ANOTHER great day for America! SCOTUS rules freedom of speech trumps LGBTetc "rights"

Today is a great day for America! This morning, the Supreme Court released its judgment in the case of Lori Smith, an Evangelical Christian web designer in Colorado who refused to create websites to celebrate same-sex weddings, contrary to her religious beliefs. The basis for the ruling is that to force her to affirm the queer lifestyle would violate her rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The case, 300 Creative LLC v. Elenis et al., was decided by 6-3 majority, with all of the Court's male, Republican appointees siding with the website designer. All three of the female Democratic appointees dissented.

Ms Smith wanted to expand her web design business, 303 Creative,  to create wedding websites to express "God's design for marriage as a union between one man and one woman." She also wanted to post a message on her website saying same-sex marriage is "a story about marriage that contradicts God’s true story of marriage." 

For some reason (!) Ms Smith feared that message would run afoul of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, so she filed for a declaratory judgment. She lost in the lower and federal appeals courts, but then appealed to SCOTUS, which held that "The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees."

The majority opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who issued the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores decision as an appellate judge, and often writes for the court in religious liberty cases.

The dissent was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who, as Walt told you yesterday, admits to being an affirmative action appointee.

The case picks up the argument over the First Amendment and same-sex "marriage" where SCOTUS left off in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a 2018 decision in which the Court sided with a Christian baker who did not want to prepare a cake for a same-sex "wedding". As that decision was largely on procedural grounds, the Court did not decide the question of whether the baker could be compelled to join in the celebration of "gay marriage".

The issue in 300 Creative is slightly different, because it involves the actual expression of words. Ms Smith said she would have been happy to work for same-sex couples, but not to create messages that conflicted with her own Christian faith.

Justice Gorsuch reviewed the history of the Court’s jurisprudence on freedom of expression and association. He then gave reasons for the Court's ruling, summarized here. [Citations of previous cases are omitted. Click here to read the full text of the ruling.]

[T]he First Amendment protects an individual’s right to speak his mind regardless of whether the government considers his speech sensible and well intentioned or deeply “misguided,” … and likely to cause “anguish” or “incalculable grief.” … Equally, the First Amendment protects acts of expressive association. …

Generally, too, the government may not compel a person to speak its own preferred messages. …Nor does it matter whether the government seeks to compel a person to speak its message when he would prefer to remain silent or to force an individual to include other ideas with his own speech that he would prefer not to include. … All that offends the First Amendment just the same. … 

Consider what a contrary approach would mean. Under Colorado's logic, the government may compel anyone who speaks for pay on a given topic to accept all commissions on that same topic — no matter the underlying message — if the topic somehow implicates a customer’s statutorily protected trait.

Taken seriously, that principle would allow the government to force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe on pain of penalty. The government could require "an unwilling Muslim movie director to make a film with a Zionist message," or "an atheist muralist to accept a commission celebrating Evangelical zeal," so long as they would make films or murals for other members of the public with different messages. … Equally, the government could force a male website designer married to another man to design websites for an organization that advocates against same-sex marriage. … 

Of course, abiding the Constitution’s commitment to the freedom of speech means all of us will encounter ideas we consider "unattractive," … "misguided, or even hurtful." …. But tolerance, not coercion, is our Nation’s answer. The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. 

While laws against discrimination in places of public accommodation were important, Justice Gorsuch wrote, they did not violate fundamental civil liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights. 

Hooray for the judge, and long live free speech! Try to make me write pro-queer propaganda for WWW! I dare ya. I double-dare ya!

Anti-Trumpers' hair all ablaze over Kavanaugh nomination

President Donald Trump (still loving the sound of it!) went one prime-time TV last night to announce his nominatin of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court. Judge Kavanaugh has impeccable credentials, having clerked for outgoing Supreme Anthony Kennedy and served as White House Staff Secretary during the Presidency of George W. Bush. He also played a lead role in drafting the Starr Report, which urged the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Predictably, the POTUS' signature was barely dry on the nomination when the (((controlled media))) and liberal bloviators began their campaign against Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation. Mere seconds after the conclusion of the presidential address to the nation, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth were heard throughout the land. Typical was a statement released by the far-left PAC Democracy for America, which called Judge Kavanaugh a "reactionary ideologue" whose confirmation would "directly lead to the deaths of countless women with the dismantling of abortion rights."

Elsewhere, an organization (?) styling itself "the Women's March" said ominously: "Trump’s announcement today is a death sentence for thousands of women in the United States. Stripping a woman’s ability to make decisions about her own body is state violence. We cannot let this stand. We will raise our voices and take to the streets." In an embarrassing blunder, though, the Women's March statement began: "In response to Donald Trump's nomination of XX to the Supreme Court" -- indicating that the group didn't expect to have to change its pre-written press release, no matter who was nominated.

Last night the Canadian Broadcorping Castration devoted nearly ten minutes of The National (its nightly newscast) to a panel (including a woman and a black man, of course) who "analyzed" the effect on Canada of the nomination of an "arch-conservative" to the American Supreme Court. And this morning the Clinton News Network weighed in with a piece headed "Red state Democrats can easily oppose Beltway Brett Kavanaugh".

And so it begins. The anti-Trump, anti-Kavanaugh ads have already been produced, and time and space booked, paid for by (((you know who))). Expect a down-and-dirty campaign against the President's nominee. But don't expect confirmation to fail! First Neil Gorsuch, now Brett Kavanaugh. A dramatic and long-lasting rightward shift on the Supreme Court -- that's what is beginning!

Further reading: "Hollywood Resistance Freaks over Kavanaugh Nomination: ‘Will Cement the First American Dictatorship’", by Jerome Hudson, Breitbart News, 10/7/18.

Winning bigly: SCOTUS upholds POTUS travel ban

"The wheels of justice may grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine." Following President Donald Trump's appointment of Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court created by the death of the late and much-missed Antonin Scalia, we are finally starting to see some sensible (read: constructionist, not activist) rulings coming from that august body. Yesterday, by overturning the injunctions of two lower courts, SCOTUS enabled President Trump's travel ban to largely go back into effect.

The Supreme Court dismissed lawsuits based on earlier, temporary versions of the ban, because those versions had expired. The third, now permanent version, promulgated in September after an interagency review of the dangers posed by the different countries included, goes back into effect while the case on the merits works its way through the court system. The review provided justification, the government argued, for the inclusion of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen, all of which pose threats to the security of the USA.

The orders come in response to filings by the Department of Justice asking the Supreme Court to stay the preliminary injunctions in the two main travel ban cases, Hawaii v. Trump in the Ninth Circuit and International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump in the Fourth Circuit, which have been bouncing around the federal court system for months. The district courts had repeatedly ruled that the bans must be blocked from going into effect or, at least, be interpreted in such a way as to not discriminate against Muslims. The majority of the countries named in the ban are majority Muslim, and the problem has been how to separate the Islamic terrorists from legitimate travellers.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions called yesterday's ruling "a substantial victory for the safety and security of the American people." He went on to say, "We are pleased to have defended this order and heartened that a clear majority Supreme Court has allowed the President's lawful proclamation protecting our country's national security to go into full effect. The Constitution gives the President the responsibility and power to protect this country from all threats foreign and domestic, and this order remains vital to accomplishing those goals."

Tax reform last week, enhanced border security this week. Slowly but surely, President Trump is winning -- making good his promise to Make America Great Again. Take heart, Americans, there is hope yet!