Religious extremist Alito suggests that if the LGBT+ community wants equality — a Black Santa should be forced to take pictures with kids dressed in KKK robes.
More than 60 progressive groups wrote to two top Senate Democrats on Tuesday urging them to investigate ethical concerns about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito following a recent report that he shared the outcome of a looming 2014 case involving the Hobby Lobby with a conservative activist.
The letter, which was obtained first by The Hill, is led by groups like Demand Justice, the Center for American Progress, End Citizens United and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The organizations are calling on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who leads the subcommittee on federal courts, oversight, agency action and federal rights, to investigate the reports surrounding Alito’s conduct.
“Justice Alito’s alleged leak of the outcome of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby calls for a thorough investigation and, if true, constitutes a shocking betrayal of the Court’s confidences that deserves immediate accountability,” the letter states.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that Rev. Rob Schenck, who at the time led the group Faith and Action, said he learned of the outcome of the Hobby Lobby case weeks before it was made public. Alito wrote the majority opinion in that case, which ruled that some companies with religious objections were exempt from requirements that they offer contraceptives as part of health care plans.
The Times reported that Schenck said the information about the case came from a donor to his organization, Gail Wright, who had dined with Alito and his wife and was part of broader outreach efforts to the justices. Wright denied obtaining or sharing any information.
Schenck has told other media outlets that he was part of an effort to build relationships with conservative justices.
Durbin said in the wake of the Times report that his committee would review the matter, but Tuesday’s letter calls on him to launch a full investigation. The progressive groups behind the letter raised concerns that if justices skirt accountability, they could be unduly influenced by similar pressure campaigns from activist organizations. Their concerns are amplified by the June ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, which came weeks after a draft of the majority opinion had leaked to the public.
“It is a disservice to the American people that the justices of our highest Court are not bound by a code of ethics, unlike every other federal judge in the country,” the letter states. “This lack of accountability undoubtedly contributes to the Supreme Court’s historically low approval ratings and to the American public’s declining faith in the institution.”
Jack Phillips, who fancies himself a cake artist and owns a Colorado bakery named Masterpiece Cakeshop, would like you to think that when he refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple in 2012, he wasn’t being a homophobic, bigoted, discriminatory, biased, prejudiced, or intolerant jackass.
He was simply acting on his religious beliefs. But Phillips’ denial of his own bias is not the only absurdity here. Listen to this: In his argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday for Phillips’ right to be a bigot, the lawyer for the U.S. government likened the gay couple—whose only “crime” was trying to buy a wedding cake—to the Ku Klux Klan.
But back to the beginning: When David Mullins and Charlie Craig asked Phillips to bake a cake for their wedding, Phillips said no. Phillips opposes same-sex marriage—it’s his religion, doncha know—and sent Mullins and Craig packing. And that move landed him in court, where he lost.
Ultimately, he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court (read my colleague Jessica Mason Pieklo’s analysis of Tuesday’s oral arguments). And here we are—arguing about whether or not cake is speech and religious adherents are permitted to discriminate.
Phillips argues yes on both counts. He would like you to think that his “cake artistry” is expressive conduct. Phillips speaks through his cakes and every time he designs a cake, he is “necessarily express[ing] ideas about marriage and the couple.” Or so he claims in his Court filings.
This claim is ridiculous. As artist Karen Hallion aptly put it on Twitter: “The person who made my wedding cake didn’t ‘participate’ in my wedding. I hired them to make a cake and paid them for it. When I buy gas from a gas station for a road trip, the gas station owner doesn’t participate in my vacation.”
Phillips and his uber conservative lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom have tried to make this case about religious freedom. They try to gussy it up in flowery language about free speech, expressive conduct, and religious belief, but this is a case about discrimination.
They don’t want to come right out and admit that Phillips and others like him—including this California bakery that’s now being sued for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple—simply don’t want to serve gays because they think gay couples are icky. Rather, they churn out twisted analogies about the KKK and wield Black people as weapons to mask their bigotry. Certainly any Black person would be horrified at being forced to do business with someone as odious as a Klan member. But that’s not the point. Raising the KKK as if it has fuck-all to do with anything is a cynical ploy.
Still, Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the lawyer for the United States, couldn’t stop talking about the KKK during his argument before the court.
He repeatedly said the logic behind the couple’s claims—”If you run a business, you can’t refuse to serve gay people” or, alternatively, “Just make us a goddamn cake already”—would be akin to compelling a Black sculptor to sculpt a cross for a Klan service.
“I don’t think you could force the African American sculptor to sculpt a cross for the Klan service,” Francisco argued.
No shit, Noel.
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