The Supremes are on a roll

[blackshoe]

As I wrote before, there is indeed an easy solution here. The problem comes when the state is unwilling to protect the workers' right to refuse working on Sunday without being fired. America is fairly notorious around the world for having a hire and fire economy and I am slightly surprised at you advocating government legislature to prevent businesses from doing this knowing your general political views.

You misunderstand my position. When and where and for how much somebody works is a contractual matter between employee and employer. I don't think government should be in the business of mandating any of the details of such a contract. If the contract specifies the employee gets Sundays off, then the employer has no business telling him "work Sunday or you're fired". If the contract says "I agree to work one Sunday in three" (or whatever) then the employee has no business saying "I know I'm supposed to work this Sunday, but I don't want to, so I won't." It is the purpose of the courts, not the legislature, to settle contractual disputes.

[Vampyr]

It's not a matter of "you're working Sunday or you're fired" it's a matter of negotiation in good faith.

 

If only.

[Zelandakh]

You misunderstand my position.

I kind of guessed your position in all honesty. I just misunderstand how anyone can think this respects the rights of both parties.

[kenberg]

Since we are speaking of the Declaration and the Constitution and such I thought I would post a link to something in today's Post. I don't see that it particularly supports some view or other but I found some of the history interesting.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-declaration-of-conflicts/2015/07/02/6e2f93c4-2021-11e5-aeb9-a411a84c9d55_story.html

[billw55]

It is amusing to me that anyone who thinks that is pro gay marriage but thinks that SCOTUS got this wrong feels the need to say "I'm not a bigot." That is a totally reasonable thing to think and does not at all imply bigotry, in fact I would guess as a group those people are less biased and more thoughtful than either of the other sides.

And yet, most of their votes were known well in advance, just as reliably as any advocate's. Why is that?

[barmar]

I suppose in that case you quoted somebody presented to the court actual evidence that this "secular goal" really existed. Or not. If not, well, even the SC can spew BS.

But it's not just SCOTUS. The article quotes a more recent case (1995) in the Tennessee Court of Appeals:

“While Sunday was originally a day of religious observance, the passage of time has converted it into a secular day for many citizens and has freed it from its exclusively religious origins,” the appeals court wrote. “The cities have valid secular reasons for prohibiting the sale of beer on Sunday, including enhancing the safety of the travelling public, promoting domestic tranquility, shielding children from the effects of drinking, and accommodating the reduced number of law enforcement officers working on weekends.”

It does seem like this judge was reaching -- does he think that people won't stock up on beer on Saturday so they can get drunk on Sunday and beat their kids? On the other hand, other lower courts have held that blue laws are unconstitutional. There doesn't seem to be a widespread concensus, it seems to depend on which judges get asked (which is related to the point I was making earlier, about these decisions being made by small courts).

 

I think blue laws have been slowly fading away in most states simply because the governments need the tax revenue, or just for competitive reasons. MA no longer prohibits retail establishments from opening on Sunday (except that liquor stores can't open until 10am), and dozens of non-retail businesses are also exempted from the blue laws; however, they do require that employees be paid time-and-a-half if they work on Sunday and holidays, and employees can't be forced to work on Sunday/holidays (they can't be penalized or fired for refusing).

 

But back when we prohibited all liquor sales on Sunday, I think liquor stores located near the NH border were exempted, so they wouldn't lose sales to stores over the border.

 

There's also a clause in the section on exemptions that addresses Jews. It doesn't actually specify the religion, but says that if they close their business from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, they're exempt from the Sunday closure requirement.

[mike777]

I expect now to see many court cases involving non secular...hospitals, schools, tax exemption, involving this issue.....and I expect the bigot will be the basis.

 

 

fwiw I do expect we will see non secular org. approving gay marriage....in fact we do

 

 

calling someone/something a bigot is in fact harmful.I expect many many will approve of that harm.

[cherdano]

This. The irish solution is much recommended.

Well, in truth it wasn't all that different to the Irish solution. There is no way Kennedy would have joined the majority if it hadn't become clear recently that gay marriage has majority support in the US.

[cherdano]

If I'm misunderstanding it, then it seems that Roberts is under the same misconception, so I feel like I'm in good company.

 

Or do you think he's misprepresenting it in order to justify his dissent, rather than the other way around?

 

I only skimmed Roberts' dissent, so I may have missed it. Could you point me to the page where he explains that his dissent is based on the 10th amendment, please?

[Winstonm]

I only skimmed Roberts' dissent, so I may have missed it. Could you point me to the page where he explains that his dissent is based on the 10th amendment, please?

 

I found this:

 

Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not about whether, in my judgment, the institution of marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples. It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law. The Constitution leaves no doubt about the answer.

 

--Chief Justice Roberts, in dissent

 

Edit: Personally, I cannot tell if Roberts believes this to be a local issue only or whether he believes it crosses into national concern but should be handled first through the U.S. Congress and Presidential approval.

[blackshoe]

I kind of guessed your position in all honesty. I just misunderstand how anyone can think this respects the rights of both parties.

Perhaps it would help if you were to identify what relevant rights you think each party has.

[Winstonm]

There is also this I found on the internet quoting Roberts' dissent:

 

Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not.

 

The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.

 

The Constitution itself says nothing about marriage, and the Framers thereby entrusted the States with “[t]he whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife.

 

If this is an accurate portrayal of Roberts' dissent then I was in error, as he did fall back on the 10th Amendment.

 

Still, the problem I have with Roberts' claim is that there is precedent for the SC to overrule a state's definition of marriage in Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 decision that ruled miscegenation unconstitutional. The issue should have never have been a question of states' rights but of individuals' rights being squashed by governments.

[Zelandakh]

Perhaps it would help if you were to identify what relevant rights you think each party has.

