Moral Harassment: Or Persecution Wrong under God's and Man's Law
This is the sort of thing that makes me rage out and I don't care who thinks I deserve mockery for that:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/jack-phillips-back-in-court-for-refusing-to-bake-lawyers-transgender-birthday-cake.html
Jack Phillips is a Colorado baker who has been twice harassed by the same "activist" lawyer for not first making a cake with a gay marriage message and later a transgenderism one. Jack won both times, but suffered financial losses defending himself over an issue that his wins made clear:
His religious beliefs made it very clear he could not morally make any items during the course of plying his trade he felt would send a message antithetical to his religious beliefs. The U.S. Supreme Court in both cases overwhelming said "this man is not being discriminatory by refusing to ALL customers to violate his moral creed for their sake, he has that right to refuse business that would compromise his religious beliefs".
By that's not enough for the same vexatious litigant, who is determined to make someone who won in federal court twice now get hassled in state court over an issue that should be dead and buried, only this time they want Jack to make a "gender-transition" cake. Jack of course refused for the same reasons, but instead of seeking ANOTHER BAKER who would accommodate this request for once, the same malicious soul is now trying to bleed Jack's finances dry in yet another lawsuit to force the man to bend the knee and sell his own soul out just to make them happy.
Thankfully, Jack's prior legal defense is once again willing to go to bat for him and moving to get this thrown out before it even gets off the ground because at this point it is beyond obvious this being done to abuse the legal system to persecute a Christian for standing by their ethics.
Now that I got that out of the way, I just want to say I personally am a Christian, but even though I'm far from the best example of my religious creed, I strongly believe in personal conscience as sovereign, which is also enshrined in the U.S. Constitution as a RIGHT. Even if were a hardcore atheist who scorned all religion, one thing I would hold constant no matter what is that I respect the right of anyone to live according to their own principles, no matter how depraved or glorious they appear to my personal perspective.
That means if you wish to relentlessly mock Christians for what they believe, subject them to all sorts of derogatory abuse insofar as doing is legal (like saying horrible things about them in private), and otherwise being a moral degenerate from the perspective of a Christian, then more power to you, that is between you and what ideals you hold dear. But Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes made clear where the line STOPS:
"The right to swing your fist ends where the other fellow's nose begins."
Basically, you are free to be as much of Christ hating person all you wish, but you do not try to harm someone for practicing their faith so long as you have any reasonable means of it not harming you by it's mere practice.
In this case, there is no good faith case for harm. Any business has the right to refuse certain type of business on moral grounds, provided such refusal is based on a universally applied standard, and in this case, Phillips made it very clear the business they provide stops cold with doing anything that would violate his RIGHT to exercise his conscience and religious faith, which has proven legally impregnable as a defense on a federal level. The party suing him has no excuse for claiming they do not know this, could find another baker who will accommodate their wishes, and could peaceably let Mr. Phillips exercise his right to his own conscience and to decide what clientele he will accommodate on moral principle.
Instead, they want to ruin him financially because he won't bend the knee.
It is thankfully also a principle of law that obviously malicious lawsuits who legal grounds are so shoddy as to not pass any smell test for legitimacy can be punished for being malicious, and it my prayer this one is not only thrown out, but the party in question (who is a lawyer themselves) is disbarred or at the very least forced to cease their flagrant attempts to use the legal system as a cudgel under penalty of law.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/jack-phillips-back-in-court-for-refusing-to-bake-lawyers-transgender-birthday-cake.html
Jack Phillips is a Colorado baker who has been twice harassed by the same "activist" lawyer for not first making a cake with a gay marriage message and later a transgenderism one. Jack won both times, but suffered financial losses defending himself over an issue that his wins made clear:
His religious beliefs made it very clear he could not morally make any items during the course of plying his trade he felt would send a message antithetical to his religious beliefs. The U.S. Supreme Court in both cases overwhelming said "this man is not being discriminatory by refusing to ALL customers to violate his moral creed for their sake, he has that right to refuse business that would compromise his religious beliefs".
By that's not enough for the same vexatious litigant, who is determined to make someone who won in federal court twice now get hassled in state court over an issue that should be dead and buried, only this time they want Jack to make a "gender-transition" cake. Jack of course refused for the same reasons, but instead of seeking ANOTHER BAKER who would accommodate this request for once, the same malicious soul is now trying to bleed Jack's finances dry in yet another lawsuit to force the man to bend the knee and sell his own soul out just to make them happy.
Thankfully, Jack's prior legal defense is once again willing to go to bat for him and moving to get this thrown out before it even gets off the ground because at this point it is beyond obvious this being done to abuse the legal system to persecute a Christian for standing by their ethics.
Now that I got that out of the way, I just want to say I personally am a Christian, but even though I'm far from the best example of my religious creed, I strongly believe in personal conscience as sovereign, which is also enshrined in the U.S. Constitution as a RIGHT. Even if were a hardcore atheist who scorned all religion, one thing I would hold constant no matter what is that I respect the right of anyone to live according to their own principles, no matter how depraved or glorious they appear to my personal perspective.
That means if you wish to relentlessly mock Christians for what they believe, subject them to all sorts of derogatory abuse insofar as doing is legal (like saying horrible things about them in private), and otherwise being a moral degenerate from the perspective of a Christian, then more power to you, that is between you and what ideals you hold dear. But Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes made clear where the line STOPS:
"The right to swing your fist ends where the other fellow's nose begins."
Basically, you are free to be as much of Christ hating person all you wish, but you do not try to harm someone for practicing their faith so long as you have any reasonable means of it not harming you by it's mere practice.
In this case, there is no good faith case for harm. Any business has the right to refuse certain type of business on moral grounds, provided such refusal is based on a universally applied standard, and in this case, Phillips made it very clear the business they provide stops cold with doing anything that would violate his RIGHT to exercise his conscience and religious faith, which has proven legally impregnable as a defense on a federal level. The party suing him has no excuse for claiming they do not know this, could find another baker who will accommodate their wishes, and could peaceably let Mr. Phillips exercise his right to his own conscience and to decide what clientele he will accommodate on moral principle.
Instead, they want to ruin him financially because he won't bend the knee.
It is thankfully also a principle of law that obviously malicious lawsuits who legal grounds are so shoddy as to not pass any smell test for legitimacy can be punished for being malicious, and it my prayer this one is not only thrown out, but the party in question (who is a lawyer themselves) is disbarred or at the very least forced to cease their flagrant attempts to use the legal system as a cudgel under penalty of law.
Comments
Post a Comment