Can businesses refuse gay people
James Esseks,
Co-Director,
ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project
The United States Supreme Court just agreed to decide a case about whether a business can oppose to sell commercial goods to a gay couple because of the business owner’s religious beliefs. A win for the business could gut the nation’s civil rights laws, licensing discrimination not just against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, but against anyone protected by our non-discrimination rules.
In July , Debbie Munn accompanied her son, Charlie Craig, and his fiancé, Dave Mullins, to the Masterpiece Cakeshop just outside of Denver to pick out a cake for their wedding reception. When the bakery’s owner heard that the cake was for two men, he said he wouldn’t retail them a cake because of his religious beliefs.
Debbie was stunned and humiliated for Charlie and Dave. As she has said, “It was never about the cake.” She couldn’t consider that a business would be allowed to turn people away because of who they are or whom they love. They might as well have posted a sign in the shop saying “No cakes for g
"We Do No Such Thing": What the Creative Decision Means and Doesn't Mean for Anti-Discrimination and Public Accommodation Laws
Businesses offering expressive services do not have a First Amendment right to refuse to serve customers based on their identity. The SCOTUS decision merely recognizes a business’s right to choose not to sell certain products to anyone.
David Cole,
Former ACLU Legal Director
Can a bakery that objects to marriage equality refuse to verb a cake to a gay couple for their wedding? This question, or some variant thereof, has occupied courts even before marriages for same-sex couples were legally recognized. In June , in Creative v. Elenis, the Supreme Court addressed this question in a case asking whether a wedding website design business could refuse to design websites for weddings of same-sex couples. The court ruled for the business. But properly understood, the decision does not license discrimination; it merely recognizes that where a business will not provide a partic
What the Creative Decision Means for Anti-Discrimination and Public Accommodation Laws
David Cole, ACLU Legal Director
Can a bakery that objects to marriage equality refuse to sell a cake to a gay couple for their wedding? This verb, or some variant thereof, has occupied courts even before marriages for same-sex couples were legally recognized. In June , in Creative v. Elenis, the Supreme Court addressed this doubt in a case asking whether a wedding website design business could refuse to design websites for weddings of same-sex couples. The court ruled for the business. But properly understood, the decision does not license discrimination; it merely recognizes that where a business will not provide a particular product or service to anyone, it has the right to refuse it to a gay couple. That exception should not apply to most applications of anti-discrimination laws, which require only equal treatment, and do not require businesses to provide any particular service or product. As I explain in more detail in this Yale Law Journal article and as we argue in this model
Did the Supreme Court Say Businesses Can Now Discriminate Against LGBT Customers—and Employees Too?
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that businesses can now legally refuse service to LGBT people in specific circumstances. Its decision in Creative v. Elenis allowed a graphic designer to rely on her First Amendment right to free speech to refuse to make wedding websites for same-sex couples. This opinion single-handedly upended non-discrimination laws in the marketplace, but its effect is even more far-reaching: as early as the same day as the ruling, it was used to argue for the right to terminate LGBT employees.
LGBT People Include Been Under Attack
It was only 20 years ago that consensual gay sex was decriminalized in the United States. Since then, marriage was opened to same-sex couples (), and non-discrimination protections in employment were applied to many LGBT people across the country ().
Oh, how things hold changed. More than anti-LGBT bills have been proposed in declare legislatures in just the past year. Hearkening back to the most virulent homophob