Lesbian Home Invasion: Supreme Court Considering Whether to hear Hawaii Case
UPDATE AP March 18, 2019: Justices reject B&B owner who denied room to gay couple
Reason: A state-level decision against the property owner shows the limits of the Supreme Court's wedding cake ruling.
Bloomberg March 15, 2019:
… Melissa and Aaron Klein say they were unconstitutionally driven out of business and charged a $135,000 fine under Oregon law for refusing to make a custom cake celebrating a same-sex couple’s wedding, in violation of their religious beliefs.
Phyllis Young refused service to a same-sex couple at her business, Aloha Bed & Breakfast, resulting in a “coordinated campaign” by Hawaii to punish her for her religious convictions, she says.
The Kleins and Young are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up their cases rooted in state law prohibitions. The cases raise First Amendment questions left unanswered since the justices ruled last term in favor of a baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex Colorado couple’s wedding in Masterpiece Cakeshop.
Both “cases can be viewed as presenting a classic clash between liberty and equality,” said Caroline Mala Corbin, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law who teaches constitutional law.
The court could announce whether it will hear Young’s case as soon as March 18. The court March 14 rescheduled consideration of the Kleins’ case to an unspecified date.
A key question is whether Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is ready to extend the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision….
The Hawaii Court of Appeals rejected Young’s claim that the state’s public accommodation law didn’t apply to her because she operated the bed and breakfast out of her personal residence.
Like the Kleins, Young argues that forcing her to open her business to same-sex couples violates her free exercise rights.
But Young’s free exercise argument is different in that it’s based “on a new wrinkle” introduced in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Corbin said.
That decision held that the “anti-religious hostility of a few government decisionmakers” constituted a free exercise violation, Corbin said.
Young likewise claims that her case was tainted by anti-religious bias….
read … Supreme Court Has Pick of LGBT Discrimination Controversies
Background: