Here’s a story I missed while I was in San Diego visiting with friends.
The United States Supreme Court has sided with a Colorado baker in a case that put anti-discrimination laws up against freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said in a 7-2 decision June 4, that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had violated the Constitution's protection of religious freedom in its ruling against the baker, who refused to make a wedding cake for a homosexual couple.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, leftist idealogues that they are, dissented as one would expect.
Justice Kennedy noted the case had a limited scope, writing that the issue "must await further elaboration". Across the country, appeals in similar cases are pending, including another case at the Supreme Court from a florist who didn't want to provide flowers for a homosexual wedding.
The ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission stems from the case argued before the court last December from an incident in 2012 when Charlie Craig and David Mullins asked the Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, to make a cake for their wedding reception. Phillips refused, saying his religious beliefs would not allow him to create a cake honoring their marriage.
The couple filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which decided the baker's action violated state law. The decision was upheld by the Colorado Court of Appeals, one of the most liberal and self-contradictory courts in the country. The Colorado Supreme Court wouldn't take the case, letting the ruling stand. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
During oral arguments at the high court, many questions came up about what constituted speech, since the baker claimed he should have freedom of speech protection.
The ruling's opinion honed in on the argument of free speech and religious neutrality, saying the baker's refusal was based on "sincere religious beliefs and convictions" and when the Colorado Civil Rights Commission considered this case, the court said: "It did not do so with the religious neutrality that the Constitution requires."
The court opinion also noted the delicate balance at stake in this case, saying: "Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason, the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights. The exercise of their freedom on terms equal to others must be given great weight and respect by the courts. At the same time, the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression."
But delving further, the court curiously deemed the specific cake in question was an artistic creation, not just a baked good. The ruling says: "If a baker refused to sell any goods or any cakes for gay weddings, that would be a different matter," noting that the state would have a strong case that this would be a denial of goods and services going beyond protected rights of a baker.
Here, the court said the issue was the baker's argument that he "had to use his artistic skills to make an expressive statement, a wedding endorsement in his own voice and of his own creation".
That specious reasoning aside, the court opinion went on to say that as Phillips' contention "has a significant First Amendment speech component and implicates his deep and sincere religious beliefs.
In this context the baker likely found it difficult to find a line where the customers' rights to goods and services became a demand for him to exercise the right of his own personal expression for their message, a message he could not express in a way consistent with his religious beliefs."
Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, emphasized the narrowness of the Court's opinion, stating that it was based on "concerns unique to the case but reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the marketplace, including against LGBT people."
Of course, we haven’t heard the end of cases such as this as the homosexual community continues to seek advancement of their cause through courts, knowing they cannot achieve their agenda by legislative initiatives.
For the time being, then, this decision appears to confirm that, according to the Constitution, people of faith have rights that should be respected by government bureaucrats.
Whether this principle of law will endure future assaults by the homosexual community remains to be seen.
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