Editorial: What’s Next on Same-Sex Wedding Cakes?

Religious and individual liberty survived the Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop decision unscathed, but we’re likely to see a day when businesses and individuals are punished by the state for abiding by their moral and religious convictions. When that happens, lawsuits may be less effective than simply refusing to comply, accepting the punishment, and allowing the world to see just how coercive “liberalism” can be.

Weekly Standard Editors

"On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who in 2012 refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Phillips, an expert baker who has owned his business, the Masterpiece Cakeshop, for 24 years, concluded that his Christian faith wouldn’t allow him to create a custom-baked cake for two men wishing to celebrate their matrimonial union.

"In 2012 the Court’s Obergefell decision hadn’t yet happened, and indeed Colorado law didn’t yet recognize same-sex marriage. The two men, Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins, were planning to marry in Massachusetts (where same-sex marriage was already legal) and celebrate their union back in Colorado. Rather than simply picking a different bakery and perhaps complaining about Masterpiece Cakeshop on Yelp, they took their complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The commission investigated the case and found that Phillips had violated the couple’s rights—this despite the fact that the baker’s understanding of marriage was at that time perfectly in keeping with Colorado law.

"The commission’s insistence that Phillips had violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act was not prima facie unreasonable. That law forbids an individual or business to “refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry, the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation.” The addition of “sexual orientation” was added only a decade ago, but there it is in black and white.

"We suspect most fair-minded people feel there’s something unjust about coercing a baker to create a cake that, for reasons of deeply held conviction, he doesn’t want to create—especially when the same-sex couple in question needed only try the next bakery in the phone book. But the law was clear: No discrimination based on sexual orientation." . . .