Praise, scorn for Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action, LGBTQ rights split along party lines

The controversial decisions by the Supreme Court on LGBTQ rights and affirmative action show a “dangerous creep towards authoritarianism,” Democratic critics said Sunday while Republicans eyeing the White House stood behind the high court opinions.

The court ruling allowing a Colorado-based Christian web designer to refuse services to LGBTQ people fits in with efforts by state legislatures to chip away at equality and equal rights, said Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttgieg, who is gay.

The web designer claimed designing same-sex wedding sites would violate her religious beliefs.

Buttgieg called the ruling “a solution looking for a problem,” noting there was no evidence the web designer had been approached by someone seeking a same-sex wedding site.

“Matter of fact, it appears this web designer only went into the wedding business for the purpose of provoking a case like this,” Buttigieg said on CNN’s “State of the Union. “So you’re seeing more and more of these cases in these circumstances that are designed to get people spun up and designed to chip away at rights.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, called the landmark ruling “a victory for faith … a victory for religious freedom.”

“I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and I believe that every American is entitled to live, to work, to worship according to the dictates of their conscience,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I think the Supreme Court drew a clear line and said ‘yes’ to religious liberty.”

Fellow Republican Chris Christie, the former N.J. governor also seeking the party’s presidential nod, said he too stood with the court on behalf of the Christian wedding website designer.

The decision doesn’t stop LGBTQ couples from having access to the web designer’s business, Christie argued on CNN.

“They can access this business. They just can’t force the owner to do something that is against her personal religious beliefs,” he said. “The government doesn’t have the right to tell a business the nature of how they need to use their expressive abilities.”

The court also handed down a decision last week effectively ending affirmative action in college admissions, which Pence also backed, saying affirmative action had been a “temporary” solution.

“I really don’t believe there is” racial inequity in the nation’s education system, Pence said in response to the CBS moderator’s question.

“I believe there was,” he said. “There may have been a time when affirmative action was necessary simply to open the doors of all of our schools and universities, but I think that time has passed.”

Weighing in from the other side of the political spectrum was Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

“These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralization of power in the court,” she said on CNN. The justices “are expanding their role into acting as though they are Congress itself.”

With News Wire Services