The Supreme Court of the United States
In re: Robert Carey v. Dixie Inn, LLC
Case №19–21 101 M.S.Ct. 112
JJEagleHawk, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which, RestrepoMU, and CuriositySMBC, JJ., joined.*
This case comes to us on appeal from the Dixie District Court of Appeals, which held in a partially ridiculous opinion (which affirmed, in part, a fully ridiculous trial court holding) that the Dixie Religious Freedom Restoration Act¹ (“DRFRA”) gives innkeepers the right to deny lodging accommodations to potential customers if they can find a book that says they should. It should be obvious to anyone reading this nut graf that such a position is morally and ethically unsupportable. The question presented to us is whether such a position is legally unsupportable. Obviously, it is.
However, when an answer is this obvious, it’s sometimes difficult to explain why it is without damaging your brain, and the tardiness of this opinion is, at least in part, due to that difficulty. (It managed, for example, to completely break Justice /u/WaywardWit, the most recent person to whom this opinion was assigned, and who ultimately resigned and checked himself into a mental health facility rather than tackle writing something this blindingly obvious.) The opinion, after much assignment and reassignment in chambers, has come to me, and I have delivered the same in roughly 24 hours because I have the largest pseudo-nut-remnants remaining, and the fewest fucks to give. If no other canon holding is ultimately extracted from this opinion, I hope it is that.
Besides, we’ve been busy tackling other more pressing things, such as drafting, redrafting, and honing the Court’s expansive budget (plz approve) and acquiring animals for placement in the new exhibits that will be built once the budget is inevitably accepted. That time suck, obviously, has taken precedence over-explaining to the Dixie justices just why, plainly, it is important to recognize that we live in a society and that, when you enter the commercial marketplace, you lose the ability to do things that you retain the ability to do in your private life. We can’t allow merchants to refuse to sell necessary goods or services to people whose lifestyle the merchant is inclined to find icky. I mean, really. If we held that this was permissible, how would Carrot Top ever manage to purchase anything, from anywhere? Or Kathy Griffin? Or my ex-girlfriend Sarah, a certifiable minion of the Great Satan himself? They’ll starve to death and be forced to live outside, roaming the countryside. I can imagine no greater horror.
Here are the facts as they were presented to us:
On February 2, 2018, Robert Carey, a white man, and Sharon Edwards, a black woman, sought lodging in within Dixie Inn, LLC, which is run by Sheri Lawler. Ms. Lawler denied their request for a single room on the grounds of her religious belief that “the Bible prohibits relationships between persons of different races” and offered them two separate rooms at the same price.² The couple opted to leave and had to drive several hours before they could find an innkeeper with sufficient intelligence, integrity, or self-serving economic interest to sell them a single room. The couple filed suit stating that the denial of service was a violation of Dix. Stat. § 760.08, which entitles all persons to “the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, handicap, familial status, or religion.”
Undeterred by reason, logic, or common decency, Ms. Lawler and her (probably) seersucker-suit-wearing attorneys proffered three different justifications for their almost comically antiquated bigotry:
(1) the Dixie Constitution (which guarantees freedom of religion); and (2) the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which guarantees the free exercise of religion), and (3) the Dixie Religious Freedom Restoration Act, DIX. STAT. 761.00 et seq. (which allows a person to claim religious burden as a defense in judicial proceedings).
The Dixie District Court of Appeals properly rejected arguments (1) and (2) supra, correctly noting that Dixie’s Civil Rights Act³ is a neutral law of general applicability and that appellants could not (and did not) prove otherwise. In fact, the court noted that appellants did not proffer any facts showing that the DCRA disproportionately burdened Christians or any religion in its application.
But then the Dixie District Court of Appeals lost its way on argument (3). It correctly noted that “even a neutral law of general applicability must meet the standard of strict scrutiny where the law “substantially burdens the free exercise of religion,” Carey v. Dixie Inn, LLC, 2018 DX APP 0001, at 3 (citing DIX STAT § 761.03), and that eradication of discrimination constitutes a compelling government interest. So far, so good. But then it went wrong when it held that a prohibition on that discrimination, without providing for an exception for genuinely held religious beliefs, is not sufficiently “narrowly tailored” to achieve that goal. That ain’t so, guys.
The problem here appears to be Dixie District Court of Appeals either asked and answered the wrong questions or failed to completely address them. It should therefore not be surprising that they reached the wrong conclusions. The Dixie District Court of Appeals concerned itself only with reconciling a conflict between two “valid” state statutes, asking whether religious free exercise or anti-discrimination measures must “lose” in a legitimate conflict between the two, and concluded by picking a winner via the incorrect application of one cherry-picked U.S. Supreme Court decision from nearly forty years ago. But a holding like this manages to elevate one religion at the expense of others, while simultaneously denigrating legitimate religious practice, obliterating principles of judicial economy and restraint, and failing to provide justice and complete attention to all litigants in a situation where all parties deserved to receive it.
And, if the Dixie District Court of Appeals' decision was the last stop on the line, that result would be a judicial tragedy on several levels. Fortunately for Mr. Carey and Ms. Edwards, it is not, though we are tasked with finishing and completing the analysis that the Dixie District Court of Appeals should have completed so that appropriate directions can be provided on remand. There are so many cases here that help make up the framework of law that resolves this issue — a non-exhaustive list would include United States v. Carolene Products Company, 304 U.S. 144, FN4 (1938), Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), Gonzales v.O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006), and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. ___ (2014). But rather than work through those cases in painstaking detail, we’re just going to make this so basic that even Mrs. Lawler can understand it.
