Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a case in which a Hawaii bed and breakfast owner was ruled to have violated an anti-discrimination statute for refusing to rent a room to a lesbian couple. The case sparked inevitable comparisons to last year's Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in which a bakery owner was charged with discrimination when he declined to create a cake for a same-sex wedding.
Some court observers hoped that hearing the Hawaii case, Aloha Bed & Breakfast v. Cervelli, would help the court broaden and clarify the narrow ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop. Not because they're the same case (they're not), but because upholding the ruling in Aloha Bed & Breakfast would have helped to clarify the principles at issue in Masterpiece Cakeshop. It's the differences between Masterpiece Cakeshop and Aloha Bed & Breakfast, not their similarities, which should have encouraged the court to take the case. These are both free speech cases, and the facts in each illustrate where the line should be drawn between treating customers equally and compelling people's participation in something they oppose.
Read Full Article »