The SOTUS Leak

Here's Trey Crowder's take on the Supreme Court's plan to overturn Roe v. Wade:

About Face, Forward March

On gay rights, at least, under a Biden admionistration:

As vice president in 2012, Joe Biden endeared himself to many LGBTQ Americans by endorsing same-sex marriage even before his boss, President Barack Obama.

Now, as president-elect, Biden is making sweeping promises to LGBTQ activists, proposing to carry out virtually every major proposal on their wish lists. Among them: Lifting the Trump administration’s near-total ban on military service for transgender people, barring federal contractors from anti-LGBTQ job discrimination, and creating high-level LGBTQ-rights positions at the State Department, the National Security Council and other federal agencies.

Basically, he'll do everything possible to reverse Trump's policies, which of corse came straight from Pence/Jeffress/Perkins/Graham, etc. There's a lot he can do unilaterally, like reversing the ban on transgender military service, since those thingsd were done by executive order. The article goes into some detail on ways and means and is worth reading.

(Via Joe.My.God.)

Of course, good "Christians" like Franklin Graham are sounding the warning:

LGBTQ activists within the Democratic Party are pushing their godless, secular agenda with a potential Biden Administration. If you don’t conform to their ideology, agree with their sinful beliefs, teach what they say is right, they want to close you down.

They will pressure and bully politicians to get their way. It is extremely dangerous if they are permitted to proceed unchecked.

It's called "projection", ladies and gentlemen -- substitute "evangelical 'Christians'" for "LGBTQ activists" and you have the right's strategy of the past several decades.

About Those "Violent, Left-Wing Extremists"

Can you say "bullshit"?

A man seen breaking windows in a viral video of Minneapolis protests is suspected to be a known member of a white supremacist group, cops have alleged in a search warrant affidavit. The man in question, Mitchell Carlson, has not been charged with a crime.

The video, filmed on May 27, showed a man dressed in all black methodically smashing windows of an AutoZone in Minneapolis during racial justice protests over the police killing of George Floyd. The man also spray painted “free shit for everyone zone” on the building’s doors. The man appeared to be dressed as an anti-fascist, but was eyed as a possible infiltrator or “outside agitator” when protesters tried to question him over his activities. He became known as “Umbrella Man” on social media alongside debunked theories that he was a police officer attempting to discredit the protests.

Now, in a search warrant affidavit first reported by The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, police say they have received a tip that the man is Mitchell Carlson, “a full‐fledged member of the Hell’s Angels” and “a known associate of the Aryan Cowboys. The Aryan Cowboys are a known prison gang out of Minnesota and Kentucky.”

Via Joe.My.God.

And as for who started the violence, note this via Digby:

The New York Times reports today on how these troops were the instigators of the violence:

After flooding the streets around the federal courthouse in Portland with tear gas during Friday’s early morning hours, dozens of federal officers in camouflage and tactical gear stood in formation around the front of the building.

Then, as one protester blared a soundtrack of “The Imperial March,” the officers started advancing. Through the acrid haze, they continued to fire flash grenades and welt-inducing marble-size balls filled with caustic chemicals. They moved down Main Street and continued up the hill, where one of the agents announced over a loudspeaker: “This is an unlawful assembly.”

By the time the security forces halted their advance, the federal courthouse they had been sent to protect was out of sight — two blocks behind them. Eight weeks after the death of George Floyd, here’s a look at why longstanding protests in the city have recently intensified.

The aggressive incursion of federal officers into Portland has been stretching the legal limits of federal law enforcement, as agents with batons and riot gear range deep into the streets of a city whose leadership has made it clear they are not welcome…

Digby concludes with this warning:

I think we all knew on some level the moment they named the agency the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security, that we were building an internal police force. And if you build it, they will use it. They’re using it.

Remember, these troops were sent in by the man who had peaceful protesters teargassed so he could have a photo op holding a Bible upside-down in front of a church he doesn't attend.

Footnote: I saw a statement by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot that there is evidence that the looting on the South Side and in the suburbs during the first demonstrations was planned. You can bet it wasn't planned by BLM.

In Memoriam: John Lewis

Who died yesterday at age 80.

Representative John Lewis, a son of sharecroppers and an apostle of nonviolence who was bloodied at Selma and across the Jim Crow South in the historic struggle for racial equality, and who then carried a mantle of moral authority into Congress, died on Friday. He was 80.

