Christian refuses to work for homosexuals (SCOTUS rules on freedom of religion)

Full story:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/04/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-colorado-baker-who-refused-to-make-wedding-cake-for-gay-couple-for-religious-reasons.html

 

This was an interesting ruling or, rather, non-ruling. The Gadfly is right, as usual. The Supreme Court really didn't rule on the underlying issue though Justice Thomas (!) said he would have ruled in the baker's favor on free speech (not freedom of religion) grounds. Even the Notorious RBG said that there is much in the majority opinion that she agrees with. I rather wish the Court had dealt with the underlying conflict head-on. This strikes me as a good case to do that with because, although the baker refused to create a specific wedding cake for the couple, he did offer his generic cakes to them for sale. There are few bright lines in constitutional law but this case presents one such line that the Court could have taken advantage of but did not.

I take no (public) position on what I think the Court should have done. New Mexico has its own case law in this area which I am sworn in general to uphold. But it does seem to me that there is a fundamental difference between offering generic goods and services to the public and creating specific works of art. I am far from sure that any law can compel an artist to create something he doesn't like (for basically whatever reason). Creating a specific work of art, even "mundane" art, is fundamentally self-expression by the artist even if the artist is paid to create it. That's what makes good art so often controversial; good artists are often unwilling to violate their own standards. Bad artists, though, are happy to prostitute their talents for personal advantage.

NB: Wedding cakes are not necessarily so "mundane", either.

 

It was a very narrow ruling, indeed, and it applied to a specific religious-belief scenario.

 

That's an interesting take, the free speech angle. At first I thought "Wha? ...Freedom of speech, not religion?" But now I get it, the artistic expression angle. This is why Clarence Thomas and Judge Osborne are judges making six figures and I am a guy teaching business majors at Directional U.

 

Quit bragging

 

Ha! Tell you what, If I had Judge Osborne's money, I'd burn mine. : )

 

30-second YouTube: https://michaelsavage.com/?p=18839