JACK PHILLIPS SPEAKS OUT IN WSJ | How Courts Will Interpret Masterpiece Cakeshop | From Cake To Flowers, What’s Next
June 8, 2018
TOP-ED
|In The Wall Street Journal, JACK PHILLIPS writes about his Supreme Court victory this week. He’s the baker at the center of the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision in which justices ruled narrowly in his favor. In The Journal, he argues that his perspectives and beliefs are inseparable from the work he creates. “The men who sued me say I discriminated against them. That’s not true. Declining to design something because of what it celebrates isn’t the same as refusing to serve people because of who they are. Those men are welcome in my shop today, just as they were in 2012. But I can’t create a cake that celebrates a view of marriage at odds with my Christian beliefs.”
THE FALLOUT
|Almost immediately following the Supreme Court’s decision to rule in favor of the Colorado baker who refused to make a gay wedding cake, a small business owner in Tennessee put up a “No Gays Allowed” sign in front of his store. It isn’t a new sign. In fact, it used to hang in his window until he removed it due to intense backlash. The sign returned this week, however, with the business owner declaring the SCOTUS decision a victory for Christianity.
STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES
|Justices yesterday considered taking up a possible sequel to the cake case — only this time, the task of the SCOTUS world would be to come up with headlines and puns about flowers. The case comes to 1 First by way of Washington state where a florist refused to provide her services for a gay wedding. CNN’s Ariane De Vogue reports, “How the justices act on the petition in the case, called Arlene Flowers v. Washington, could offer hints about how quickly other such challenges pitting religious liberty versus LGBT rights return to the high court.”
COURTS MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL
|Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern reports that yesterday the Arizona Court of Appeals released the first decision to consider the constitutionality of LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling. MJS notes, “The Arizona Court of Appeals’ ruling provides the first indication that, as many predicted, the judiciary will construe Masterpiece Cakeshop to affirm the constitutionality of civil rights measures that protect LGBTQ Americans.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
The Real Religious-Liberty Issue Is About Identity, Not Discrimination
The Washington Post“No, the real religious-liberty issue is not discrimination in commercial settings. It is the right of religious institutions to maintain their identity — including their views on sexuality — when they interact with the public realm. Can students receive Pell Grants when they attend a religious college that regards homosexual sex as immoral? Can the government work with a religious adoption agency that places children only with a mother and father? Here the issue is not whether you agree with such views. Rather: Does the constitutional order make a place — within limits — for institutions that don’t share the broader social consensus?”
Actually The Baker In Supreme Court Masterpiece Ruling Lost, It Only Looked Like He Won
USA Today“But how can this be if the baker won the case? The baker did win on the grounds that the Colorado anti-discrimination agency unconstitutionally displayed religious bias when it sanctioned him. But Kennedy’s majority opinion sent every signal that should Colorado again seek to sanction the baker for a future refusal to serve same-sex couples, the state will win so long as it refrains from statements or actions that seem to disparage religion.”
At Target And Walmart, Pride Is Profitable. The Supreme Court Ought To Drop By.
The Washington Post“The Supremes shook their fingers at the state commission, but they did not give Phillips a fist-bump. And, anyhow, guys like him, who want to pick and choose whom they serve based on their personal biases and fears, are relics. They can go right back to that Bible, James 4:12, for a lesson they must have missed. ‘But you — who are you to judge your neighbor?’ It looks like the folks at Target made it to Sunday school for that one.”