His death was confirmed in a statement by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Lewis, of Georgia, announced on Dec. 29 that he had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and vowed to fight it with the same passion with which he had battled racial injustice. “I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life,” he said.

On the front lines of the bloody campaign to end Jim Crow laws, with blows to his body and a fractured skull to prove it, Mr. Lewis was a valiant stalwart of the civil rights movement and the last surviving speaker at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

I really don't have much to add, except that we need more like him.

Via Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Today's Must-Read: Color Me Flabbergasted (Updated)

Well, OK, maybe not flabbergasted, but certainly surprised. It's all over the place, but here's the most concise and complete single story I've found:

In the cascade of bad news that has marked 2020, it’s almost impossible to believe that something good could happen, and yet here we are: On Monday morning, the Supreme Court ruled that gay and trans workers are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits firing someone on the basis of sex. The decision encompasses a number of cases, but the most prominent was that of Aimee Stephens, a trans woman from Michigan who was fired by her longtime employer, Harris Funeral Homes, because she had transitioned from living as a man to living as a woman. Sadly, Stephens did not live to see this victory — she died from kidney failure in May — but she will go down in history as the person who secured this critical right for trans people to do their jobs free of discrimination.

I wasn't really all that surprised by the ruling -- well, OK, a little bit -- but more by the 6-3 split.l If I'd thought about it, I probably would have expected Roberts to join the liberal wing of the Court -- legacy and all that -- but Gorsuch did surprise me.

The really delicious part is that the "religious" right was hoping this case would provide the wedge to start rolling back gay and trans equality -- and everyone else's rights as well:

But this victory is not just a victory for trans people. This decision, surprisingly penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, is a potentially major setback for the religious right’s push to gut federal laws that protect all Americans from discrimination on the basis of race or sex. The right has been looking for a way to weaken the Civil Rights Act for decades now, and for the moment that mission has been thwarted.

Especially those of women:

Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian right group that was representing Harris Funeral Home, is still pretending it was doing this to protect women.

“Redefining ‘sex’ to mean ‘gender identity’ will create chaos and enormous unfairness for women and girls in athletics, women’s shelters, and many other contexts,” the group tweeted after the decision came down. “Civil rights laws that use the word ‘sex’ were put in place to protect equal opportunities for women.”

BS, to put is succinctly. You know as well as I do that ADF and its backers want women back in the kitchen with a kid hanging on each hip.

At any rate, read the whole thing, and while you're at it, check out the Salon article linked in the first paragraph above.

There's a lot of follow up, especially at Joe.My.God. Highlights are here (Tony Perkins -- not the sexy actor, the bigoted grifter); here (Joe Biden, on the plus side); h ere (Alliance Defending Freedom, the losers); and here (Heritage Foundation, bravely facing the eleventh century). There are more -- just scroll down until you find one you like.

Update: Needless to say, Franklin Graham has weighed in, with the expected wailing and rending of garments over "religious freedom":

I believe this decision erodes religious freedoms across this country. People of sincere faith who stand on God’s Word as their foundation for life should never be forced by the government to compromise their religious beliefs.

And so on and so forth.

As a matter of fact, the Court quite specifically did not address the issue. The demurrer is on page 36 of the opinion (which a PDF file that I can't copy and paste).

Graham's comments are worth reading, just as an example in the double-talk at which the "religious" right excels.

Smarmy Hypocrite du Jour

None other than Tony Perkins:

They were the biggest gatherings, by far, but in Washington, D.C., where one reporter said it “felt as if the entire city had emptied into downtown,” the atmosphere felt different. Calmer.

For once, it was pastors and faith leaders holding the bullhorns, as riots turned into rallies for reflection and repentance. Hundreds of evangelicals in the D.C. area led a long march across the Anacostia River, stopping, periodically, to pray.

Together with different generations and races, they called for the church to rise up and help heal our nation. “Our protest needs to be different,” Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile urged the crowd — not rooted in hatred or bitterness, but in Jesus.

Across the city — from the Reflecting Pool to hot asphalt sidewalks — people knelt to pray. It was the same serene picture in other parts of the country, where Christians met up in parking lots and city centers to offer an alternative to the violence and anger.

