact on oil prices, took the surprising step of temporarily suspending sanctions on a trove of Iranian oil that was already at sea in tankers
“The Trump Administration is practically begging Iran to sell oil,” said Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy, who has served at the U.S. Department of State as a deputy envoy for Iran and a coordinator for sanctions policy. “I would have thought that interdicting Iranian oil sales would have been a priority for the United States.”
Based on export estimates from Tankertrackers.com and prices for the country’s flagship grade Iranian Light, Tehran would have earned about US$139 million a day from sales of its main Iranian Light crude blend so far in March, up from US$115 million in February.
As countries like Iraq and Kuwait have been forced to sharply cut production, and the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have scrambled to use alternative export routes, Iran has continued to load tankers and sail them out of the Persian Gulf.
On top of all this, more than 80% of the oil goes to China, and Iran is demanding payment in Chinese yuan to avoid sanctions on US dollar transactions. China is delighted to comply with this demand, because it plays directly into their long term goal of replacing the US dollar as the international default reserve currency with their yuan.
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/iran-oil-revenue-soars-hormuz
You poor lost pathetic Anonymous Biden Birthing Boy… what drugs led you to conclude Iran has a professional wedding photography company????
In a constitutional order committed to self‑government, cases like Nelson’s are not about a photographer’s “feelings”; they are about who has the authority to shape the convictions by which citizens live. Louisville’s ordinance tried to enlist its licensing power in the work of moral formation, compelling a small business owner to speak as if she embraced a new orthodoxy on marriage and punishing her if she so much as explained her dissent. By reaffirming in 303 Creative that the First Amendment protects “the freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think,” the Court refused to let government act as the architect of citizens’ inner lives and returned that formative work to the only proper seat of authority: the individual conscience.
OLLY,
Well said and I really like the “government act as the architect of citizens’ inner lives and returned that formative work to the only proper seat of authority: the individual conscience.”
Seems some want to use governmental force on citizens to form them as they think they see fit.
Thanks Upstate. The founders understood this problem better than we do. They assumed formation was constant, which is why they tied republican government to citizens who would discipline themselves, rather than wait to be disciplined by the state. When we hand over the work of shaping minds and consciences to government and its cultural gatekeepers, we should not be surprised when those same institutions begin to “improve” us in ways that serve their interests instead of ours.
Olly, you are a loquacious fool. Those reading this, this guy is delusional. It’s all made up nonsense.
Too bad he doesn’t use quotes and sources from the so called Founding Fathers.
Anonymous, if you think these ideas are “made up,” your quarrel is with Madison, Adams, and Washington, whose words you’d know from a half‑decent civics class if you’d ever taken them seriously. Madison wrote in 1788 that a dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government, which is why we must also oblige it to control itself. Adams was even more blunt: Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Washington warned in his Farewell Address that of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports, and that we should not“expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. They all understood that a republic rests on the formation of the citizen, and that if citizens do not form themselves, other powers will be glad to do it for them. I am simply taking them at their word.
That’s the heart of Zuckerberg META case and it’s social engineering. Government may be behind it.
Trump was 100% correct.
He said if I voted for Kamala Harris, our economy would tank, the national debt would explode, gas prices would skyrocket, and we would be at war with Iran.
I voted for Kamala Harris and all of that happened, just as he predicted.
If only I had voted for Trump, none of that would have happened.
Oh, wait ……………………………..
OMG!!!! Gas prices right now are exactly what they were right after you voted for another four years of Obama in 2012!!!!! Oh wait…. weird how you didn’t make any mention at all of what gas prices were for the past year, or compare them then to what they were under Biden!
Is it weird that only now you are noticing gas prices? Not for either the past four years or while under Obama almost 15 years ago?
And now we’re in the midst of ending Iran’s global terrorism and butchering of thousands of Americans – specifically enabled and funded by Obama! Oh wait!
If Biden could be hidden long enough for you to vote for another four years of AutoPen president, Iran would be still butchering Americans and putting the finishing touches on intercontinental nuclear missiles!
Such a tragedy!
Something much more interesting, U.S. intercepted Ukraine government messages discussing plot to route money to Biden re-election
“Newly-unclassified documents show that in 2022 Ukrainian officials discussed diverting hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars — earmarked for clean energy — back to Biden’s ill-fated 2024 campaign. There is no evidence the intercepted allegations were investigated during the Biden administration.”
https://justthenews.com/government/security/nsa-intercepted-ukraine-government-messages-discussing-effort-route-money-2024
This demands investigation!! I read somewhere that Sam Bankman-Fraud was suspected of laundering Democrat money through Ukraine, but I never heard any more about it.
“This demands investigation!!” Um… hey stoopid, there is zero proof, just nonsense headlines to set fools like into a rage.
“U.S. intercepted Ukraine government messages discussing plot to route money to Biden re-election”
This is not going to help Ukraine President Voldemort, I mean Volodymyr Zelenskyy get support against Russia from Trump once the Iran problem is resolved (assuming that happens soon). That isn’t the kind of thing that Trump is likely to ignore.
It’s so refreshing to read of your concern and devotion to the Freedom of Speech, Professor. Just like how a U.S. federal judge has ALSO just ruled that Fox weekend co-host and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s press credentialing policy violated the First Amendment by restricting access to journalists who reported information not officially authorized by the Department of Defense. As you know, the policy was found to be a form of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination designed to “weed out” independent journalists. I’ve been waiting for you to cover this topic as well and figure the only reason you haven’t yet is that you want to make sure you get ALL the facts right, because I know how near and dear 1A issues are to your heart! Might this little suppression of information even make one of your future books?!?!?!? Thank you for your attention to this matter.
OMG!!!!! Another basement level U.S. federal judge has declared that the Executive Branch is a subsidiary of basement level U.S. federal judges!
Would you bet your welfare check and SNAP benefits this judge WON’T get their Democrat apparatchik ass kicked to the curb by SCOTUS, just like all the previous judges who have attempted this over the last year? If not by a district court before that?
Thank you for giving your 15 second attention span to this matter.
“U.S. federal judge has declared that the Executive Branch is a subsidiary of basement level U.S. federal judges”
Can The Courts Delete Democracy?
by Jeffrey Tucker
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/can-courts-delete-democracy
“The Supreme Court has had to intervene several times to make a simple point: The president is head of the executive branch. There is no such thing as a fourth branch of permanent administrators. Somehow, some federal judges have not yet gotten the message.”
Louisville,KY Councilman Kevin Cramer is President of the National League of Cities. I wonder if that diffuses knowledge of this speech litigation outcome among the 2675 member cities. The Board of Directors appears to embrace both red and blue states and cities. That’s also 2675 City Attorney offices. I hope so. I also hope it is heeded. Just like cities want us to treat a stop sign as more than a suggestion.
The city didn’t pay this, Taxpayers paid it.
At what point are officials held personally accountable for deprivation of rights under color of law?
When are people fired? Have their houses seized to pay the debt off?
Insurance?
The City of Louisville currently does not have active legal liability insurance because its previous insurer, General Star, canceled the city’s policy. Taxpayers are now entirely responsible for all lawsuit payouts, as the city has been unable to secure a new insurer despite a nationwide challenge in finding coverage.
The city’s legal settlement costs rose ten-fold in two years, jumping from $1.4 million in FY 2020-2021 to $19.4 million in the first three quarters of FY 2021-22.
General Star is currently fighting the city in a lawsuit over a wrongful conviction case, claiming it should not be liable for a 1990s murder case that occurred before their policy was active.
While the city has implemented reforms at the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) and Metro Corrections to reduce future liability, 293 civil lawsuits remain pending with no active insurance coverage to cover them
This is the same as sanctuary cities/states using tax dollars against the will of the general population because a loud and insane minority had taken control of the governments. The solution isn’t more legislation (that taxpayers pay) but the “un-election” of all democrats across the board and the institutionalization of all mad-as-a-hatter woke progressives for the safety and good of the commonwealth.
“its previous insurer, General Star, canceled the city’s policy.”
Gee, I wonder what the motivation was for that? Maybe General Star wanted to avoid being bankrupted by an out of control policy holder?
Government Compelled Speech. What part of that statement does the City of Louisville not understand? First of all to try to enforce it and then take it to the Supreme Court. How stupid. They seemed to have missed the whole concept of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and 250 years of our history and the Enlightenment also.
It’s a beautiful state. Who would think such madness lurks beneath that veneer of beauty and southern charm.
Since yo never served on a city council in Louisville, you have no knowledge or understanding of their laws and policies pertaining to liability suits.
Then you have no idea how corrupt the USA was 250 years ago and laws then were useless. So stop pretending you are all wise.
That madness exists in your own home old timer. Do you live in a glass house?
FYI. No mention of insurance in the Turley article.
You have the freedom to shout at those who disagree with you, but I (and others) realize it’s a worthless cause. Three words you need to remember. . . .let it go.
YO NEVER? HUH? ha ha ha ANON
Anonymous9:38AM-Well usually there is a deduction that you often have to pay before insurance coverage starts to kick in and then if there is too big a liability then you should have re-insurance to handle that and they often have a deduction also. Similar to what most corporations have to deal with and I have had to sit on those boards and make those decisions.
I am not all wise but then I am not all stupid like you demonstrate each day.
“Louisville ultimately spent a fortune to force Chelsey Nelson to photograph same sex marriages . . .” (JT)
This story (and countless others like it), versus the one about Sarah Huckabee Sanders getting kicked out of a restaurant, illustrates the fundamental difference between how D’s and R’s handle the relationship between a business and customer.
D’s use the state’s police powers to compel a business owner to serve a customer. That is not choice. That is naked, physical coercion.
R’s simply walk out and take their business elsewhere. That is choice. And that is the *only* type of civilized business relationship.
D’s use the state’s police powers to compel a business owner to serve a customer. That is not choice. That is naked, physical coercion
Good description of Fascism
Sam,
Great comment and spot on.
UF: Thank you.
Precisely correct.
Forcing folks to accept the lies that (1) biological men can be women and vice versa, (2) murdering babies is “healthcare” (3) breaking immigration law doesn’t make the person who does so a lawbreaker (4) cashless bail won’t harm community safety, (5) the revolving door of releasing repeat offenders, regardless of their propensity to commit more and perhaps even worse crimes, and (6) women and blacks are too stupid to obtain photo identification – these are just some of the mandates of the Democrat Party and its adherents.
You might note that Kentucky has some of the oddest creatures representing them in Congress, including U.S. Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, and U.S. Representative Thomas Massie. These folks seems to keep shop with a contrarian business model for all matters. Some use the term “pigheaded.” Maybe, it’s in the water.
You may be onto something. Maybe Flint Michigan is not the only city with LEAD in the water.
Absolutely correct. Kentucky has become the production site of looney, worthless, even damaging politicians.
Site, really? I guess you should know since you live there.
Learn to spell the correct word. . .”Cite” is what you meant to use. Slow down and think about your replies.
“Kentucky has some of the oddest creatures representing them in Congress”
Not so sure about McConnell, but Massie and Paul, at least, would in no possible way support the actions or conduct of Louisville in this matter. That makes them right. Are you contending that being on the correct side of an issue tends to make a Congress critter unusual? If that is your claim, I’m forced to admit that you might have a point there. My advice: wear a decent hat when you go out.
The officials in Louisville who made the decision to carry this effort so far were using taxpayer funds. The award will be paid by the taxpayers. They will never be held accountable themselves for violating the rights of the claimant.
Insane that this had to go to the SC. The fascism and intolerance of the Left is astounding.
The fascism and intolerance of the Right is astounding, especially on the website.
Oh look, the juvenile parasite has awoken to nastily reply to every decent and logical comment.
Excuse me, asking for a friend, are you still drunk?
Fresh off Hunter Biden’s crack pipe this morning, are we? No more AutoPen pardons available, you know!
Does your wife know you’re here?
