Supreme Court leans toward web designer over refusal to work on same-sex weddings
So let's talk about that. During oral arguments, Justices in the conservative majority seemed generally supportive of the notion that Smith should not be forced to express sentiments to which she disagrees.
But the question that bugs me most about this, is that she is not being asked to "express sentiments to which she disagrees." She is being asked to express the sentiments and words of other people, where she is nothing more than the medium -- a loudspeaker, if her customers were addressing a crowd, a technical platform which knows nothing whatever about the sentiments being spoken.
I mean, think about it. If I'm a typesetter on an old linotype machine (@Revoltingest I've run those, just so you know), laying out a page for a newspaper, amd I expressing sentiments that have anything at all to do with me? Well what the heck's the difference when it's a website?
Here's the real question: when a newspaper reports somebody else's words, is the newspaper expressing the paper's own sentiments, or those of the person they are reporting? If a bake makes a cake with two grooms, are they expressing somehow involved in the ceremony, or are they just baking a cake (same as for the company that rented them the chairs everybody sat on)?
Or are they -- really and truly -- merely being just as bigotted as they can possibly be and hoping for approval?
So let's talk about that. During oral arguments, Justices in the conservative majority seemed generally supportive of the notion that Smith should not be forced to express sentiments to which she disagrees.
But the question that bugs me most about this, is that she is not being asked to "express sentiments to which she disagrees." She is being asked to express the sentiments and words of other people, where she is nothing more than the medium -- a loudspeaker, if her customers were addressing a crowd, a technical platform which knows nothing whatever about the sentiments being spoken.
I mean, think about it. If I'm a typesetter on an old linotype machine (@Revoltingest I've run those, just so you know), laying out a page for a newspaper, amd I expressing sentiments that have anything at all to do with me? Well what the heck's the difference when it's a website?
Here's the real question: when a newspaper reports somebody else's words, is the newspaper expressing the paper's own sentiments, or those of the person they are reporting? If a bake makes a cake with two grooms, are they expressing somehow involved in the ceremony, or are they just baking a cake (same as for the company that rented them the chairs everybody sat on)?
Or are they -- really and truly -- merely being just as bigotted as they can possibly be and hoping for approval?
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