A few random thoughts on this:

I'm old enough that I remember when "faith leaders" would have been leading these demonstrations from the beginning -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., anyone? Or the Berrigans, both priests and leaders of anti-war demonstrations in the '60s and '70s. What's changed? Maybe it's just that the voices of the real followers of Christ have been drowned out by the power-hungry hypocrites.

There's evidence that the violence was initiated by right-wing, white supremacist agitators:

As demonstrations spread from Minneapolis to the White House, New York City and overseas, federal law enforcement officials insisted far-left groups were stoking violence. Meanwhile, experts who track extremist groups also reported seeing evidence of the far-right at work.

I'm sure they're all good "Christians". And at this point, I'll believe anyone but the feds -- the party line is "It's Antifa"; my guess is it's the Boogaloo Bois.

And where has Perkins been during all this? Hiding in a bunker? Why wasn't he out marching against racism in law enforcement? Oh, right.

Oh, in case you were wondering, from Merriam-Webster:

Definition of smarmy

1: revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, or false earnestness

a tone of smarmy self-satisfaction
— New Yorker

This is Probably a Must-Read

An interesting article on the future of LGBT rights -- and perhaps civil rights in general -- under the Trump Court;

There’s no denying it: efforts to protect LGBT+ persons through the federal courts suffered a substantial—perhaps devastating—setback when Justice Anthony M. Kennedy retired on June 27, 2018. The author of Romer v. Evans (1996), Lawrence v. Texas (2003), United States v. Windsor (2013), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), Kennedy had long played a key role in the U.S. Supreme Court’s invalidation of laws that discriminate against gay men and lesbians. His most recent decisions in that vein (Windsor and Obergefell) were written for a five-justice majority, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito in dissent. Kennedy’s retirement augured the emergence of a solid conservative majority, now including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, whose members are very likely opposed to meaningful constitutional protection for LGBT+ persons as a class. As we assess the implications of that development, here are some key questions to consider.

It's a little dense, but worth reading. Especially striking was this section:

Will the Court Undermine Antidiscrimination Laws in the Name of the First Amendment?

A holding that Title VII prohibits discrimination against LGBT people would mean a lot less if the Court subsequently held that the First Amendment immunizes anybody who describes acts of discrimination as expression or religious practice. However, in recent years, the right-leaning justices have taken worrisome steps toward imposing novel constitutional limits on antidiscrimination law.

I can't help but wonder, though, whether the Court giving carte blanche to religiously inspired bigots might also be held as establishment of religion.

We'll see how it all turns out. I'm not optimistic, unless the House grows a spine and starts impeachment proceedings against, say, "I like beer" Kavanaugh, who probably lied during his confirmation hearings.

Something of the Week

I was going to call this "Image of the Week," but it's more a message. At any rate, I found it apropos to one of the latest controversies:

 

Thanks to commenter NowAnAgnostic at Joe.My.God.

(Note: This was supposed to be posted a couple of days ago, but somehow Blogger blew it.)

Don't Hit the Panic Button

With Anthony Kennedy's retirement from the Supreme Court, the gay press is going nuts forecasting doom and destruction to gay rights, embodied in the predictions of the complete overturn of Obergefell. This is a good capsule of the prognostications:

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi said he’s worried that LGBT Americans could see their civil rights stripped away by President Donald Trump’s replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Velshi warned a newly conservative high court could undo the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling to legalize same-sex marriage, and he said LGBT people could find themselves at the mercy of state laws.

Velshi goes on to enumerate all we could lose if Obergefell is overturned.

As it happens, overturning Obergefell is not going to be that easy, in spite of the pronouncements of certified ignoramus Mat Staver. For starters, whoever wants to sue to end same-sex marriage has to prove that they're somehow harmed by it. How do you prove you've been harmed by marriage between two strangers? There's also the fact that the decision in Obergefell is solidly grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment's requirement for equal protection under the law and due process. As a reminder, the Fourteenth Amendment begins as follows:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Now, I realize the "Christian" right doesn't like the idea of everyone being treated equally, but that's America for you: it's in the Constitution, so live with it.

Velshi's guest, Sarah Warbelow of HRC, I think is more on target:

Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, said she believes same-sex marriage is settled law that one court ruling could [not] nullify.

“What we’re really worried about is the chipping away of rights under marriage,” Warbelow said.

She said Trump’s first court pick — Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated after Senate Republicans refused to seat an Obama nominee — believed same-sex couples should have fewer rights than heterosexual couples.

“It’s this creation of skim-milk marriage that’s really at risk for LGBTQ families and couples around the country,” Warbelow said.

(I inserted the "not" because otherwise the whole passage makes no sense.)

What the right will try to do is chip away at marriage rights on the state level, leading to years of law suits. If one makes it up to the Supreme Court, there is a possibility that the "conservative" justices could find a way to weasel their way around the Fourteenth Amendmemt. One only need look at the "reasoning" in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby to see how far they would go. That, however, would be very unlikely to give them an excuse to overturn Obergefell.

So, don't look for any dramatic gestures from the Court on same-sex marriage. Watch out, though, for the chip-chip-chip that has worked for the retrograde element on abortion rights.

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Finally

I am not, after all, going to do a major post on the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. You've already got my bottom line on it, so this is just by way of providing a little detail.

The big issue is the Court's interpretation of comments by members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. From Towleroad, a take on that issue that echoes my own:

. . . the Court found that statements from Commissioners sitting on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission evidenced so much anti-religious bias that they denied the Christian baker a fair, impartial hearing. But those statements don’t really evidence bias. Here was the most offending statement:

I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust, whether it be—I mean, we—we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others.

In reaction to this, the Court said, “To describe a man’s faith as ‘one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use’ is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical—something insubstantial and even insincere.”

But that is not at all what the Commissioner did. His comment called out using religion as a pretext for discrimination. And besides, the Commissioner is one hundred percent correct. Christianity justified the Holocaust. Religion was used to justify slavery. Religion was used to justify Jim Crow, apartheid, and laws against interracial marriage.

Ed Brayton has a good discussion of the ruling at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and RawStory provides a history of religious freedom jurisprudence.

Of course, Tony Perkins is claiming a huge victory for "religious freedom" über alles, and Brian Brown is taking credit for the decision. Linda Harvey, who is known to have an adversarial relationship with reality, thinks this decision paves the way for getting rid of sex education in schools. But, as I've noted elsewhere, the actual facts of the ruling are not going to alter the right-wing propaganda one bit.

The justices dodged the bullet, although there would seem to be ample precedent for upholding the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's decision, not the least of which is Employment Division v. Smith, which held that there is no religious exemption from otherwise generally applicable laws -- unless, of course, one wants to present the argument that there is no compelling government interest in enforcing equal treatment for all citizens.

Today's Must-Read: We're Screwed

The Supreme Court seems to feel that police need to be protected from accountability when they shoot someone on a whim:

In recent years, the justices have regularly shielded police from being sued, even when officers wrongly shoot innocent people in their own homes.

They have done so by extending a rule adopted in the 1980s that gave government officials "qualified immunity" from being sued over constitutional violations unless they did something that the court already had clearly defined as illegal and unconstitutional. It is not enough to cite the words of the Constitution, such as its ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures." To bring a claim before a jury, the injured plaintiff must show the officer had obviously and unquestionably violated a recognized and specific right. In practice, this rule has served as a broad shield to prevent cases from proceeding.

There's a pending case described in the opening paragraphs of this article that may change this course, but I have no confidence that this Court will see fit to protect civilians from police misconduct: they're real big on authority. There is one small ray of hope, however:

Last year, Justice Clarence Thomas cited law professor Baude's criticism of the court's approach to these cases. "In the appropriate case, we should reconsider our qualified immunity jurisprudence," he wrote.

Yes, you read that right: Clarence Thomas wrote that.

However, given the Court's tortured reasoning in cases such as Citizens United and Hobby Lobby, I can hardly wait to see what rationale they'll come up with should they decide in favor of the police.

Yes, read the whole thing -- some of the incidents described are appalling.

Can You Say "Clueless"?

Trump takes ignorance to a new level:

Democratic U.S. Congressman John Lewis of Georgia is one of this nation's top and most-recognized civil rights leaders. He was the chairman of one of the primary civil rights organizations that organized Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Lewis also delivered a speech at that historic event and was the youngest man to do so. He has been beaten, arrested, and jailed in his fight for civil rights.

Rep. Lewis has decided he cannot stand on the same stage as President Donald Trump this Saturday, when Trump will visit the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. . . .

The White House saw fit to denounce them for it.

"We think it’s unfortunate that these members of Congress wouldn’t join the President in honoring the incredible sacrifice civil rights leaders made to right the injustices in our history," Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement to reporters. "The President hopes others will join him in recognizing that the movement was about removing barriers and unifying Americans of all backgrounds."

