Dissent

On a day of parades, flag waving, drinking, and setting off fireworks which upset the veterans with PTSD we are purporting to celebrate, I thought it appropriate to share the conclusion to Justice Sotomayor’s dissent from the Supreme Court’s recent wedding site case:

Although the consequences of today’s decision might be most pressing for the LGBT community, the decision’s logic cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The decision threatens to balkanize the market and to allow the exclusion of other groups from many services. A website designer could equally refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, for example.

How quickly we forget that opposition to interracial marriage was often because “‘Almighty God . . . did not intend for the races to mix.’ ” Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 3 (1967). Yet the reason for discrimination need not even be religious, as this case arises under the Free Speech Clause. A stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple because she opposes their having a child. A large retail store could reserve its family portrait services for “traditional” families. And so on.