Senior legal correspondent for NBC News Laura Jarrett said Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that the Supreme Court opened the door for discrimination based on any beliefs, including against interracial couples, with their ruling in favor of a web designer who refuses to create sites for same-sex weddings.
Mitchell said, “I’m just looking at the LGBTQ decision, and I can see application to civil rights law that can have broader consequences down the road.”
Jarrett said, “I think what you’re seeing, Andrea, in combination between today’s decisions and the decision yesterday on affirmative action is a court that is deeply divided with dramatically different world views about discrimination, about the rights of disenfranchised minorities and what to do about that. In the case of the graphic designer in Colorado she says I’m happy to make websites for gay people in general, and just don’t want to do wedding websites. And the problem with that is it runs head first into public accommodation laws in the state of Colorado, like many places it says you cannot discriminate against people for sexual orientation.”
She added, “Justice Sotomayor said you’ve now provided open season for discrimination on all kinds of different fronts, not just limited to gay peoples but on the basis of race. So what’s to stop someone from saying I don’t want to serve couples that are in an interracial relationship? There’s no meaningful difference there.”
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