Sanctuary!

The post title was borrowed from the cry of Quasimodo when he sought asylum for Esmeralda in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Victor Hugo's classic, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

And that's the topic for today: asylum. The left and its media puppets have been throwing about a lot of claims about the numbers of people attempting to cross our southern border - with and without children - that are doing so because they're seeking asylum. As usual, it's largely uninformed.

To be sure, those numbers are up. Why? Because it's easier to get to stay in this country when you've crossed the border illegally, if you can successfully present an asylum case. The problem is that, while those numbers may be up, there is significant question as to whether those seeking asylum actually have a case for it.

The bigger problem is that those on the left - those engaging in the social media hysteria on this topic, those in the media, and quite possibly those in Congress - don't have the first bloody clue what "asylum" means. Their only knowledge of the topic has been gleaned from Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, the New York Times, et. al.

So, as is the Curmudgeon's practice, let's go to the source documents and get the facts. Specifically, let's look at the Asylum Eligibility and Applications FAQ page on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website.

First, let's note that none of these laws are new; they weren't passed by Donald Trump. The sections cited below were last reviewed or updated in either 2008 or 2013.

Now, to the questions and their answers, in italics:

Where Can I Find the Law on Asylum?
The legal provisions governing the Asylum Program are codified in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). For the part of the law concerning asylum, please see INA § 208. Rules concerning eligibility requirements and procedures to be followed by applicants and the government are incorporated into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) at 8 CFR § 208. Asylum officers also rely on case law to adjudicate asylum claims.

The above is presented in case anyone actually wants to read the law. Instead of reading what some liberal blogger or journalist says the law is.

How Does the Asylum Officer Determine if I Am Eligible for Asylum?
The Asylum Officer will determine if you are eligible for asylum by evaluating whether you meet the definition of a refugee. The definition, which can be found in section 101(a)(42)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), states that a refugee is someone who is unable or unwilling to return to and avail himself or herself of the protection of his or her country of nationality or, if stateless, country of last habitual residence because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. The determination of whether you meet the definition of a refugee will be based on information you provide on your application and during an interview with an Asylum Officer.

The Asylum Officer will also consider whether any bars apply. You will be barred from being granted asylum under INA § 208(b)(2) if you:

Ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion 

• Were convicted of a particularly serious crime (includes aggravated felonies)
• Committed a serious nonpolitical crime outside the United States
• Pose a danger to the security of the United States
• Were firmly resettled in another country prior to arriving in the United States (see 8 CFR § 208.15 for a definition of “firm resettlement”)

You will also be barred from a grant of asylum under INA § 208 if you are described in any of the terrorism or security-related inadmissibility grounds at INA § 212(a)(3)(B) or (F).

Read and re-read the words in bold type above (emphasis added), as they form the foundation of whether these claims of asylum are justified. We'll explore that in detail later in this post.

What About My Spouse and Children?
You must list your spouse and all your children on your Form I-589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal, regardless of their age, marital status, whether they are in the United States, or whether they are included in your application or filing a separate asylum application.

You may ask to have your spouse and/or any children who are under the age of 21 and unmarried included in your asylum decision if they are in the United States. You should bring these individuals with you to the asylum interview. This means that if you are granted asylum, they will also be granted asylum status (unless they are barred from such status) and will be allowed to remain in the United States. However, if you are referred to the Immigration Court, they will also be referred to court for removal proceedings if they are not in legal status.

In other words, if your petition for asylum is legitimate, the kiddos get to stay in the U.S. with you. But if you presented bogus reasons for seeking asylum, the whole brood will get sent back home with you.

Who Is Eligible to Apply for Asylum?
You may only apply for asylum if you are arriving in or already physically present in the United States. To apply for asylum in the United States, you may ask for asylum at a port-of-entry (airport, seaport, or border crossing), or, if you are already in the United States, you may file Form I-589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal, at the appropriate Service Center. You may apply for asylum regardless of your immigration status, whether you are here legally or illegally.

