Replies to post #448122 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[Zorax]

I'm struggling with this. I'm an artist and creator, or have been and at no point was I forced to do work of any kind. I was approached by a neo-nazi group some time ago to design something for them and when I saw their sketches and learned who they are, I said Hell No and they went away.

So, am I wrong that a person or company can just say no and they go elsewhere? I think there's more to this state law. To me this is a fucked sick individual who is being used by other groups. But if one individual doesn't want the job for whatever reason, another one will pick it up.

GAY RIGHTS

A clash of gay rights and religious rights is also yet to be decided by the court. The case involves a Christian graphic artist from Colorado who wants to begin designing wedding websites but objects to making wedding websites for same-sex couples.

State law requires businesses that are open to the public to provide services to all customers, but the designer, Lorie Smith, says the law violates her free speech rights. She says ruling against her would force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their beliefs. Her opponents, meanwhile, say that if she wins, a range of businesses will be able to discriminate, refusing to serve Black, Jewish or Muslim customers, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants.

[BOREALIS]

Biden offers new student debt relief plan, lashes out at GOP after Supreme Court ruling

BY WILL WEISSERT AND COLLEEN LONG
Published 12:34 PM CDT, June 30, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden vowed Friday to push ahead with a new plan providing student loan relief for millions of borrowers, while blaming Republican “hypocrisy” for triggering the day’s Supreme Court decision that wiped out his original effort.

Biden said his administration had already begun the process of working under the authority of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which he called “the best path that remains to provide as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.”

In the meantime, since student loan-payment requirements are to resume in the fall, the White House is creating an “on ramp” to repayment and implementing ways to ease borrowers’ threat of default if they fall behind over the next year.

The president said the new programs will take longer than his initial effort would have to ease student loan debt.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden said borrowers now angry about the court’s decision should blame Republicans. He is trying to stay on the political offensive even as the ruling undermined a key promise to young voters who will be vital to his 2024 reelection campaign.

“These Republican officials just couldn’t bear the thought of providing relief for working class, middle class Americans,” Biden said. “The hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is stunning.”

Trying to place staunch opposition to student loan forgiveness on the GOP could allow Biden’s reelection campaign to maintain the issue as one of strength in the short term. But that may ultimately offer little solace to 43 million Americans who benefited from the initial program and will now have to wait for its replacement to take shape.

“We do not want to go into excruciating debt for our entire lives to enhance our education,” Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z-led organization that promotes the power of young Americans, said in a statement.

The White House efforts to forgive loans were an attempt to keep a Biden promise stretching back to his 2020 campaign to wipe out student loan debt — an idea that was especially popular with young voters and progressives. Both will be key for the president in next year’s presidential race but may be less energized about supporting him after the high court’s decision.

Wisdom Cole, the national director of the NAACP Youth & College Division, said Black Americans helped put Biden in the White House, so there’s an obligation for him to “finish the job” with his pledges to provide relief for borrowers.

“It’s going to have a huge impact on the next election,” Cole said, adding, “If we don’t do this, we continue the cycle of seeing our elected leaders make promises and not follow through.”

A May poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 43% of U.S. adults approve of how Biden sought to handle student debt, similar to his approval rating overall of 40% in the same poll.

The poll suggested that Biden gets credit for his handling of the issue among young adults in particular. Fifty-three percent of adults under age 30 said they approved of Biden’s handling of student debt, compared with only 36% who approved of his job performance overall.

Senior administration officials said Biden’s top advisers had met frequently lately to prepare for a high court ruling on student loans. They also spoke with advocates and allies in Congress. After Friday’s decision, Biden met with top advisers and ordered them to immediately begin implementing a new loan plan.

The White House argues that its new efforts will stand up to future legal challenges, even given the Supreme Court’s 6-3 current conservative majority. However, the administration also insisted its original plan was legal .

Biden bristled at suggestions his efforts to ease student loan burdens got borrowers’ hopes up unnecessarily.