If if were anyone but Trump -- and parrot-in-chief Sanders -- I wouldn't believe it.

Footnote: Digby caps it nicely:

That's Sarah Huckabee Sanders explaining that the civil rights movement wasn't really about black people.

Today in Disgusting People

Mike Pence, vice president and Trump's lap dog (one of many), who spent who knows how much of our money to fly to Indianapolis for a football game he planned on walking out of because The Hairpiece told him to:

Vice President Mike Pence left a football game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday after some players knelt during the National Anthem, saying he did not want to "dignify" the demonstration.

"I left today's Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem," Pence wrote on Twitter.

The vice president went on to issue a full statement opposing the protest.

And of course, there's a tweet.

I stand with @POTUS Trump, I stand with our soldiers, and I will always stand for our Flag and our National Anthem. pic.twitter.com/B0zP5M41MQ

— Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017

(Via Joe.My.God.)

(I should note that the replies/comments to Pence's tweet are not supportive -- to say the least.)

Note how he's doing his bit to reinforce Trump's lie about "disrespecting our soldiers," etc., etc., etc. This, from one of those who supports Trump throwing loyal servicemembers out of the military because they're trans. I can hardly wait until they try to reinstate DADT -- or something worse.

As might be expected, the world at large is having none of it. A couple of the better responses:

Mike Pence has run away from a Hamilton showing and an NFL game, and once said he was victimized by watching Mulan. Maybe try PBS, big guy

— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) October 8, 2017

I’ve never seen a political publicity stunt turn into a PR disaster this swiftly. The incompetence remains staggering. https://t.co/JvztxaDsaJ

— Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) October 8, 2017

a

All just to remind the trumpanzees how much they hate black people.

Tweet du Jour: NFL Edition

Via Balloon Juice:

Patriotism isn't about making everyone stand and salute the flag.

Patriotism is about making this a country where everyone wants to.

— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) September 24, 2017

The whole "disrespecting the military" mantra is major horsepucky -- half these guys are ex-military.

Another take on the "disrespecting the flag" mantra:

Tim Eagan via GoComics.com

Both via Balloon Juice.

And the best response I've seen to all those "real "Murricans" who are stupid enough to believe anything Trump says.

In an interview with the Tennessean, NFL tight end Delanie Walker took a shot at football fans who are willfully misinterpreting protests during the national anthem, saying they don’t need to come to the games if they can’t deal with it. . . .

“First off, I’m going to say this: We’re not disrespecting the military, the men and women that serve in the Army. That’s not what it’s all about,” Walker explained. “If you look at most of the guys in here – I’ve been in the USO. I support the troops. This is not about that. It’s about equal rights, and that’s all everyone is trying to show, is that we all care about each other.”

Walker then took fans who are threatening to boycott to task, saying, “OK, bye.”

“The fans that don’t want to come to the game? I mean, OK. Bye,” he stated. “I mean, if you feel that’s something, we’re disrespecting you, don’t come to the game. You don’t have to. No one’s telling you to come to the game. It’s your freedom of choice to do that.”

Get it?

I Told You So (Update)

The whole circus involving bakers, florists, photographers, etc. refusing to "participate" in gay weddings by selling their goods and services to gay couples is nothing more than an assault on nondiscrimination laws. It's the same strategy that the right has used against abortion rights and same-sex marriage: chip away, and keep chipping away.

And now 86 senators and congresscritters have filed an amicus brief in support of Masterpiece Cakes and "cake artist" Jack Phillips. And good ol' Senator Mike Lee has let the cat out of the bag:

Calling it a "a compelled speech case," Senator Lee told supporters laws that demand businesses treat people equally are a violation of freedom of speech and expression.

You can't hardly get more plain than that: as far as the right is concerned, nondiscrimination laws are unconstitutional, not to say un-American.

Don't expect any of the usual suspects -- i.e., the main-stream media -- to pick up on that.

Update: As for whose rights should be protected, I mentioned this yesterday, but Digby has a nice, incisive take on it:

 Oh look:

In a speech at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, on Thursday, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos lit into what she called “the current failed system” for handling accusations of campus sexual assault, and she announced a period of public comment that could lead to significant changes. 