This point has been made time and again, but the left ignores it: you may only legally petition for asylum if you arrive in the U.S. at a port of entry, as defined above. If you climb a fence, crawl through a tunnel or swim the Rio Grande, you may not legally ask for asylum. So why wouldn't you just go to a port of entry to make your claim?

Simple: if you know your claim for asylum is unfounded, you know that if you cross at a port of entry to make that claim, you'll eventually get sent home after your case is adjudicated. But if you cross illegally at some other point along the border, you only have to present your unfounded claim for asylum if you get caught. The odds are in your favor.

Now, in case anyone wants to review the actual form used to request asylum, here's the link: https://www.uscis.gov/i-589. Just click on the hyperlink for the Form I-589 pdf.

As you read it - you are reading it, right? - pay particular attention to page 5. Note Question 1: "Why are you applying for asylum or withholding of removal ...?" The only possible answers are:

• Race
• Religion
• Nationality
• Political opinion
• Membership in a particular social group
• Torture Convention

This is the foundation of the "Credible Fear" and "Reasonable Fear" standards that are the basis for decisions regarding refugee status, and the granting of asylum.

Here's the rub: those standards are based on persecution, for the reasons above, by one's government. Gang violence doesn't meet the standard. Lack of economic opportunity doesn't meet the standard. Being reunited with one's extended family already in the U.S. doesn't meet the standard.

Voting Democrat for life out of gratitude because the left gave you a free pass to get into the U.S. for any of those reasons that don't meet the standard, also doesn't meet the standard, as much as the Democrats would like it to.

Okay, given that the vast majority of illegal immigrants - seeking asylum or not - come from Mexico and Central America, let's examine each of the criteria noted above, and whether people from those countries can justifiably claim persecution by their government on those bases.

• Race - the people crossing our southern border from Central America are all of the same race. So that's a big nope.
• Religion - most of those crossing the southern border from those countries are members of the dominant religion of their home countries, and there are no reports of religious persecution in those countries. (Indeed, Christians in those countries will generally be treated better by their governments than Christians in the U.S. will be treated by the left.)
• Nationality - since the people coming from, say, Nicaragua are Nicaraguan, and the Nicaraguan government is also Nicaraguan, that's also a nope. (This standard might apply if there were a civil war going on, and the country was divided, as was the case with, for example, Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are currently no civil wars going on in Central America.)
• Political opinion - there are no reported instances of persecution in those countries on this basis, either. True, a number of the governments are corrupt, and in several of those countries both government officials and the police are complicit with the cartels and gangs, which increases the risk of violence. However, some police officers in the U.S. have been on the take from various criminal elements, going back to the 1930s and beyond. And if you think our government isn't corrupt, you're a hopeless Pollyanna.
• Membership in a particular social group - this standard is generally applied in cases of sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or HIV status (the precedent for this was established in 1994 by President Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, based on "Matter of Toboso-Alfonso," a court case involving a gay Cuban man). It's highly unlikely that a majority of the families crossing our southern border could present a claim for asylum on this basis.
• Torture Convention - while it's certainly possible that prisoners convicted of crimes in those countries, whether rightly or wrongly, are tortured, this is not the scenario for which this standard was intended.

To that last point, let's examine the history of asylum. A nice summary is presented by the immigrant rights organization, Immigration Equality:

"U.S. asylum law is derived from international agreements written after World War II which provide protection to people fearing or fleeing from persecution. The first agreement, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, was drafted by the United Nations in response to the large migrations of people in the aftermath of the Second World War. The United Nations attempted to set forth an internationally agreed upon standard for who will be considered a refugee. The 1951 Convention, however, only applied to people who were refugees on the basis of events occurring before January 1, 1951. The United Nations incorporated the definition of refugee set forth in the 1951 Convention but expanded it to include future refugees in the 1967 U.N. Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. 1 The United States acceded to the 1967 Protocol in 1968. In order to bring U.S. law into compliance with its obligations under the Protocol, the United States enacted the Refugee Act of 1980, adopting essentially the same definition of refugee as set forth by the Convention."

It's important to note that the U.S. definition mirrors that of all other nations that acceded to the 1967 Protocol - in other words, the U.S. treats refugees no differently than any other country.

Note also the circumstances that gave birth to U.S. asylum law: the aftermath of WWII. At that time, a number of countries were persecuting residents on the basis of religion and nationality in particular. Think the Soviet Union under Stalin. And many of us can recall cases of legitimate claims of asylum from Soviet, East German or Chinese athletes who came to the U.S. for various competitions, then escaped their teammates and coaches and made their way to a U.S. embassy to seek asylum.

Thus asylum is generally granted on a political basis, again based on the factors presented above, and not due to economic circumstances, gang violence or family reunification. Let's face it; if escaping gang violence were a justification for seeking asylum in another country, half the population of Chicago would be living in Canada today.

Come to think of it, that's not such a bad idea.

But I digress. The following notes are taken from the CIA's World Factbook for each of these countries: Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico. (We don't get many illegal immigrants from Costa Rica and Belize - heck, Americans tend to move to those countries after retirement, so they can't be that bad.) The notes are in the Factbook's "People and Society" section for each country, under "Demographic Profile." My comments follow the notes for each country.

Guatemala: "Guatemalans have a history of emigrating legally and illegally to Mexico, the United States, and Canada because of a lack of economic opportunity, political instability, and natural disasters. Emigration, primarily to the United States, escalated during the 1960 to 1996 civil war and accelerated after a peace agreement was signed. Thousands of Guatemalans who fled to Mexico returned after the war, but labor migration to southern Mexico continues."

The civil war is long over. No mention of any of the factors noted above (if political instability were a justifiable criteria, we could all move to Costa Rica and Belize).

Nicaragua: "Nicaraguans emigrate primarily to Costa Rica and to a lesser extent the United States. Nicaraguan men have been migrating seasonally to Costa Rica to harvest bananas and coffee since the early 20th century. Political turmoil, civil war, and natural disasters from the 1970s through the 1990s dramatically increased the flow of refugees and permanent migrants seeking jobs, higher wages, and better social and healthcare benefits. Since 2000, Nicaraguan emigration to Costa Rica has slowed and stabilized. Today roughly 300,000 Nicaraguans are permanent residents of Costa Rica - about 75% of the foreign population - and thousands more migrate seasonally for work, many illegally."

Again, the civil war is over. Natural disasters, while tragic, don't fit the standard for asylum. And we don't grow a lot of bananas and coffee in the U.S.

El Salvador: "Salvadorans fled during the 1979 to 1992 civil war mainly to the United States but also to Canada and to neighboring Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Emigration to the United States increased again in the 1990s and 2000s as a result of deteriorating economic conditions, natural disasters (Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and earthquakes in 2001), and family reunification. At least 20% of El Salvador's population lives abroad. The remittances they send home account for close to 20% of GDP, are the second largest source of external income after exports, and have helped reduce poverty."

Yet again, the civil war is long over. Remittances back to the country give a hint to the real reason Salvadorans seek to emigrate: $$$.

Honduras: "Honduras' population growth rate has slowed since the 1990s, but it remains high at nearly 2% annually because the birth rate averages approximately three children per woman and more among rural, indigenous, and poor women. Consequently, Honduras' young adult population - ages 15 to 29 - is projected to continue growing rapidly for the next three decades and then stabilize or slowly shrink. Population growth and limited job prospects outside of agriculture will continue to drive emigration. Remittances represent about a fifth of GDP."

Again, look at the remittances as a percent of GDP. No mention of strife of any kind. Apparently the biggest driver of emigration from Honduras is a lack of birth control.

Mexico: the Factbook makes no mention of the reasons for emigration from Mexico, which is the 15th-largest economy in the world. But we know for a fact that it's not ruled by some despotic dictator like Stalin or Castro who persecutes Mexico's people. As noted in a previous post, I've visited Mexico several times as a tourist and never felt unsafe.

It's clear that the primary reason for seeking entry into the U.S. is economic. People want better opportunities to make a living, better health care, better education, maybe safety from natural disasters (though we're not immune from those). They undoubtedly know that the U.S. government is increasingly talking about providing some of these things for free, including to illegal immigrants.

Fine. Come here legally, go through the naturalization process, and become a citizen of the U.S.

Hiding that economic motivation behind false claims of asylum only bogs down the system, and makes it that much harder for legitimate claims of persecution to be processed. Remember a few years ago when the left was all a-clamor for the rights of Syrian refugees? If they really cared about the plight of legitimate refugees, they'd be less inclined to defend the influx on our southern border making false claims for asylum.

Where Was Your Voice?

The Curmudgeon has wanted to weigh in on the topic of children being separated from their parents at the border for several days now. However, I'm not sure where to begin. There is so much disinformation around this topic, it's so emotionally charged, and the truth is so obfuscated by the hysteria, that it's hard to present a cogent discussion of the topic, regardless of one's views regarding it.

However, the Curmudgeon has, as usual, uncovered the unerring truth. So here it is:

1. None of us knows the full facts surrounding this situation. I don't. You don't. Your friends don't. Your friends' friends don't. There's too much disinformation, too much emotion, too much partisan spin, to get at the facts. I've been trying, harder than most - and I generally know where to look. But it's become buried deeper than a coyote's tunnel under the border. The bare facts of this matter won't be found on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR or any other news outlet, let alone in the blogs and memes and mis-dated viral pictures floating around the internet.
2. The rhetoric has become hysterical. Not hysterical as in funny; hysterical as in hysteria. The inevitable references to Hitler, Nazi Germany, concentration camps, "babies being ripped from their mothers' arms" ... it's all just so much noise. And when you start spewing that nonsense, I just can't take you seriously. I've studied history. I know better. This is no Holocaust.
3. The vast majority of the public outcry has been politically motivated, whether from the talking heads in the media, or from your Facebook friends. It's yet another partisan reaction stemming from the inability to accept the results of the last presidential election.

Don't believe me? Consider this.

My Facebook feed has been inundated with friends speaking out about this situation - lending their voices to the call to end this practice. To those friends, I would respectfully ask a few questions:

When Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of young girls - separating them from their families - and subjected them to unspeakable horrors - where was your voice?

As long as human trafficking and sex slavery has been a global problem, with children separated from their families, with more slaves in the world today than at any time in human history - where was your voice?

When children are gunned down on the streets of our cities, separated forever from their families by senseless gang violence - where was your voice?

When the same practice is in place in other countries - including some of our allies, such as the U.K. - where was your voice?

When U.S. citizens who are parents are incarcerated, and separated from their children - where was your voice?

And what about when 186 abortions per 1,000 live births per year literally rip unborn babies from their mothers - where was your voice?

(To that last point, the irony is not lost on me that the very people who, when arguing the climate change issue, scoff at those who disagree with them, saying, "You can't deny the science," yet they themselves deny the irrefutable science that proves beyond a doubt when life begins.)

I ask these questions because none of the people I've heard lending their voice to this matter, lent their voices to these - and countless others - concerning children's issues.

It leaves one with the impression that this concern for children, this passion for their rights, began around, say, November 2016.

To wit: many of my friends who are speaking out about this are members of the United Methodist church, as am I. The bishops of the church recently released a statement calling for President Trump and Congress to end the practice of separating families at the border.

The bishops released a similar statement in 2009, calling on President Obama and Congress to end the same practice. Yet I don't recall any of my church friends speaking out then.

Ah, you may ask, so is the Curmudgeon in favor of separating families of illegal immigrants?

