SCOTUS SDES WITH CHRISTIAN BAKER IN SAME-SEX WEDDING CAKE CASE

SCOTUS sides with Christian baker in same-sex wedding cake case

By Alex Swoyer - The Washington Times - Monday, June 4, 2018

The Supreme Court granted a limited victory Monday to a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple, finding the state showed fierce hostility toward his Christian beliefs when it ruled he broke the law with his refusal.

The 7-2 decision sends the case back to Colorado with firm instructions to give Jack Phillips, the Christian baker, a fair hearing.

But the ruling does not establish a First Amendment right to refuse services to same-sex couples, as Mr. Phillips and his conservative backers had hoped.

Instead it suggests a road map for states such as Colorado, which have public accommodation laws, to use in evaluating cases like this one that pit First Amendment religious rights against anti-discrimination protections.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the lead opinion in the case, said states can require people to serve all customers equally regardless of sexual orientation, as long as they justify it through law and not through animus toward religion.

“The delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the state itself would not be a factor in the balance the state sought to reach,” Justice Kennedy wrote.

“That requirement, however, was not met here,” he continued. “When the Colorado Civil Rights Commission considered this case, it did not do so with the religious neutrality that the Constitution requires.”

The ruling also seemed to set limits on how far states can go in forcing non-discrimination. Justice Kennedy said a priest or minister cannot be forced to perform a marriage or ceremony his faith would not sanction.

“When it comes to weddings, it can be assumed that a member of the clergy who objects to gay marriage on moral and religious grounds could not be compelled to perform the ceremony without denial of his or her right to the free exercise of religion. 

This refusal would be well understood in our constitutional order as an exercise of religion, an exercise that gay persons could recognize and accept without serious diminishment to their own dignity and worth,” he said.

But he said there will be limits, and it will be up to future cases to test where the lines are drawn.

Mr. Phillips refused to bake a wedding cake for Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig in 2012, before same-sex marriage was legal in Colorado and before the Supreme Court’s 2015 opinion establishing a national right to same-sex marriage.

Mr. Phillips had argued as a Christian, he could not be forced to create a custom wedding cake for a homosexual couple, citing his First Amendment rights, though he said he offered to sell one of his standard cakes to them.

Colorado said his refusal broke the state’s public accommodation law prohibiting businesses from refusing service to anyone based on religion, race, sexual orientation and national origin.

During proceedings before the state’s civil rights commission one commissioner complained that freedom of religion had been used to “justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust.” The commissioner called Mr. Phillips‘ beliefs “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric.”

Justice Kennedy said those statements undermined the state’s case against Mr. Phillips.

“The Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection,” Justice Kennedy wrote in the opinion.

Kristen Waggoner, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Mr. Phillips, said the court was right to condemn that sort of animus toward religion.

“Tolerance and respect for good-faith differences of opinion are essential in a society like ours. This decision makes clear that the government must respect Jack’s beliefs about marriage,” she said.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, arguing the commission’s actions toward Mr. Phillips did not raise to the level of a violation of the Free Exercise Clause. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined justice Ginsburg’s reasoning.

Louise Melling, deputy legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Mr. Mullins and Mr. Craig, said the court’s decision still upholds the core principle that businesses must be open to all.

“The court reversed the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision 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.” Ms. Melling said.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/4/scotus-sides-baker-same-sex-wedding-cake-case/?

My comments: We Praise God for this decision by the Court. However, the Court created this Gay Marriage Mess with their evil, validation of Gay Marriage--Against God and His Word. America has No Future, before the Living God, as long as Gay Marriage is Sanctioned by the Government. The Court has forgotten that God Almighty and His Word are Supreme over His Creation.