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Some Constitutional Stuff

Some Constitutional Stuff

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:02 am by Dan Peterson

Some Constitutional Stuff 2017-09-06T11:02:04-06:00 Dan Peterson

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I quite like this quaint old document, and wish more people and more politicians were closely acquainted with it.
(Wikimedia Commons)

I have no idea how the Supreme Court will rule in this case, but I have a very strong opinion about how the Court ought to rule:

“Will the Supreme Court uphold freedom for cake artist Jack Phillips?”

Incidentally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Phillips would also decline to decorate a cake for a Latter-day Saint temple wedding. It’s certainly possible. But, while I would regret that, I would regard it as his right to so decline.

Electric companies cannot legally or ethically refuse to supply electricity to homosexual households. Water companies cannot legally or ethically refuse to supply water. Grocery stores cannot ethically refuse food to homosexuals. Emergency room physicians cannot legally or ethically refuse service to homosexuals.

But decorated cakes are in a different category than are basic needs such as power, water, food, and life-saving health care.

I don’t recognize a human right to have musicians (or photographers or artists) celebrate absolutely whatever humans choose to do, because rights entail obligations.

A doctor has an obligation to try to save my life in an operating room. The government has an obligation to respect my freedom of speech.

A Jewish string quartet has no obligation, however, to play for a reception of the American Nazi Party. (The Nazis could and did compel such things at Auschwitz; in a free society, however, they cannot.) A black catering company has no obligation to provide finger foods for a Klan party. A devout Evangelical is under no moral obligation to employ his artistic gifts to celebrate a gay (or a Mormon or a Wiccan) wedding. An artist who claims to be part of the anti-Trump “Resistance” has absolutely no ethical duty to paint a celebratory portrait of Mr. Donald J. Trump for his next birthday. No matter how desperately his supporters importune me, I’m aware of no obligation on my part to tap dance and sing for Bernie Sanders’s next birthday.

***

I would like to hear more about this odd story:

“WCS Seeks to Defray Flap Over Patriotism at Games”

Has it received any national attention?

***

On a very, very different note, I really like the impromptu remarks made by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis (a former Marine Corps general) to some troops who appear to be deployed somewhere in the Middle East:

https://www.facebook.com/usawtfm/videos/10155815797353606/

***

On the matter of DACA, I think that this brief article gets things just about right:

“Trump Gets DACA Right”

I feel for the kids caught up in this. I’ve heard very sad stories of young people raised in the United States and, in a few cases, speaking little or no Spanish, being sent “back” to countries where they’ll be utter and complete foreigners.

But the policy seems to have been a gross case of executive overreach, and it’s proper that it be overturned. We are, or should be, a nation of laws. Even if, sometimes, those laws get in the way of good things that we want to do and that actually should be done.

By far not for the first time and, I trust, not for the last time, I’m going to cite a favorite passage from Robert Bolt’s classic play A Man for All Seasons:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

So I’m inclined to judge that President Trump has done the right thing in deciding to back away from DACA — and that Congress is no obliged to get its act together, for once, and do the right thing. Which will be to mitigate if not eliminate the harmful effects of what President Trump has just done.

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