Here's the answer: no. I am not in favor of unnecessarily separating families of illegal immigrants. However:

I recognize that the very act of crossing our borders illegally is a crime (that's what "illegal" means), whether the border is with Mexico or Canada. I do not believe the solution is unfettered access to our country - open borders haven't worked so well in the EU. And Presidents from Reagan to Clinton to the Bushes to Obama have spoken in favor of securing our borders and stopping illegal immigration. They just failed to do anything about it.

I have concerns about incarcerating children with their parents. That is more cruel to me than separating them, if the parent is going to be incarcerated. The idea of jailing a kid just because the parent has broken the law isn't appealing to me.

I also have concerns about detaining parents and children together, which is now the at least temporary solution under the President's executive order. Because not all of the "parents" are parents. Some of them are posing as parents and are in fact smugglers and child traffickers, either using the children as chits to get themselves across the border, having paid the parents on the other side for the use of their kid, or are planning to sell the kids into slavery once in this country. To be candid, in situations in which we can't verify that the "parents" are actually the children's parents, I'd rather all of those kids be separated from the adults than hear of one child suffering abuse at the hands of an adult not his or her parent, while being detained with them.

I question the veracity of all the claims of asylum. More illegal immigrants come to the U.S. from Mexico than from all other countries combined, by half again. Mexico is far from an oppressive dictatorial regime. I've visited that country many times, and I've found her people to be delightful, hardworking and friendly. None of them seemed to be in fear of their government. I've personally always felt safe there, even when I got lost in less than the best part of one of her cities. So a defensible argument for the "credible fear" standard of asylum is hard to support.

I wonder why the parents themselves don't care if they are separated from their children. All of them, upon crossing the border, are given the option (after a brief amount of time, less than a day) to return across the border with their children. Yet large numbers of them choose willingly to be separated from their children so that they don't have to go back home (and again, the "asylum" argument is hard to buy in the vast majority of cases). If they themselves don't care if their children are separated from them, maybe those kids are better off in the care of relatives or foster parents, at the very least until the parents' cases are adjudicated.

And as for the much-decried "deterrent" argument - yes, I believe we need some kind of deterrent to the massive increase in immigrants crossing our border illegally with children in tow with the explicit intent of using those children as a chit to get to stay illegally in this country, whether those bringing the children are their parents, smugglers or child traffickers. We only have so many resources, especially when Congress refuses to act to curtail the activity.

(Why, by the way, does Congress refuse to act - especially the Dems, who have been such outspoken critics of this practice? Because there's an election looming, and if they can keep this political football bouncing on the field until November, they might be able to eke out a majority. Using these kids as fodder for partisan political gain is more abhorrent to me than any of this.)

In short, this is a very complex issue, one whose nuances are far beyond the simple outcry of these recent converts to passion over children's issues. There is not a simple solution; if there were, I'm sure that one of these protesting voices would have offered one, and I haven't seen a single solution offered. As a CEO, I always told my employees that people who brought problems to my attention were a dime a dozen - after all, I can see the problems for myself - but people who brought me solutions were invaluable.

If these comments don't apply to you, your conscience is clear. Thank you for always and consistently speaking out in support of justice for children, both in the U.S. and across the globe.

But if you haven't done that - if this is a new concern for you - you might want to do some soul-searching, and ask yourself whether your concerns are nothing more than just another brick to add to the anti-Trump wall that's been building since his election.

Why the Shrinking Middle Class is a Good Thing

A brief tidbit from the Curmudgeon - I'm hoping to use an upcoming week-long road trip to delve into some topics that have been more front and center lately, but for now, hopefully this will tide you over.

A friend was recently decrying the shrinking middle class, and how bad that is. Such laments are usually accompanied by grumbling along the lines of, "the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer." The popular notion, at least on the left, is that the rich moguls keep grabbing more and more, and they steal the very crumbs out of the mouths of the peasants they enslave.