“I didn’t give any false hope,” he said. “The Republicans snatched away the hope that they were given.”

The political stakes are especially high since progressive Democrats in Congress and activists have been clamoring for the administration to offer an alternative to Biden’s original student loan plan for months, fearing that the Supreme Court would ultimately move to block the president’s original efforts.

Many progressives argued that the Higher Education Act was the best vehicle all along, though the administration worried that implementation might have been slower had it originally tried employing the act.

The new approach uses a provision allowing Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to “compromise, waive or release” student loans. The Biden administration used the same basis last year to forgive $6 billion in loans for borrowers who were deceived by their colleges.

The details of the new forgiveness will be negotiated through a federal rulemaking process that the administration launched Friday. The process allows the Education Department to write or change federal regulations with the weight of law.

But there’s no guarantee that the plan could survive another legal challenge.

The Higher Education Act has been used to cancel student debt but never at this scale, and lawyers for the Trump administration concluded in 2021 that the education secretary “does not have statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancellation” under the act.

The GOP has long countered that repaying student loans is a fairness issue, and many leading Republicans celebrated Friday’s ruling. Betsy DeVos, who served as secretary of education under President Donald Trump, called Biden’s original plan “deeply unfair to the majority of Americans who don’t have student loans.”

Republicans now seeking their party’s 2024 presidential nomination lined up to applaud the decision, with former Vice President Mike Pence saying he was “pleased that the court struck down the radical left’s effort to use the money of taxpayers who played by the rules and repaid their debts in order to cancel the debt of bankers and lawyers in New York, San Francisco, and Washington.”

Addressing the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia on Friday, Trump slammed Biden’s efforts on student loans as “a way of trying to buy votes, that’s all it was.” Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nation’s Nikki Haley said the Supreme Court was “right to throw out Joe Biden’s power grab.”

After Biden announced his response, some Republicans were equally quick to reject it.

“Taxpayers just got sucker punched – again – by this administration,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican. “Today, President Biden announced that taxpayers will be forced to pay for the costliest regulation in our nation’s history.”

___
Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

https://apnews.com/article/student-loans-biden-democrats-gop-campaign-2024-37c7a2c3dbd38dc4bf53c3333413bcd7

[fuagf]

What the Supreme Court's gay wedding website ruling means for LGBTQ rights

Can a florist refuse service to a same-sex couple? Can a photographer decline to photograph lesbians? Experts parse the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis decision.

VIDEO

July 1, 2023, 8:56 AM AEST
By Matt Lavietes and Jo Yurcaba

The Supreme Court’s ruling Friday in favor of a Christian website designer .. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-web-designer-refused-work-sex-weddings-rcna68629 .. who doesn’t want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples has raised a long list of legal questions. Among them: Are businesses now allowed to refuse to serve same-sex couples or LGBTQ people, generally?

Legal experts have mixed opinions, but most of them say that the answer, at least for the majority of businesses, is no — at least for now.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion, noted repeatedly that the case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, centered on a very specific type of speech. The website designer’s business provided “expressive,” individualized services and involved “pure speech,” meaning literal written words. However, many businesses provide expressive services, legal experts said.

And, even though Friday’s decision was narrow, some experts said it could be expanded in coming years to slowly chip away at nondiscrimination laws that prevent businesses from discriminating against people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age and other protected classes.

“A hairstylist is expressive, an architect provides an expressive service, a college application essay assistance service is expressive, a photography studio provides expressive services,” said David Cole, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued a case before the Supreme Court involving a Christian baker in Colorado .. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-hears-why-baker-refused-make-wedding-cake-gay-n826706 .. who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple .. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/masterpiece-cakeshop-owner-court-again-denying-lgbtq-customer-n1184656 .

“So does this mean that a corporate photography studio could refuse to take portraits of women because of the belief that women should not work outside the home? The majority, said Cole, “does not take on that core question, which is, what is the limit of their decision?”


Lorie Smith at a rally outside the Supreme Court on Dec. 5, 2022.Francis Chung / POLITICO via AP file

Christian website designer Lorie Smith sued the state of Colorado in 2016, arguing that its anti-discrimination law — which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations based on race, creed, disability, sexual orientation and other protected classes — violates her right to free speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment. Smith argued that she should be able to refuse to provide her creative services for same-sex weddings, which go against her religious beliefs. She never faced penalties for refusing a same-sex couple and sued on hypothetical grounds.

In its 6-3 ruling on Friday, the court decided in her favor.

Mary Bonauto, who argued on behalf of same-sex couples in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that granted same-sex couples the right to marriage, called the court’s ruling “a mixed bag.”

Bonauto, who now serves as the civil rights project director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD, said she interpreted the court ruling to protect only businesses that offer services as unique and specific as Smith’s.

“The overwhelming majority of businesses out there do nothing like this, nothing like vetting and unique customization per person, per couple and creating unique artwork and designs and texts for each. The fact that this was all in writing was extremely influential to the court,” Bonauto added, referring to Smith’s website designs. “I want to be clear, however, that this does open the door to businesses that want to claim they provide customized services and therefore use that claim to discriminate against people they would prefer to exclude.”

Bonauto acknowledged that the way the public might interpret “expressive” services could differ from the court’s interpretation in its Friday ruling.

“On the one hand, I think many people put a lot of heart into their work, and so they feel like it expresses them. On the other hand, the law is much more limited about what counts as expression,” she said. “And the fact that you, yourself, create original texts out of your own head, your own mind, your own creativity, and write that for someone else, and it’s very customized to the individual, is what the court says is on the side of the line of constituting expression.”

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* Supreme Court rules for web designer who refused to work on same-sex weddings
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-web-designer-refused-work-sex-weddings-rcna68629

* Sotomayor says Supreme Court ruling condemns LGBTQ people to 'second-class status'
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/sotomayor-says-supreme-court-ruling-condemns-lgbtq-people-second-class-rcna92023

* Supreme Court kills Biden student loan relief plan
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rule-bidens-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-friday-rcna76874

Anthony Michael Kreis, assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, said “90%, 95% of the kind of ordinary public accommodations, commercial transactions that people have, will remain untouched.” He used as examples sandwich shops, mechanics and hotels, where he said “there’s no expressive content.”

Kreis added, however, that certain creative businesses fall into a “danger zone.” These businesses include florists, cake decorators and DJs, because they do create tailored, expressive content for customers — though they don’t use speech in the same way Smith does.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/supreme-courts-gay-wedding-website-ruling-means-lgbtq-rights-rcna92022

[fuagf]

Supreme Court rules for Christian mail carrier who refused to work Sundays

The case concerns an evangelical Christian who claimed the U.S. Postal Service did not do enough to accommodate his request not to work on Sundays.

VIDEO

June 30, 2023, 12:45 AM AEST / Updated June 30, 2023, 6:47 AM AEST
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court .. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court .. made it easier Thursday for employees to seek religious accommodations .. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion .. in a case involving a lawsuit brought by an evangelical Christian mail carrier who asked not to work on Sundays.

The case involves a claim brought by a Pennsylvania man, Gerald Groff .. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-174/234280/20220823143151190_Groff%20Cert%20Petition.pdf , who says the U.S. Postal Service could have granted his request that he be spared Sunday shifts based on his religious belief that it is a day of worship and rest.

"I hope this decision allows others to be able to maintain their convictions without living in fear of losing their jobs because of what they believe," Groff said in a statement Thursday.

His case will now return to lower courts for further litigation over whether he prevails under the new standard.

In a statement, Postal Service spokeswoman Felicia Lott called the ruling "fully consistent with the standard we apply when seeking to accommodate the sincerely held religious beliefs, observances and practices of our employees."

As a result, she added, the Postal Service expects to ultimately win the case.

Groff had argued that it was too difficult for employees to bring religious claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination on various fronts, including religion.

The justices in a unanimous ruling written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito clarified a 1977 Supreme Court ruling called Trans World Airlines v. Hardison. The court said then that employers are not required to make accommodations if they would impose even a minimal or, using the Latin term preferred by the court, “de minimis,” burden.

That ruling built on the language of Title VII, which says an accommodation can be rejected only when there is an “undue hardship” on the employer.

The court ruled Thursday that the hardship needs to be more than a minimal one.

In the future, courts "should resolve whether a hardship would be substantial in the context of an employer's business in the commonsense manner that it would use in applying any such test," Alito wrote.

Groff, a noncareer employee, worked as an auxiliary mailman in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area from 2012 to 2019, when he resigned. His job was to fill in when other workers were not available, including on weekends and holidays.

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Initially, Groff was not asked to work on Sundays, but the situation changed starting in 2015 because of a requirement that Amazon packages be delivered on that day. Based on his request for an accommodation, his managers arranged for other postal workers to deliver packages on Sundays until July 2018. After that, Groff faced disciplinary actions if he did not report to work.

Groff resigned and sued the Postal Service for failing to accommodate his request. A federal judge said that the Postal Service had provided a reasonable accommodation and that offering anything more than that would cause undue hardship to the employer and Groff's co-workers. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a ruling in May 2022.

Groups representing Christian denominations and other religious faiths filed briefs backing Groff, including the American Hindu Coalition, the American Sikh Coalition and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Muslim women, who often wear headscarves known as hijabs, have often suffered because of the Supreme Court precedent favoring employers, CAIR’s brief said. That is in part because uniform policies do not take account of the hijab. Muslim women lose job opportunities as a result, the group said.

The American Postal Workers Union, which says it has about 200,000 members, filed a brief warning the court that a ruling in favor of Groff that creates a “religious preference” for scheduling work on the weekend would disadvantage other workers who do not share the same religious faith.


Gerald Groff, a former postal worker whose case was argued before the Supreme Court, in Holtwood, Pa., in March.Carolyn Kaster / AP file

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which advocates for keeping religion out of government and filed a court brief backing the employer, expressed relief that the ruling did not go further.

"The court’s ‘clarified’ standard correctly allows employers to continue to consider the burdens an employee’s requested accommodation could impose on co-workers," the group's president, Rachel Laser, said in a statement.

The court in 2020, when it had a 5-4 conservative majority, declined to hear a similar case .. https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-court-walgreens-idUSL2N2AO0D7 .. involving an employee at a Walgreens call center who, as a Seventh-day Adventist, requested that he not work on Saturday, which is the Christian denomination’s day of rest.

Three of the conservative justices, however, issued a statement .. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-349_7j70.pdf .. at the time saying they were open to the idea of revisiting the 1977 ruling’s definition of “undue hardship.” Soon after that case was rejected, liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died .. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies-87-n670701 .. and President Donald Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett .. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-officially-names-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-nominee-white-n1241195 , creating a 6-3 conservative majority even more favorable to religious claims.

After Barrett joined the court, the justices in 2021 turned away several cases .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-religion/u-s-supreme-court-rebuffs-claims-of-workplace-religious-bias-idUSKBN2BS18G .. asking them to revisit the 1977 ruling, but the court has ruled in favor of religious claims in others, several of them in its last term, which ended in June 2022. Among them, the court ruled in favor of a public high school football coach .. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-coach-public-school-prayer-case-rcna31662 .. who claimed he lost his job after he led prayers on the field after games.

CORRECTION (June 29, 2023, 4:20 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated the date of an appeals court ruling in the case. It was May 2022, not May 2023.
Lawrence Hurley

Lawrence Hurley covers the Supreme Court for NBC News.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-christian-postal-worker-refused-work-sundays-rcna84868