Monthly Archives: March 2024

Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission gets schooled on the First Amendment in the wedding website case

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Remember the wedding website case that came out of Colorado and went all the way to the Supreme Court? It’s finally over, and it ended beautifully. Bigly beautifully.

I’ll let the district court describe the facts:

“Plaintiff Lorie Smith . . . offers a variety of creative services, including website design, to the public. Ms. Smith intends to expand the scope of [her] services to include the design, creation, and publication of wedding websites. However, [Smith] will decline any request to design, create, or promote content that promotes any conception of marriage other than marriage between one man and one woman. [Smith has] designed an addition to [her] website that includes a statement that [she] will not create websites “celebrating same sex marriages or any other marriage that contradicts God’s design for marriage.”

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission decided that Smith’s exercise of her First Amendment right to decline to perform services in violation of her religious beliefs, and that her words so stating, were, ironically, in violation of the First Amendment. The Commission said (1) Smith was required to design websites celebrating marriages other than between a man and a woman, and (2) she was prohibited from stating that she wouldn’t.

Smith sued the Commission in Federal Court. It was a smart move to go to Federal Court because state court would have ensnarled her for years in the swamp of the Democrat-controlled Colorado state judiciary – the one where the state supreme court tossed Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot only to be unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court last winter.

The district court dismissed her case on procedural grounds. She appealed to the federal appellate court. They overturned the dismissal on procedural grounds, but, worse, dismissed her case on substantive grounds.

She appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held 6-3 last year that both dismissals were wrong. They held that the Commission’s insistence that she perform services in violation of her religious beliefs, and insistence that she refrain from stating that she wouldn’t, were in violation of her First Amendment rights.

In short, she won.

The case was then remanded back to the lower courts to work out the details. It came back to a different district court judge. (The first judge, a former bankruptcy judge, had taken “Senior” status while the case was on appeal. That’s a gravy train for federal judges where they get full pay, the same plush courtrooms and chambers, a full complement of law clerks to kiss the back of their robes, and invitations to the right (er, left) cocktail parties. But they work just part-time by taking on only the particular cases they want. No, this “job” is not available for you.)

The details remaining to be worked out on remand to the district court were the exact language of the court’s order, and the payment of attorney fees. The Commission wanted a cramped order with little precedential significance and minimal further embarrassment to them. Smith of course wanted a broader order protecting her against infringements on her First Amendment right to exercise and state her religious beliefs.

This week, the new judge sided with Smith. The court’s order states:

“ORDERED that the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause prohibits Colorado from [compelling Smith] to create custom websites celebrating or depicting same-sex weddings or otherwise create or depict original, expressive, graphic or website designs inconsistent with her beliefs regarding same sex marriage.”

Then there was the attorney fees issue. The civil rights laws provide for an award of attorney fees and costs to a prevailing plaintiff. Smith was the prevailing plaintiff, though she had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to become one.

The Commission argued that she was actually only a partially prevailing plaintiff because she didn’t win on every single claim she made. Accordingly, the Commission contended, attorney fees should be prorated.

The district court rejected the Commission’s argument, and instead correctly held that “prevailing” in this context simply means the side that basically won, even if they didn’t win on every single claim. Attorney’s typically throw in lots of claims of dubious merit in a lawsuit. The fact that some get thrown out along the way doesn’t mean their client isn’t the prevailing party at the end of the day when they are awarded the remedy they seek.

The judge concluded with an invitation to Smith’s attorneys to file a motion for their costs and attorney fees.

Those costs and fees are likely to be into seven figures, since they include the original district court proceedings, the appeal to the appellate court, the appeal to the Supreme Court, and the current remand to the district court.

That is all good news. Smith is now playing with the house’s money. The bad news is that the “house” is, at the end of the day, the taxpayers of the State of Colorado.

Mind you, my objection here is not to gays getting married. I’m OK with that, though it took me a few years to get there. My objection is to the government telling everyone that they’re required to think it’s OK. Many people have sincere religious or other beliefs objecting to gay marriage. It’s wrong — and a violation of the First Amendment — to force them to abandon their beliefs.

As a matter of strategy, I also think it’s a grave mistake for gays to force this issue. People tend to get entrenched when their religion is attacked. But very often, when the left can choose between effective persuasion and ineffective coercion, they choose the latter. Because, at heart, they want to boss people around. They’re totalitarians.

I wish there were a way to hold these totalitarian bureaucrats personally liable in cases like this. A million-dollar judgment against them personally, and a seizure or their residences, might make them think twice next time. How about an $83 million judgment and $92 million bond? Better yet, how about a $464 million judgment secured with a $175 million bond?

Glenn Beaton practiced law in the Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court.

Paul Krugman is angry at farmers

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Former Enron advisor and current New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is angry at farmers. What’s earned his wrath is that they vote for Donald Trump. He says they vote for Trump because they’re afflicted with “white rural rage.”

Let’s examine the components of Krugman’s catchy phrase “white rural rage.”

As for rural, it is certainly true that Trump does better in rural areas than in, say, downtown Chicago or Baltimore. Then again, everybody does better – wherever they are – than they would in the toilets of downtown Chicago or Baltimore.

It’s not obvious that the politics of these rural folk are dictated by their Green Acres. Plenty of suburbanites vote for Trump too. After all, farmers comprise fewer than six million people in the U.S., while Trump won over 74 million votes last time. If every single farmer voted for Trump, that would still leave him more than 68 million short of the votes he actually received.

So, are the suburbanites and urbanites angry too? Maybe.

As for white, it’s true that Trump does better with white people than with BLack people. But there’s a couple hundred million white people in America, and Trump got only those aforementioned 74 million votes.

OK, maybe more, but let’s not go there today. In any event, Trump clearly isn’t getting all the white vote.

Compared to most Republicans, Trump is doing quite well with racial minorities. Millions of the people who voted for him are Black or Hispanic or Asian. His supporters are – dare I say it? – diverse. Is this entire multicolored constituency full of rage?

Maybe.

Which brings us to the last of Krugman’s angry accusations about Trump voters – that they’re full of rage. That, he says, is because they’re losers in a changing economy and changing world. They’re deplorable. They’re bitterly clinging.

Indeed, many Trump voters are angry, but not for the reasons that Krugman suggests. They’re angry that their country’s borders are left undefended; they’re angry that the military is well woke but can’t even lose a war gracefully, much less win one; they’re angry that Biden runs up trillion dollar deficits and double-digit inflation to pay for “free” stuff for his favored constituencies; they’re angry that the whole Biden family sells political influence to foreign governments for millions; they’re angry that Biden wants to throw the Israelis into the oven in order to bribe a few terrorist sympathizers in Michigan to vote for him; they’re angry that Joe himself is obviously non compos mentis while his caretakers gaslight us with preposterous stories that he’s sharp as a tack as soon as the cameras are turned off.

Yes, it’s fair to say that many Trump voters are angry.

But note this, Mr. Krugman. You’ve probably never met a farmer, but they deal with their anger straight up. If they’re angry, they’ll express that anger by voting against Biden and for Trump.

What they won’t do is invent pop psychology to demonize those who disagree with them. None of these voters you diagnose as afflicted with “white rural rage” will diagnose you as being afflicted with “Jewish urban anger.”

They’re smart and decent enough to know that your religion, your place of residence, and your emotional state are not particularly relevant to their political disagreement with you. To them this is not a cafeteria food fight and not a jihad.

You could learn something about manners, Mr. Krugman, from these farmers you look down upon. Keep Manhattan, just give us this countryside.

Biden’s pandering to a few terrorist sympathizers drives away millions of other voters

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In 2020, about five and a half million people voted in Michigan. Biden won by about 155,000 votes.

Of those five and a half million who voted in Michigan, about 145,000 were Muslim. About 100,000 of them voted for Biden.

Those 100,000 Michigan Muslims are now making a stink. They’re unhappy that Biden is permitting Israel to finish the war that Palestinian terrorists started on October 7. They demand that Biden pressure Israel into a cease fire that would leave the terrorists free to murder, rape, behead, burn alive, and terrorize another day – and another year and another decade.

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BlaCKs* do poorly on the bar exam, so, naturally, progs want to abolish it

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Anna (Shelley Long):
“That is such a dumb idea. Sometimes it amazes me you ever passed the bar.”

Walter (Tom Hanks):
“I’m not surprised. You’ve never passed a bar in your life.”

The Money Pit

Washington State is planning to join Oregon in banning the bar exam. That’s the two-day or three-day test taken by recent law school graduates (and, in the case of the Kennedys, not-so-recent law school graduates) to prove they’re fit to hold a state license to practice law. It tests the student’s knowledge of the rules of law as learned in law school (or, more likely, in studying for the bar exam, since hardly anything useful is learned in law school) and their skill at applying that knowledge to hypothetical scenarios.

The bar-banners are candid about the reasons for their ban. It’s because BLacks* disproportionately fail to pass the exam as compared to whites and even as compared to other minorities (including minorities from homes where the language spoken at home was not English).

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Is capitalizing “Black” the ultimate condescension?

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I capitalize the word “Black” when referring to Black people. Many of my tribe object to that, since I don’t capitalize “white.” Those objections were expressed by readers most recently in reaction to my latest column.

Here are my reasons for using “Black” to refer to Blacks, in reverse order of importance.

First, the AP Style Manual calls for “Black” to be capitalized. That Manual is not the Bible, but it’s a highly recognized authority in what used to be called journalism.

Relax. As I stated, my reasons are presented here in reverse order of importance. The AP Style Manual is the least important one.

Second, of a little more importance, is that many Blacks want the big “B.” I tend to defer to people’s preferences when it comes to their name, their nationality, their religion and their race. (Not so much their sex.)

If a person named Javier wants a hard pronunciation of the “J” as in “Java” then I’ll give him one even if I think it’s a linguistic butchering. I’ll also give him Gavier and pronounce it Javier if that’s what he prefers.

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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says some foolish things

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The Justices of the Supreme Court make their living with words. They read them, they write them, they speak them, they listen to them, and they rule with them. We currently have a Justice who uses words very poorly.

At her confirmation hearing before the Senate, Justice Jackson was asked to give a definition of “woman.” That’s a legitimate question, since many legal matters depend on whether a given person is a woman or a man.

Her answer was:

“I can’t. Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.”

Jackson was of course dodging the question. Fine, that’s what you do when you’re being cross examined by a hostile questioner. But the unartfulness of her dodge was striking. A person trained and working with the tool of words should have been able to craft an answer along the lines of:

We all know that words can mean different things in different settings. In the case of the word “woman,” there is of course a traditional definition in genetics which is ‘a person with two X chromosomes.’ We also know that there are people in the world without two X chromosomes who view themselves as women. I respect their views of themselves, just as I respect the views of geneticists. I can’t say without the particular facts of a case in front of me how those views should be weighed, if at all, in a court of law.”

Blah, blah, blah, right? Yes, but that’s the point of an artful dodge – don’t give the questioner a sound bite. Jackson didn’t seem to recognize that she’d handed her questioner – and her present and future critics – a sound bite that will live forever.

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Will we use reverse discrimination to “correct” the gender gap the way we disastrously “corrected” the racial gap?

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A persistent myth is that, for the same job, women in America are paid only 84 cents for every dollar that men are paid.

I explain below, first, why that myth is false and, second, why it’s dangerous.

There are the several reasons why it’s false. The figures use a category of “full time work” for their comparisons. That’s defined as any work over 35 hours per week. That means a man working 55 hours a week is compared to a woman working 36. So, a man making, say, $30/hour for those 55 hours for a total of $1650/week is deemed to be making $210 more for a “full time” job than a woman making $40/hour for 36 hours for a total of $1440/week for a “full time” job – even though in point of fact, the woman is making $5/hour more.

It’s not like this all balances out in the end because women and men overall work the same number of hours. They don’t. The high-hour work is mainly by men.

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An AI-generated speech shouted at the teleprompter by an angry old man on amphetamines

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This week was the ridiculous annual spectacle where the president is supposed to tell us the state of our so-called union, as if we don’t already know. That’s a particularly appropriate topic for the current president who was elected on the promise that he would be a “uniter, not divider” who would bring normalcy and decency back to the office.

A few seconds into it, this “uniter, not divider” was implying that the people who currently disfavor his re-election, a cohort comprising over half the country – and especially his “predecessor” whose name must not be spoken – were in league with Vladimir Putin.

It almost made me miss the good old pre-1989 Democrats who liked Russia.

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The Democrats believe Trump is a witch

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When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. They then become capable of believing in anything.

Émile Cammaerts

I suppose technically speaking, he would be a warlock. Unless he has undergone that “gender affirmation” mutilation that the Democrats promote for other people’s children.

Which I doubt.

The ancient notion of witchcraft was an understandable aspect of the pre-Enlightenment inability to understand the connections between natural causes and effects, together with the absence of a scientific method of data-gathering and experimentation to discover those connections.

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The Colorado Secretary of State says she now trusts the people to make the decision she didn’t trust them to make four months ago

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The cabal that calls itself the Democratic Party of Colorado nearly pulled a coup last fall. Unburdened by any inconvenient process that might have been due, a Democrat state judge decided that Donald Trump was an insurrectionist. Therefore, under a clause of the 14th Amendment designed to prevent former Confederates from running for federal office, Trump was ineligible to run for president.

Never mind that Trump had never been convicted or even charged with the crime of insurrection.

On appeal, four of the seven Democrat-appointed justices on the Colorado Supreme Court agreed. The other three in their strident dissent all but wondered out loud what kind of Colorado-legal weed the majority was smoking.

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