That was in #67 although you can frame it in different ways. There are plenty of countries where this right is respected including the one where I happen to be living (albeit not for all sectors).

[blackshoe]

That was in #67 although you can frame it in different ways. There are plenty of countries where this right is respected including the one where I happen to be living (albeit not for all sectors).

Apparently this "right" of which you speak is the right to refuse to work on Sunday. Does this alleged right extend to any other day? What if the worker agreed in his employment contract to work on Sunday?

[barmar]

Still, the problem I have with Roberts' claim is that there is precedent for the SC to overrule a state's definition of marriage in Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 decision that ruled miscegenation unconstitutional. The issue should have never have been a question of states' rights but of individuals' rights being squashed by governments.

Maybe Roberts thinks the Court overstepped in Loving, too. And SCOTUS is not bound by precedents set by earlier decisions -- otherwise, we would still have "separate but equal" because of Plessy v. Ferguson.

[barmar]

Apparently this "right" of which you speak is the right to refuse to work on Sunday. Does this alleged right extend to any other day? What if the worker agreed in his employment contract to work on Sunday?

You don't need blue laws to give workers this right. I believe there are other laws that require employers to make reasonable accomodations to an employee's religious beliefs. Also, I don't think you can require employees to work 7 days a week -- they have to be given days off.

 

I can see how a business that wants to run a 24x7 operation, but all their employees are religious Christians, could run into a problem. Being forced to shut down on Sundays is not a "reasonable accomodation" -- something has to give.

[MrAce]

You don't need blue laws to give workers this right. I believe there are other laws that require employers to make reasonable accomodations to an employee's religious beliefs. Also, I don't think you can require employees to work 7 days a week -- they have to be given days off.

 

There are some jobs that requires you to work 7 days a week. They give days off but not weekly. Trucking for example. If you are a long haul company driver, you get 1 day off home time for every week you stay out. But when you are out you are required to work everyday. Owner operators (which I became after first 6 months) have the freedom to work when and wherever they want to. But by law, all CDL Class A drivers with or without endorsements (tanker-doubles or triples-hazmat), whether company driver or OO, can work only 14 hours a day and can use only 11 hours driving, and have to take 10 hour consecutive break everyday. Which means once you start the clock on your log book, you have 14 hours to do the job you need to do and only 11 hours of it can be driven. You can not drive 7 hours, take a break of 6 hours and then drive again another 4 hours because then you break the "10 hour consecutive break" rule. And they will check it at every weight station at state borders,

[Zelandakh]

There are some jobs that requires you to work 7 days a week.

And some sectors require Sunday working but close during the week. The laws in Germany reflect that with some sectors, notably gastronomy and drinking, being exempt from the ban on contracts forcing Sunday working. In my company you also need to volunteer, get high level managerial approval and then have it pass the Works Council to be allowed to work on a Saturday. They take workers' rights quite seriously here, which is not a bad thing.

[Bbradley62]

Rather than leaving it up to SCOTUS to make decisions like this, it seems like it would be better to have a process where something becomes a US law if a sufficient number of states each pass it. 72% of the states had already legalized gay marriage, that seems to be enough to indicate that there's a widespread concensus in favor of it, so perhaps a supermajority like this should have just made it the law of the land automatically.

Only 18 states approved same-sex marriage on their own; the rest of the 72% had it only because federal courts told them they were required to do so, and SCOTUS declined to hear appeals of these decisions.

[hrothgar]

Back when I was attending primary school, we spent a lot of time discussing the differences between a republic and a "pure" democracy.

As I recall, one of the biggest differences was the need to protect the rights of minorities.

The founders considered it extremely important to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority.

 

I am disgusted by the suggestions that a blatantly discriminatory system that deprives homosexuals of basics privileges that are accorded to straights should be subject to a popular vote.

[barmar]

I am disgusted by the suggestions that a blatantly discriminatory system that deprives homosexuals of basics privileges that are accorded to straights should be subject to a popular vote.

I never said popular vote. The Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress at a time when I think there was far less popular support for it than there is now for same-sex marriage.

 

But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for our current Congress to pass something like this, so I guess it's up to the Court to do it.

[y66]

What is it with the water cooler these days? Is it really so hard to take a position? Isn't it precisely because the majority of Americans now support gay marriage and the legal rights it confers that a referendum is not required and that anybody who takes a position that it is or that we must wait for more states to weigh in lest representative democracy be usurped by 5 out of 7 non homophobic justices is either too intellectually confused to understand that this is how the Supreme Court works or too disingenuous to acknowledge that gerrymandering and superpac ownership of politicians have already usurped the representative democracy dissenters claim they seek to preserve?

[Bbradley62]

... 5 out of 7 non homophobic justices...

I think "7" is being generous.

[Vampyr]

Which means once you start the clock on your log book, you have 14 hours to do the job you need to do and only 11 hours of it can be driven. You can not drive 7 hours, take a break of 6 hours and then drive again another 4 hours because then you break the "10 hour consecutive break" rule. And they will check it at every weight station at state borders,

 

Couldn't a driver fake his starting time?

[barmar]

What is it with the water cooler these days? Is it really so hard to take a position? Isn't it precisely because the majority of Americans now support gay marriage and the legal rights it confers that a referendum is not required and that anybody who takes a position that it is or that we must wait for more states to weigh in lest representative democracy be usurped by 5 out of 7 non homophobic justices is either too intellectually confused to understand that this is how the Supreme Court works or too disingenuous to acknowledge that gerrymandering and superpac ownership of politicians have already usurped the representative democracy dissenters claim they seek to preserve?

If support is so overwhelming, why are state and federal legislatures so dead-set against legalizing it, and it takes the courts to tell them that laws like DOMA are unconstitutional?