Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument regarding a bakery that refused to decorate a cake for a gay couple. State "public accommodations" law requires businesses to serve customers. The bakery is claiming that cake decorating is such a high art that businesses cannot be forced to employ their skills against their religious beliefs.
But there is more to the issue. Bakeries have not only refused to serve LGBT people with specific writings, but also have refused to serve them at all if they knew baked goods were for a gay celebration. A victory for the bakery in this case would lead to a push for allowing businesses to exclude gay people from the market -- to Excommunicate those whose beliefs do not fall in line with business owners from participating in the economy.
A decision in favor of the bakery would set the stage to allow businesses generally to block economic participation of 'undesirables' in the economy -- either as consumers or employees.
Couple these extended religious rights of business owners with generalized deregulation and consolidation, and it could become quite difficult for American citizens to participate in the market -- as consumers and as employees.
The infamous case of Hobby Lobby decided recently by a 5-4 Supreme Court stood for the principle that business owners may discriminate against employees by disallowing workers from general programs offered by the government because the companies have religious beliefs.
This current case may take a giant step to allow businesses to claim religious exemption from serving customers.
In 2017, reactionaries are using the rights of "free speech" and "religion" to cast those who do not fit into some traditional understanding of the power structure out of society, and they are using business and employment practices to do so.
And it's working. Comments ...?