WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking on a new clash between gay rights and religion in a case about a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in Colorado.
The justices said Monday they will consider whether a baker who objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds can refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
The case asks the high court to balance the religious rights of the baker against the couple’s right to equal treatment under the law. Similar disputes have popped up across the United States.
The decision to take on the case reflects renewed energy among the court’s conservative justices, whose ranks have recently been bolstered by the addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the high court.
The court will review a Colorado court decision that found baker Jack Phillips and his Masterpiece Cakeshop discriminated against the gay couple under Colorado law.
Phillips told the Supreme Court he has free speech and religious rights under the First Amendment that should protect him. He said he should not be compelled to bake a cake specifically to honor a same-sex marriage.
Colorado’s anti-discrimination law protects people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Charlie Craig and David Mullins filed a complaint against Phillips and his suburban Denver shop after Phillips said he would not create and decorate a cake in honor of their marriage.
Colorado did not permit same-sex couples to marry until 2014. Two years earlier, Craig and Mullin were planning to fly to Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage was legal, and host a reception in Denver upon their return to Colorado. They wanted the cake for the occasion.
Thank dog there are no more important issues facing this country, that SCOTUS can rehash this.
My thing is why would you want or trust someone like that to make your cake?
Will the justices, in their majesty (/s) define what constitutes a religion? (“For where two or three are gathered in my name???”). Can Rastafarian plumbers refuse to fix ‘Just say no’ Episcopalians’ toilets coz religion?
Bad AP, noting Gorsuch’s recent appointment while glossing over the unprecedented and controversial manner of the appointment is an irresponsible whitewashing of the truth.
“[Mr. Phillips] declines lucrative business by not creating goods that contain alcohol or cakes celebrating Halloween and other messages his faith prohibits, such as racism, atheism, and any marriage not between one man and one woman.” From NYT.
An even better question is what constitutes discrimination. I wonder if the SCOTUS would be hearing this case if the plantiffs wanted an atheist cake, or if the plaintiffs wanted pumpkins and a ghost in icing. What if the baker were a Christian Scientist who refused to make a birthday cake? It seems to me that the legality of discrimination – a right reserved to all business owners to choose who they do and don’t do business with – depends on the broader social environment and the civil-rights status of the aggrieved. Establishing a pattern of discrimination that follows from one business to the next, one town to the next, one class or generation to the next, seems to be the crux of determining when the state may and must step in and exercise moral control, which is what it is.
Also from the Times, quoting the couple’s lawyer: “It is no answer to say that Mullins and Craig could shop somewhere else for their wedding cake, just as it was no answer in 1966 to say that African-Americans could eat at another restaurant.” That’s precisely the way this should be looked at.
I had really hoped that Phillips would be out of business by now, but it goes to show that the market doesn’t punish bad business after all. Who knew?