Well, not so fast. Yes, it's true; the middle class is shrinking. A Pew Research Center study found that the middle class shrank from 61% of households in 1970 to just 51% in 2013. (And before anyone tries to put a partisan spin on that, let's note that that time period spans numerous presidential administrations and Congresses, on the right and on the left - as well as numerous economic cycles, both boom and bust.)

However, if the middle shrinks, it's only bad if it's because those who used to be in the middle have now seen their fortunes fall to a greater extent than those that have seen their fortunes rise. In other words:

Did the middle class shrink because the lower class grew, or because the upper class did?

Indeed, the same Pew study found that, over that same span of time, the share of upper-income households rose from 14% to 20%, while that of lower-income households shrank from 29% to 25%.

Friends, isn't that the whole point of the American Dream? Those at the lower end of the income scale move up into the middle class, and those folks in turn move into the upper class? That's a good thing, right?

"Ah," the left says, "but that proves our point - the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer!"

No, they don't. The numbers above don't indicate anything of the kind. What they do indicate is that there are more of the rich than there were in 1970 - but, at the same time, fewer of the poor! Again, isn't that a good thing?

I anticipate a final lament from those on the left: "Yeah, but that was through 2013. Trump has made it worse!"

Again, not so fast. Average hourly earnings of production workers have grown at a faster year-over-year pace since Trump was sworn in than they did during Obama's tenure - and Obama had the luxury of starting out with wages so depressed there should have been no place to go but up, and he also had the assistance of unprecedented monetary stimulus. Yet he still couldn't get wages growing.

So it's highly doubtful that Trump has reversed the trend noted in the Pew study, since wage growth is accelerating. The tide is rising, folks, and it's lifting all ships - as it should.

That Takes the Cake

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Now, you all know the Curmudgeon loves his facts, so let's review the facts in this case, and ignore the media hype (on both sides).

In 2012, David Mullins and Charlie Craig went into Phillips' bakery and asked him to bake them a cake for their wedding. Phillips declined, stating that he couldn't create the cake because doing so would violate his religious belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Mullins and Craig filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which ruled in their favor. Phillips filed suit with the Court of Appeals, and the case eventually found its way to the highest court in the land.

Phillips argued that his cakes are works of art, and that they represent a message - in this case, a message he couldn't agree with due to his faith. Mullins and Craig argued that, because they hadn't requested any kind of overt message on their cake, Phillips wasn't refusing on the basis of his beliefs, but on the basis of who they were and whom they loved.

Mr. Craig: "He simply turned us away just because of who we are instead of what we asked for." (See below for the refutation of that assertion.)

And so the court deliberated. And the court decided.

So armed with those facts, here's the Curmudgeon's take. But first, a disclaimer: the Curmudgeon is not herewith opining on whether same-sex marriage is right or wrong. He is merely taking the facts of this case as presented above, applying simple logic in an unbiased context, and on that basis providing food for thought, in the hopes that those not predisposed to one partisan view or another on this topic might consider the truth that there are two sides to every story, and that we all have the right to patronize a business or not based on its, and our own, values.

First, Mr. Phillips did not refuse to bake the wedding cake for Messrs. Mullins and Craig because of who they are and whom they love, regardless of what they may claim. Mr. Phillips offered to bake them anything else they wanted, so long as it wasn't a wedding cake. This proves that he was not refusing service to them, as they claimed; he was refusing a particular type of cake that sent a particular message that ran counter to his faith.

As an aside, this puts the lie to the claims by many on the left that Mr. Phillips refusal of Messrs. Mullins' and Craig's request hearkens back to the days of refusing to serve blacks due to the color of their skin.

Horsefeathers. The Curmudgeon lived through the Civil Rights movement, and remembers those struggles from his youth. In those days, a business would refuse to serve a black person, period. In this case, Mr. Phillips refused to bake Messrs. Mullins and Craig a wedding cake. Period. He had no issue serving them in any way that didn't send a message that violated his Christian beliefs, whether one agrees with them or not (and there are theological arguments both for and against his view). He would bake them cupcakes or cookies, but not a wedding cake.