Decent and logical? Wait, you can recognize decent and logical? Quite the skill set.
Ok, then show us them?
How do ?
Just because you disagree with something does not make it fascist
Fascism would be the use of force to punish ideological disagreements
That is the mo of the left
To the limited extent the right is targeting the left it is for exactly that
For using force to punish views they do not like
The use of force to punish violence
Such as the abuse of power to punish views is legitimate
The use of force to punish view is fascism
It is the left that is fascist
John Say,
Well said. As Sam pointed out,
“D’s use the state’s police powers to compel a business owner to serve a customer. That is not choice. That is naked, physical coercion.
R’s simply walk out and take their business elsewhere. That is choice. And that is the *only* type of civilized business relationship.”
Bless your heart
Still 12 years old I see!
Democrats are alwasy ready to force people to do what they demand, at gunpoint, because dissent and thought are not permitted. Today’s left is no different than yesterday’s left, the Nazis and Soviets demanding ideological conformity. They are perfectly suited to North Korean politics, not American politics.
Republicans are always ready to force people to do what they demand, at gunpoint,… cases in point Iran, Venezuela?
Sure would like to know how you can equate city selectmen with the Nazis and Soviets of yore?
Cases in point, aren’t democrats trying to force the Russians to do what they demand, didn’t democrats also force the Libyans to what they demanded? You know, there is no one keeping you in the US.
Are you saying that the nyc indictment of maduro fo s long list of crimes is invalid ?
Or are you saying that the us can not enforce criminal indictments against foreign leaders ?
Government is FORCE always
That is not the issues
The question is when can force be used ?
A criminal indictment in NYC might end up being enforced by the US military
But the moral preening of left wing nut selectmen is also ultimately enFORCED by men with guns
If you think not
Pick any law you disagree with
Refuse to comply
If you do not capitulate
You will eventually be punished by FORCE by men with guns – police
What equates or differentiates a government from Nazis or stasi is whether force is being used to punish actual harm consistent with government’s legitimate power under the social contract or whether it is used to impose by force values that have little or nothing to do with actual harm or the legitimate role of government.
Yes the is a difference between sending men with guns to get maduro who was indicted for directing crimes of violence against millions and going after a photographer for failing to kowtow to your ideology
It is those in Louisville who are using the force of government ideologically rather than narrowly and legitimately
Apples and basketballs. Maduro is accused of a crime that harmed many Americans and is standing trial. We left his number two and others in charge in hopes they’ll be a better neighbor. Iran has been in the international terror business for decades. Don’t be surprised if Iran is dealt with in similar fashion after US and others destroy their military threat to the region and parts of Europe 4000 miles away. Did the Soviet’s ever leave eastern bloc countries taken by force voluntarily before they failed. China, Soviets, N. Korea, Iran, force their own citizens what to think. It’s a shame if one can’t see that distinction.
Oh, how dare the Republicans refuse to let Maduro continue to send poisonous lethal drugs into our country! How dare the Republicans finally arrest a fugitive indicted by the US government, and bring him back to face justice!
And how dare the Republicans refuse to sit and wait for the maniacal Iranian regime to complete the 60% enrichment of over 460kg uranium to 90% weapons grade. How dare they not wait for Iran to attach the warheads to ballistic missiles, and launch them towards every European capitol, which, as they demonstrated last week had the capability of blowing up all of Europe, and the Middle East! How DARE they not sit and wait and allow Iran to rain mass destruction upon half the world! Those horrible Republicans who want to protect the American People and the Homeland! All while Democrats wage war on Americans to keep illegals in our country, so they can continue to murder and rape our women and children! The Democrats are clearly the more noble of the two.
Yeah! Remember how we forced Hitler and Tojo to do what we demanded – just like Iran and Venezuela! Sure would like to know how you would like to equate city Democrat selectmen with being anything other than freedom loving normal Americans.
Utterly stupid. Dishonest discourse
what ever happened to the sign that used to hang in businesses everywhere? We have the right to refuse service to anyone?
Apparently Louisville’s insurer did.
Thank you