So, law students, and Mrs. Lawler, here’s the law LOL: the U.S. Constitution and other federal statutes provide an unqualified, fundamental right to have, communicate, or express any religious belief, and the government (federal, state, local, whatever) cannot interfere in any way with the sincerely held religious beliefs in the minds or the voices of its citizens. When those thoughts or words turn to behavior — to ACTION — those actions, as manifestations of the religious beliefs (whatever they are) can be regulated, but only when such regulations are necessary to a compelling state interest, are narrowly tailored to achieve the purpose, and use the least restrictive means of achieving the purpose. This test recognizes the reality that religious freedom is an important and fundamental right and should be infringed as little as possible, but not become so inviolable as to provide an impenetrable shield to legal sanction, or so important as to provide the religiously zealous with an inescapable, state-sanctioned cudgel for proselytization. No one can tell you what to think, but if the government is going to limit how you can express those beliefs, it better have an airtight reason for doing so. The Dixie District Court of Appeals erred by stating that there must be a religious exemption offered when a valid and neutral law of general applicability operates to restrict religious activity. That is not part of the test, and never has been, because to include it would (in many, if not most cases) eradicate the rule. Sometimes, religious exemptions can be made. Sometimes, they can’t.
Here, we think they can’t. There’s a bunch of reasons for this, but as an exercise, in judicial restraint, we will note simply that Dixie Inn failed to demonstrate that the “the compelling government interest in combating discrimination can be advanced while allowing for religious exceptions.” It’s just isn’t clear that they proved this. We addressed this tangentially in our majority opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, when we stated that our decision, in that case, provided no shield to those that seek to cloak racial discrimination in the mantle of religious practice: “[t]he Government has a compelling interest in providing an equal opportunity to participate in the workforce without regard to race, and prohibitions on racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that critical goal.” (emphasis added). It seems ridiculous that we have to state that the applicable law with regard to the prohibition of racial discrimination in workforce participation is the same law that covers public accommodation, and they similarly reflect a shared, compelling, narrowly-tailored interest.
Therefore, we explicitly reaffirm today that religious objections, whether based in the DRFRA, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (“RFRA”), 107 Stat. 1488, 42 U. S. C. §2000bb et seq., or the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution do not invalidate the protections of the DCRA or the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or 1968. It does not matter how genuine the religious objections raised by those that do not wish to comply with these statutes — Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is based on a compelling government interest that narrowly tailored, and there is no less-restrictive way for antidiscrimination-in-public-accommodation laws to operate and still be effective. This is because allowing a religious innkeeper to discriminate in providing their accommodations seriously undermines the compelling government interest and the effectiveness of the prohibition. The Court notes that Dixie Inn’s argument that accommodation was provided simply in different rooms is unconvincing. (It’s also, as noted in FN2 above, not even clear that Dixie Inn’s actions would effectively bring about the desired outcome). Accommodations must be provided equally and in a manner that has no basis in discrimination. To accept Dixie Inn’s argument would be to restore a doctrine of “separate but equal” and partially invalidate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We have no interest in bringing back segregation. The bottom line is that all of Dixie Inn’s arguments must be rejected and the Dixie District Court of Appeals erred in holding otherwise. We have been clear about why this is so in the past, and hope that it is even clearer now.
As a side point, it has to be noted that Ms. Lawler shouldn’t have an expectation of an exemption here. She entered the marketplace voluntarily and opened a business that exists as a secular entity, separate and apart from her, that operates with the approval of a secular government. Opening a business allows her to benefit in many ways (tax breaks, liability limitation, etc.). But to receive those benefits, she also has to give something up. She takes on additional burdens and restrictions to behavior (e.g. file reports, pay taxes, not discriminate, etc.). There is no such thing as a free lunch, they say, and here, the cost of her doing business in Dixie is that she doesn’t get to operate said business in pure conformity with her religious beliefs. She gets to believe, personally, whatever she wants, and in her own home, she can prohibit people from staying the night if she doesn’t approve of their lifestyle. But she gives up the right to operate her business that way once she sought to operate at a profit with the stamp of approval of the government in a secular marketplace.
Finally, the Dixie District Court of Appeals would do well to remember that the First Amendment, and by relation, the RFRA and DRFRA, require the Civil Rights Act and similar laws to only be narrowly tailored, not to be “perfectly tailored.” Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, 575 U.S. ___ (2015).
THEREFORE, for all of the foregoing reasons, the matter is REVERSED AND REMANDED to the Dixie District Court of Appeals FOR PROCEEDINGS NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION. Dixie Inn is hereby ORDERED to be ashamed of itself. And Epstein didn’t kill himself.
It is so ordered.
*Chief Justice IAmATinman and Justice Notevenalongname took no part in the decision.
² Exactly how sleeping in separate rooms for a single night would doom Mr. Carey and Ms. Edwards’ relationship to failure, or why Ms. Lawler believed they wouldn’t still stay together in the same room no matter how many rooms they bought, are questions that are not part of the record. It might have been pointless to ask them, as tub-thumpers like Ms. Lawler don’t usually think these things through.