Indeed, not only did Mr. Phillips offer to bake the two men any other baked goods, he has since claimed that he will gladly bake - other than a wedding cake - anything for any member of the LGBT community. In fact, he took that a step further: he stated unequivocally that he would not bake a cake that sent a message disparaging any group or person, such as an anti-LGBT message.

Mr. Phillips: I will "serve anybody who comes into my shop," but I will not "create cakes for every message."

Two other points of fact are relevant here. First, same-sex marriage wasn't even legal in Colorado at the time Messrs. Mullins and Craig entered Mr. Phillips' shop with their request. Their wedding would be held in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage was legal at that time; the cake was for the reception, which would be held when the couple returned to Colorado.

So - strictly as a point of law - how can the Colorado Civil Rights Commission rule that Mr. Phillips was discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, when that state's own laws forbade same-sex marriage at the time?

Score one for the rule of law, regardless your beliefs about same-sex marriage.

Second, the majority opinion in this "narrow" 7-2 ruling was penned by none other than Justice Anthony Kennedy - the same Justice Anthony Kennedy who penned the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which established in 2015 that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states. In a truly narrow 5-4 decision.

This puts the lie to any claims of bias on the part of the court based on its composition now vs. then. Justice Kennedy understood the facts, and understood the difference between true discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and the facts as they pertain to this matter, which is something different altogether.

Then, there's this. In 2015, internet evangelist Joshua Feuerstein recorded his phone call to a Florida pro-LGBT bakery requesting a cake for a pro-traditional marriage event, with the words "We do not support gay marriage" inscribed on the cake.

That bakery not only refused to bake the cake, they hung up on him. And then, when he made the taped phone call public, the bakery's owner threatened litigation. Feuerstein took down the youtube video of the call, but the bakery's owner re-posted it and contacted the FBI seeking to pursue criminal charges.

Double-standard, anyone?

But here's the thing. This issue is not about discrimination. It's not about refusing service on the basis of one's sexual orientation, which is as wrong as refusing service on the basis of the color of one's skin.

And it's not about religious persecution, although an argument could be made to that effect - one vlogger approached several Muslim bakeries requesting a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage, and was refused. While the veracity of that video has been disputed, it's not a reach to assume that Muslims - who believe strongly in the traditional marriage definition of one man, one woman - might refuse to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.

As would be their right. Because, folks, this is what this issue is about, plain and simple:

Capitalism. Free markets.

See, any business has a right to refuse to serve anyone on the basis of a belief, attire, or some other reason that is not related to that person's sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, or the color of their skin.

Refuse service to blacks? Jews? Gays? Women? Nope. You can't do that.

But - refuse service to Black Lives Matter because they want t-shirts that say "Down With Pigs"? To a Jewish group that requested banners reading "Jesus Was Not the Messiah"? To a gay person for simply being gay, or a woman for simply being a woman? (I'm not saying that any of these groups ever requested any of these things, but if they did, the owner of the business could rightfully refuse on the basis of the message.)

The Curmudgeon spent his formative years vacationing in Colorado in the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, hippies had discovered Colorado.

For the uninitiated, "hippie" is a term too loosely applied to anyone with long hair, at least back in those days. However, the hippies were a young, counter-culture group whose mantra was "Tune in, turn on, drop out." "Tune in" referred to their music, which was considered very avant-garde at the time - think Woodstock, Country Joe and the Fish, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, etc. "Turn on" referred, in general, to drug use - long before weed was legalized in Colorado. "Drop out" referred to dropping out of society and living communally.

Of course, the hippies later became the yuppies, the Baby Boomers, and became the very establishment they rebelled against, and founded companies like Apple and Microsoft, and became investment bankers and venture capitalists, and made tons of money. They traded in their Country Joe and the Fish for Tom Petty, their weed for Cabernet.

