A Brief Discussion on Masterpiece Cakeshop Ruling

Since Monday's Supreme Court decision, my friends on the left and the right have been either cheering the decision or crying "separation of Church and State." For me, as a small business owner, the decision is landmark, because it set the precedent that as a small business owner, I can say no, and my rights to not provide you with services, should be respected; especially if they violate my Christian beliefs.

So what just happened? On June 4, 2018 the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down a landmark decision that has many people upset. The decision was paramount to Christians who are seeing their rights taken away in other countries, though not fully taken away here, definitely infringed upon. 

So what just happened, according to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, In the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Court was asked to decide whether the First Amendment is violated when a state punishes a citizen for refusing, for reasons of religious conscience, to create a cake that celebrates a same-sex wedding. Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, declined to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding because he believes it would be sinful to participate in celebrating a same-sex wedding. Despite the fact that another bakery readily created the cake the couple wanted, they brought a sexual-orientation-discrimination claim against Phillips. A state civil rights commission found Jack Phillips had violated Colorado law and prohibited him from creating cakes for any wedding unless he also created cakes for same-sex weddings. 

Phillips appealed to Colorado’s appellate court, which upheld the commission’s ruling, and the Colorado Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, granted review of his free speech and free exercise claims and heard oral arguments on December 5.

In the majority decision, the Court noted that the “laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect gay persons and gay couples in the exercise of their civil rights, but religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.”

In the eyes of the Supreme Court, the Colorado Commission did not treat Jack Phillips impartially, but in fact engaged in a reverse sort of discrimination against him. In an important line of the Court’s reasoning authored by Justice Kennedy, the Court wrote that “laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect gay persons and gay couples in the exercise of their civil rights, but religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.” 

This is not an insignificant line to dwell on. The Court did not lay animus or prejudice at the feet of Jack Phillips. The Court did not equate the views of Bible-believing Christians who share a long-held conviction of marriage with rank bigotry. The Court ruled against government hostility to religion.

Why does this matter? Because there are voices coming from mainstream segments of society that want to equate goodwill convictions on marriage held by Bible-believing Christians as the same types of views held by hood-wearing Klansmen of the KKK. That is one of the main reasons that progressives are upset about today’s ruling. It is less about a denial of goods (because the vast majority of businesses have no problem making custom cakes for a same-sex wedding) and more about progressivism’s insistence and expectation that the Supreme Court adopt the posture of treating any disagreement with the Sexual Revolution as an irrational form of prejudice held for no other reason than hate.

A LGBT donor, Tim Gill, said he wanted to fund LGBT political initiatives in conservative states to “punish the wicked.”

Mark Tushnet, a Harvard law professor, wrote that cultural progressives should treat Christians like the Allies treated defeated Nazi Germany. In other words, brook no compromise.

Jack Phillips was accused of being a bigot, and of holding views equated with Nazism.

Justice Kennedy stated “[T]he religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.  As this Court observed in Obergefell v. Hodges, ‘[t]he First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.”’

He went on to say “To describe a man’s faith as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use” is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical—something insubstantial and even insincere.” 

And for those who are worried about the ruling, just understand that the Supreme Court’s decision was certainly not a complete win for those seeking religious exemptions to celebrating same-sex marriages. There is no clearly delineated protection for future bakers, florists or photographers who feel that providing cakes, flowers and photography for same-sex weddings would violate their religious principles. By focusing on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s failure to provide the “neutral and respectful” adjudication of Phillips’ religious claims that the free exercise clause requires, the court left open broader questions of compelled speech and free exercise.