Apparently there has not been a whole lot printed or said about the SCOTUS decision announced on June 26, 2017. The court agreed to hear this fall an appeal of the Colorado courts’ rulings in Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Maybe this is due to the fact that we don’t recognize significance of the case. The profound nature of the outcome of this decision cannot be exaggerated and certainly should not be diminished. Both sides clearly understand that this case has always been about much more than the making and selling of a cake. Many in our judiciary, both conservatives and liberals, understand that this ruling will dictate the legislative and judicial interpretation of both the 1st and 14th Amendments for the foreseeable future and perhaps forever.
The potential ramifications of this fall ruling may surpass those of the monumental Obergefell v. Hughes. That 5 to 4 decision of June, 2015 determined that “homosexual marriage” is a right guaranteed by our Constitution. Not only did that ruling change the legal definition of marriage in all of America, it may have initiated the end of representative democracy. In essence, this decision implied there is no more place for healthy debate, reasoned arguments, or any appeal to natural and moral law, or even the wisdom gleaned through millennia of human experience for defining what marriage is. The court’s decision not only ignored our country’s entire history and judicial tradition, but unequivocally repudiated it.
The now deceased Justice Antonin Scalia was both candid and sarcastic in his written dissent of that decision. He pointed out that the arrogance of the majority justices was “breathtaking” when they asserted that every State violated the Constitution from its inception and especially for all of the 135 years between the ratification of the 14th Amendment and Massachusetts’ permitting of same sex marriage in 2003. Justice Scalia also opined that these majority justices had somehow discovered in that [14th] Amendment an alleged “fundamental right” which has been absent or overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and by almost everyone else in the time since.
The court’s majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hughes set forever a clear tone for the disparaging and condemnation of those with sincerely held religious beliefs who disagree with same-sex marriage. The freedom to hold and promote an opinion on homosexuality, same sex marriage, gender alteration, and so forth is in essence limited to those who support such aberrations. To speak in opposition of such practices is to guarantee that one will be branded, stigmatized, or vilified as a hater, a bigot, a racist, a homophobe, unloving, insensitive, and a schismatic trouble-maker. Clearly any opposition to the new “orthodoxy” must now be censured and ultimately silenced in the view of an ever growing and angry mob.
Now we await the outcome of Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In 2012, a Colorado baker named Jack Phillips politely refused to make a custom wedding cake for two men who had been recently “married” in Massachusetts. The Bay State was one of only a very few states where same-sex marriage was legal in that year. The “couple” had planned a delayed wedding reception back in Colorado, the state where they resided. Mr. Phillips, a devout Christian, explained to them that making the cake would violate his conscience and biblical beliefs. Those beliefs included the conviction that marriage is a holy covenant exclusively between a man and woman.
These were not “newly discovered” standards for Jack Phillips. For years, it was the same response given should anyone request a cake for celebrating Halloween, or desire a message that in Phillip’s view was anti-American, anti-family, or racist. He also declined to create cakes with messages which were hateful, vulgar or profane. Even the opposition conceded that Phillips strived to honor God in all aspects of his life, including his bakery trade.
This decision to obey the Bible and follow his convictions had cost his bakery many thousands of dollars in lost revenue through the years. But neither did Phillips refuse nor object to serving any customer regardless of their sexual orientation. It is acknowledged by all that he had readily created other items for gay and lesbian patrons. Phillips simply believed that only marriage between a man and a woman was biblical and worthy of celebration. Therefore, he felt impelled to decline to make a custom cake for a non-biblical marriage ceremony because of the message it conveys, and his participation in that message—it was never an issue because of the persons requesting it.
When Charles Craig and David Mullins were rebuffed, they did not simply seek the services of another baker. They could have and there were many who would have accommodated the couple. In fact, one nearby bakery had offered, and the couple had quickly accepted, a “free” wedding cake with a rainbow design and common marriage sentiments. At least 4 other local bakeries had also offered to bake the wedding cake. But both sides know, the issue to be settled by SCOTUS this fall is not about a cake nor even about “equality” or “the civil rights of homosexuals.” The main issue seems more to center on a determination by Colorado to silence unwanted and politically incorrect speech in reference to the open opposition of a secular world view pertaining to the nature of marriage. The couple immediately filed charges of discrimination based on sexual orientation with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
After an investigation, Phillips was found guilty of the violation and was ordered to [1] create wedding cakes celebrating same-sex marriage, [2] retrain his staff to do likewise, and [3] report to the “Commission” every declined order for any reason for the next two years. Phillips appealed the ruling and has since lost at every level in the Colorado courts. In this process, Phillips has noted the hypocrisy and inconsistency of other Colorado Civil Rights Commission decisions when contrasted with his case. The “Commission” in the past has ruled that three secular bakeries did not discriminate when they refused a Christian customer’s request for custom cakes that criticized same-sex marriage on religious grounds. Moreover, the “Commission” has stated that some situations would allow a baker to refuse to serve a customer. They noted for example, and rightly so, that a black baker could refuse to make a cake with a hate message for a member of the KKK or Aryan Nation or other white supremacist group.
But are not there other legitimate reasons for a refusal of service? Should a Muslim baker be forced to make a cake with a message that denigrates the Koran? Should a homosexual baker be forced to create a cake message which celebrates and honors the activities and ministries of say the “Westboro Baptist Church?” Should a Jewish baker be forced to make a product with a message which disparages Israel or Jews? I am sure that exceptions to Colorado rules would be readily granted for any of the above. Then why not for a Christian who is trying to follow his biblical beliefs? This insane political correctness must stop!! Jack Phillips had every right and even an obligation to not offend his conscience or ignore what he truly believed God’s word demanded. His refusal to make that cake harmed no one. Not only Christians, but every American should be praying that Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission will be overturned.