Eventually, most counter-culture movements succumb to the siren song of capitalism. It pays so much better than idealism, after all.

But I digress. As stated previously, the hippies discovered Colorado, a great place to tune in, turn on and drop out back in those halcyon days. And many of the traditional tourism-based Colorado businesses pushed back.

The Curmudgeon still recalls seeing the first "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service" signs posted in Colorado's stores and restaurants. (See, the hippie uniform included bare shirts and torsos.)

Now, one could argue that those businesses posted those rules for sanitary reasons. After all, who wants to sit at a lunch table next to some unwashed person whose armpits and toes are exposed for all the world to see?

Yet, restaurants the world over serve people wearing tank tops and wife beaters and flip-flops. What's the difference? Could those restaurants really have been trying to keep the hippies themselves out of their establishments?

Maybe. But the hippies didn't sue. Perhaps today they would. But instead, they simply exercised their free-market, capitalistic right (which may be why they eventually gravitated towards capitalism's alluring pull) - they took their business elsewhere.

And, coming full circle - that, boys and girls, is what makes this recent Supreme Court case an issue of capitalism and free markets, rather than one of discrimination or religious persecution.

Let's say you're a twenty-something heterosexual couple planning a wedding, and you strongly disagree with the concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman, despite your own sexual orientation. You learn that the baker you were considering for your wedding cake holds those traditional views of marriage and would refuse to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. (You could even ask, were you so inclined.)

Simple solution: find another baker.

Or, let's say you're a fundamentalist Christian who holds that marriage is between a man and a woman. You want a birthday cake for your wife to celebrate her 40th, and you're considering a bakery that gets good reviews, but you learn that it's pro-LGBT and you just aren't comfortable with that.

Fine. In a free-market economy, there are lots of bakers; find one that doesn't take such a position.

Or, let's say you're a modern-day hippie, and you want to take the family out to eat without their shirts and their shoes.

Fine ... okay, maybe you'll have to settle for the drive-through at McDonald's, or get grocery store delivery and grill out. In today's America, that's an option - gotta love capitalism.

The bottom line is that you can vote with your checkbook (or credit card, or Apple Pay), and affect the bottom line of the businesses with which you disagree. If you're in the vast majority, those businesses will go out of business.

But as long as Mr. Phillips and his ilk are willing to leave your money on the table - in his words, choosing between his relationship with his God and his business - it's their prerogative to do so. If they can still maintain a viable business, maybe that's just a testimony to the fact that there are a lot of divergent beliefs and values in this world, and there is room for all of them, albeit not without compromise or consequence, economically speaking.

In closing, consider this: what if the left had gotten their way in this case, and Mr. Phillips had been compelled to bake wedding cakes for whomever requested one?

Now, Mr. Phillips was so strong in his convictions that he was willing to stop baking wedding cakes altogether to avoid violating his religious principles. But had he not ...

He'd have been legally compelled to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples, even though he didn't want to.

And isn't that the crux of the matter? If I were gay, and wanted a wedding cake for my same-sex marriage, and the baker didn't want to bake it, but was legally forced to - would I still want to use that baker? Is not the issue whether the baker wants to? If the baker didn't want to, but had to due to a court ruling, would I feel better about that?

No, I wouldn't. I'd rather give my money and my patronage to a baker who didn't disagree with my lifestyle. That would be preferable to any smug satisfaction I might gain from legally forcing him (or her; let's not discriminate) to acquiesce to my wishes. After all, his views are still his views, and they are still divergent from mine. How could I feel good about doing business with him?

Thus the moral of the story: it's a big world, with a lot of people, not all of whom have the same beliefs or values. There are businesses that are accommodating to all beliefs and values, and some that aren't. Let's all respect our differences, even if we disagree with them. We have the ability - and the right - to choose with whom we do business. Let's do that, and let the laws of supply and demand dictate who will survive and who will not. Forcing a set of mores on business owners creates a slippery slope that we all probably don't want to go down.