The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in December 2017
in a case on whether a baker in Colorado had been justified in refusing to sell
a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. He claimed that his Christian faith forbid
him from making wedding cakes for gay couples. “I follow Jesus Christ,” he
declared when interviewed at his store. The Gospels are silent on the issue of
homosexuality—it being said to be a sin only in the Old Testament—so the
inference that following Jesus requires opposition to gay marriage (not to
mention that homosexuality is an important issue in following Jesus) can be
questioned. If the inference is tenuous, then it is the baker’s ideological stance that was actually at
issue before the court. More broadly, is religion vulnerable to acting as a
subterfuge, or cover, for what are really personal prejudices?
In terms of constitutional law, the baker contended that the
First Amendment, “whose guarantees of free speech and religious exercise
supersede any state law, exempts him from [Colorado’s] antidiscrimination act,”
which has covered sexual orientation since 2007.[1]
The question, I submit, is whether free speech and religious exercise are
salient in a business context.
The full essay is at "Refusing to Serve Gays."
[1]
Jess Bravin, “Supreme Court Set to Hear Gay-Rights Case,” The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2017.
