BBO Discussion Forums: The Supremes are on a roll - BBO Discussion Forums

blackshoe, on 2015-July-03, 11:47, said:

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

Quote

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.

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.

helene_t, on 2015-July-03, 02:07, said:

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.

barmar, on 2015-June-30, 12:06, said:

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?

cherdano, on 2015-July-04, 02:56, said:

I found this:

Quote

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.

Zelandakh, on 2015-July-03, 14:37, said:

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

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

Quote

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.

blackshoe, on 2015-July-04, 09:09, said:

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).

Zelandakh, on 2015-July-04, 12:28, said:

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?

Winstonm, on 2015-July-04, 10:42, said:

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.

blackshoe, on 2015-July-04, 19:06, said:

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.

barmar, on 2015-July-04, 22:31, said:

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,

MrAce, on 2015-July-04, 22:44, said:

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.

barmar, on 2015-July-02, 10:26, said:

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.

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.

hrothgar, on 2015-July-05, 08:32, said:

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.

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?

y66, on 2015-July-05, 11:14, said:

I think "7" is being generous.

MrAce, on 2015-July-04, 22:44, said:

Couldn't a driver fake his starting time?

y66, on 2015-July-05, 11:14, said:

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?