“There are men and women, boys and girls, who are survivors, and there are men and women, boys and girls who are wrongfully accused,”

I don't have an opinion on whether Title IX protections have gone too far. I haven't read anything to suggest they have done anything but force schools to take campus rape seriously. But Trump's administration taking this issue up is really, really rich.

After all we know what advice he gives to young men on this topic:

Try and fuck her. Move on her like a bitch. Use tic-tacs in case you start kissing her.  And just start kissing her. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

The president himself was quoted saying he does all these things. If he can do it and get elected to the most powerful office in the world, there's no reason the average all American boy should have his college career ruined for following his example, amirite?

'Nuff said?

The Best Friend We Ever Had

So claims The Donald, or at least he did while on the campaign trail. (Has he ever gotten off the campaign trail? I mean, have you ever heard of a president who holds campaign rallies his first year in office?)

At any rate, under the leadership of arch-bigot Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the DoJ has file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission -- in support of the "Christian" baker:

Via press release from the ACLU:

The Justice Department filed a brief today with the Supreme Court arguing that businesses that are open to the public have a constitutional right to discriminate against LGBT people.

The brief was filed in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the case in which a Colorado bakery refused to serve a same-sex couple seeking a cake for their wedding reception. Lower courts have previously found that Masterpiece Cakeshop violated Colorado’s non-discrimination law when it refused service to David Mullins and Charlie Craig.

The brief is here. It's pretty much a rehash of the right wing's anti-LGBT talking points in this and similar cases: making a cake is "participating" in the wedding, making a custom cake is "artistic expression" covered by the First Amendment, Phillips' religious beliefs preclude him doing anything that might indicate support for same-sex marriage, etc., etc., etc. It's basically the same arguments that have lost in court in case after case.

My own take is simply that, if you are offering such things as custom cakes to the general public, you're a public accommodation doing work for hire. I've free-lanced as a writer and editor, and the basic rule is, you produce what the client wants.

I think the ruling precedent here is Employment Division v. Smith, in which no less than Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, stated: "We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate."

I'm really sort of surprised that the Court decided to hear this case.

What's most significant in this instance, however, is the administration's continued assault on civil right, starting with LGBTs -- but don't think that will be the end of it. (Note: don't forget Trump's ban on transgender service in the military, and Betsy DeVos' Education Department rescinding the Obama administration's guidance on treatment of transgender students. But they're not against all civil rights: DeVos really wants to be sure the rights of rapists on college campuses are observed.)

Should the Court find in favor of the bigots, it's going to torpedo every nondiscrimination law in the country; even a narrowly drawn decision would be a foot in the door, in line with the right's "chipping away" strategy that they've used against Roe v. Wade and have attempted to use against Obergefell v. Hodges and is the motivating force behind the "religious freedom" laws that have been popping up in state legislatures.

The bright side is that Anthony Kennedy is still on the Court, so as of now, the Court has the majority that gave us Windsor and Obergefell. Cross your fingers and pray for the continued good health of that majority.

Today's Must-Read: Civil Rights on the Block

Jeff Sessions is probably one of the last people who should be considered for Attorney General. (OK, maybe Roy Moore would be worse, or David Duke, but still. . . .)

Josh Marshall has a good take on some of the real damage this appointment could do.

But I think this misses the point or is in some ways a distraction. As Tierney Sneed explains in this article, the single most distinguishing feature of Sessions public career is his hostility to African-American voting and the laws put in place to protect African-American voting rights. That stretches from bringing predatory voter fraud indictments with the fairly obvious aim of discouraging efforts to mobilize black voters in Alabama. You can see it in his long-running hostility to the Voting Rights Act. You can see it in his opposition to laws intended to end or the reduce the practice of permanently disenfranchising felons. Again, read Tierney's article. The list goes on and on.

He should find John Roberts very easy to work with.

(OK, so it's two "must-reads." So read them both.)

The Truth Slips Outt

Once again, the Hairpiece tells it like it is. Speaking in Colorado -- of course, it was about how the election is going to be stolen from him by election workers destroying ballots they "don't like" -- he came up with this:

Later in his speech, Trump reiterated: "I don't love the concept of ballots."

Now, we already know he doesn't like elections:

Donald Trump suggested today that the election should be canceled and called for him.

Speaking in Ohio, the Republican presidential nominee questioned why the election was even being held, saying that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's policies are "so bad."

"In just thinking to myself right now, we should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump, right?" he said. "Why are we even having it for? What are we having it for? Her policies are so bad. Boy, do we have a big difference."

Trump is not an outlier among Republicans: they've been trying to de-legitimize our whole system for years, with attacks on the courts, putting fundamental rights up to popular vote, chipping away at women's rights, voting rights, and now marriage rights, to the extent that Trump's statements are the logical next step.

And the scary thing is, a significant number of his supporters are on board with that.

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

That seems to be conservatives' response to the things they don't like about America -- like equal protection of the laws, stuff like that:

Fifty Republican members of the Texas Legislature have signed a court brief arguing that the same-sex spouses of government employees shouldn’t be entitled to health insurance and other benefits.

The “friend-of-the-court” brief was submitted Friday in a lawsuit brought by anti-LGBT activists against the city of Houston in response to then-Mayor Annise Parker’s decision to extend benefits to the same-sex spouses of city employees in 2013.

They argue that, while the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges establishes that same-sex couples have the right to marry, it doesn't mandate that they are entitled to any of the benefits of marriage.

The primary question before the Supreme Court of the United States in Obergefell was whether or not same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry.1 The Court did not create other rights, such as rights to spousal benefits or even the right to live with your spouse. Subsequent decisions by courts all over the country have affirmed the right to marry, but have refused to expand that right to everything associated with marriage. Post-Obergefell decisions have, for example, found that Obergefell did not invalidate the presumption of paternity statutes nor did it create a fundamental right to engage in homosexual activity or make homosexuals a protected class.

In agreement of the narrow holding of Obergefell, Justice Devine observed in his dissent from the petition for review: “Marriage is a fundamental right. Spousal benefits are not.” Justice Devine was right, and the appellate decision to the contrary must be reviewed and overturned.

Further, while the U.S. Supreme Court did purportedly create a new constitutional right to enter into same-sex marriage, nothing in that ruling compelled the taxpayers of Texas to pay for a vast array of benefits for same-sex spouses. Indeed, it would unnecessarily implicate constitutional issues of state sovereignty if Obergefell were misconstrued as imposing spending requirements on the state of Texas to fund expensive health care and other benefits without authorization by Texas law.

Conservatives' tendency to edit reality to conform with their own preconceptions isn't going to do them any good in this case. The Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell was based firmly on the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. That means, in the simplest possible terms, that similarly situated persons must be treated the same under the law. In this case, a married couple is a married couple; there is no differentiation under the law for straight and gay couples. So, if straight couples are granted benefits under the law, then gay couples must be granted the same benefits. It's pretty unambiguous.

Amendment XIV, Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

And do note the framing: the Court created a new right to same-sex marriage. That's like saying that Brown v. Board of Education created a new right for black kids to go to school. No, the Court did not create any new rights: it merely affirmed that same-sex couples are entitled to the same treatment as opposite-sex couples under the law. Note this, from the majority opinion in Obergefell:

For that reason, just as a couple vows to support each other, so does society pledge to support the couple, offering symbolic recognition and material benefits to protect and nourish the union. Indeed, while the States are in general free to vary the benefits they confer on all married couples, they have throughout our history made marriage the basis for an expanding list of governmental rights, benefits, and responsibilities. These aspects of marital status include: taxation; inheritance and property rights; rules of intestate succession; spousal privilege in the law of evidence; hospital access; medical decisionmaking authority; adoption rights; the rights and benefits of survivors; birth and death certificates; professional ethics rules; campaign finance restrictions; workers’ compensation benefits; health insurance; and child custody, support, and visitation rules. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 6–9; Brief for American Bar Association as Amicus Curiae 8–29. Valid marriage under state law is also a significant status for over a thousand provisions of federal law. See Windsor, 570 U. S., at ___ – ___ (slip op., at 15–16). The States have contributed to the fundamental character of the marriage right by placing that institution at the center of so many facets of the legal and social order.

There is no difference between same- and opposite-sex couples with respect to this principle. Yet by virtue of their exclusion from that institution, same-sex couples are denied the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage. This harm results in more than just material burdens. Same-sex couples are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would deem intolerable in their own lives. As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects. It demeans gays and lesbians for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society. Same-sex couples, too, may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage and seek fulfillment in its highest meaning.

(Emphasis added.)

I guess, after they lose on this one, they'll manufacture a "religious freedom" argument.

The Liberal Redneck on Colin Kaepernick

I don't really have anything to add: