Washington D.C., Sep 12, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Colorado baker’s fight to maintain his freedom of expression could be the most influential religious freedom decisions of the US Supreme Court in years, as the court considers the case this term.
“There is far more at stake in this case than simply whether Jack Phillips must bake a cake,” the US bishops’ conference and other Catholic groups stated in an amicus brief in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. “It is about the freedom to live according to one’s religious beliefs in daily life and, in so doing, advance the common good.”
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case, to be decided by the Supreme Court in the next term, dates back to 2012. In July of that year, Jack Phillips went to work one July day at Masterpiece Cakeshop, his Lakewood, Colo. bakery in the suburbs of Denver.
Phillips had started his business in 1993 as a way to integrate his two loves — baking and art – into his daily work. Philipps named his shop “Masterpiece” because of the artistic focus of his work, but also because of his Christian beliefs. He drew from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, specifically the commands “no man can serve two masters” and “you cannot serve both God and mammon.”
“I didn’t open this so I could make a lot of money,” Phillips said of his business. “I opened it up so that it would be a way that I could create my art, do the baking that I love, and serve the God that I love.” Phillips spoke last Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation at a panel event on his upcoming Supreme Court case.
One day in July of 2012, two men walked in to Masterpiece Cakeshop and began looking at pictures of wedding cakes. Phillips approached them and quickly ascertained that they were planning their own wedding and had wanted him to bake them a cake for their same-sex wedding.
“Right away, I’m thinking ‘how can I tell them politely that I can’t take care of this wedding for them, because I don’t do same-sex weddings’,” he recalled.
Phillips explained to the couple that he could not serve same-sex weddings – to do so would have been a violation of his Christian beliefs. He said has declined to make a number of types of cakes, including cakes for Halloween, bachelor parties, and a divorce, cakes with alcohol in the ingredients, and cakes with atheist messages.
Once they heard they would not be able to buy a cake from Masterpiece, the couple stormed out of the store angrily. During the ensuing hour, Phillips said his store received about a half-dozen threatening phone calls. Days later, he received a death threat where he had to call his sister, who was at the store with her four year-old daughter, and tell her to hide in the back of the store until police arrived on the scene.
The couple, meanwhile, filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for discrimination.
The commission ordered Phillips to serve same-sex weddings and to undergo anti-discrimination training. In a hearing in 2014, the civil rights commissioner Diann Rice compared his declining to serve same-sex weddings to justifications for the Holocaust and slavery.
“Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust,” Commissioner Rice said.
Alliance Defending Freedom took up Phillips’ case in court. He lost before an administrative judge in 2013, who ruled that the state could determine when his rights to free speech unlawfully infringed upon others’ rights.
Phillips then appealed his case to the state’s human rights commission, which ruled against him. He appealed again to the state’s court of appeals, which also ruled against him. The Colorado Supreme Court did not take up Phillips’ case.
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court. It was re-listed repeatedly throughout the winter and spring of 2017, before the Court finally decided to take the case in June, at the end of its term.
Once the case is decided at the Supreme Court, the ruling is expected to cap one of the most decisive religious freedom cases of this century.
“It has been said, and I think accurately so, that this could be one of the most important First Amendment cases in terms of free speech and the free exercise of religion in a century or more, and it could be a landmark, seismic kind of case of First Amendment jurisprudence,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) stated at a Thursday press conference at the U.S. Capitol.
As state amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman were declared unconstitutional by the court in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2013, states have also begun enforcing laws against discrimination on basis of sexual identity. The conscientious refusal of certain business owners, like florists and bakers, to serve same-sex weddings has been ruled unlawful in several states, including Colorado.
In Phillips’ case, he has a right to freedom of expression as an artist, Alliance Defending Freedom has argued, and this right has been recognized as protected by the First Amendment. If the Supreme Court rules in Phillips’ favor in this case, it could have ramifications in other cases where business owners face discrimination lawsuits.
“The Supreme Court has said that things like that [art] are covered under the protection of the First Amendment,” Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of the U.S. legal division for ADF, stated at the Heritage Foundation panel event.
Throughout the ordeal, Phillips has paid a heavy price for his stand. He has lost 40 percent of his family’s income and more than half his employees, he said.
The initial briefs have been filed with the Supreme Court. Amicus briefs are currently being filed, the opposing briefs will come in October, and the reply of ADF to those briefs the following month. The case will likely be decided late next spring.
ADF has argued in its brief before the Supreme Court that the rulings by the state’s court of appeals and human rights commission that the state can determine which free artistic expression is protected under the First Amendment stands in flagrant opposition to the original meaning of the Constitution.
“But just as the Commission cannot compel Phillips’s art, neither may the government suppress it,” ADF stated.
Instead, the conflict between Phillips’ freedom as an artist and the wishes of his customers should be solved by the citizens themselves, and not by the government, ADF said.
“There is a better way – one that allows the Commission to ensure that businesses do not refuse to serve people simply because of who they are, but protects individuals like Phillips from being forced to create expression about marriage that violates their core convictions,” ADF’s brief stated.
“The path to civility, progress, and freedom does not crush those who hold unpopular views, pushing them from the public square,” ADF said. “It allows free citizens to determine for themselves ‘the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence’.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with the Colorado Catholic Conference, the Catholic Medical Association, and other Catholic non-profits have also weighed in on the case, submitting an amici curiae brief on behalf of Masterpiece Cakeshop.
Religious freedom must never mean just the freedom to worship or the freedom to practice one’s religion in private, the brief said. The First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause “guarantees every individual the right to seek the truth in religious matters and then adhere to that truth through private and public action.”
In an apostolic exhortation on the proclamation of the Gospel, Pope Francis recently insisted that “no one can demand that religion should be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life, without influence on societal and national life, without concerns for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society.”
[…]
He didn’t have a problem with making a judgement for other people when he handed down the vaccine mandate. But I suppose he’ll have that debate at the pearly gates.
Abortion is a Justice issue because it violates the Natural Law, the ground of justice and civil law, and the right to life. Human life in the womb deserves full protection under the law, not a wrongly adjudicated proscription that allows for murder of the prenatal infant.
Biden, is both an heretical Catholic and a lawless politician. Roe is shown to have no basis in the practice of justice.
Why should he have to explain himself to some EWTN reporter when he clearly has the favor of both the Cardinal of Washington DC and the Pope? The ashes on his forehead effectively amount to the stamp of approval from Gregory and Bergoglio. Catholic politicians who flagrantly defy Church teaching are not the biggest problem we face – bishops and a pope who happily let them get away with it are. When we frankly admit that bitter enemies of the Faith occupy most of the highest positions of the hierarchy, including the top one, then we’ll have taken the first step in dealing with the crisis.
The top of my head just blew off.
Biden is “giving up” sweets for Lent? But, at the same time, enabling the systematic killing of millions upon millions of children around the world?
My God!
Doesn’t anyone see the hideous, monstrous, unthinkable incongruity there?
If Joe Biden is Catholic, then the word has no meaning.
This questioning perpetuates the wrong notion that Catholics are to politically engage or vote on the issue of abortion only, and neglect the issues of racism, economic inequity, broken immigration system, inaccessible health care, climate emergency, death penalty, euthanasia. Read Matthew 25, Acts 2, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Social Teachings of the Church, or the latest “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” of the USCCB. President Biden is correct not to directly answer the question which would have involved explaining theology and especially the matter of conscience. The reporter thought he got a scoop but actually only showed his cluelessness about theology and especially about the use of one’s conscience in determining complex matters. This again shows that EWTN is not fully Catholic by not presenting the full spectrum of Catholic teaching in reporting about social issues. This aligns with the regular pattern of EWTN in disrespectfully and disloyally bashing Pope Francis or in resisting or rejecting some of the reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council. The fullness of catholicity of EWTN is questionable.
Oh, please. You’re committing the same embarrassing mistake as Joe Biden: pretending this is a “theological issue”, when it is no more specifically theological than is the issue of racial equality or economic justice for poor people. It’s not “complex”. It 101 science, commonsense, and human decency. And the questioning of Biden is completely legit: he (and his team and the media) continually promote his “Catholic faith”, and yet he is most passionate (in terms of policy and also, at times, personal comment) in pushing for “reproductive health”. Finally, one’s conscience as a Catholic is to be formed by Church teaching, and it is very clear on this matter:
That’s. Very. Clear. Very.
Thank you, Mr. Olson.
Your answer to Noel’s comment was far more cogent — and far less rude — than mine would have been.
The left’s effort to characterize abortion as a complex theological issue beyond the ken of us ordinary folk who ain’t got us the book larnin’ ya need ta unnerstand it good is, frankly, pathetic.
It’s also very clear this is a moral issue with wide consequences even for those who view themselves at the periphery of the discussion. The decriminalization of abortion in the US was a Republican initiative in the 60s. It was furthered by doctors, nearly all male, who had a motive to avoid imprisonment in exchange for a rather lucrative cash stream for what they viewed as a medical procedure. It was constitutionally enshrined by GOP appointees to the US Supreme Court. Mr Nixon’s justices went 3-1 in favor, and the structure was set that executives and legislatures were sidelined for the next fifty years. Both major US political parties knew they were insulated as long as judiciaries controlled the matter.
The truth is that unlike China, one of main pressures to procure abortions in the US is personal. It comes from parents and partners. Secondarily, it is economic: people need jobs, they are fearful of providing for a child or for themselves. These factors can all be wrongheaded, and likely are.
So yes, a lot of otherwise good and moral Christians contribute to the culture that supports abortion. Yes also, racism, anti-labor initiatives, and other political factors contribute to abortion. The lack of support for women with children is no less remote a cooperation as advocating for a useless law that won’t affect the big abortion ticker at all.
I know: the Right isn’t big into compassion. Or self-examination. They want to turn away when priests and conservative politicians pay for the abortions of mistresses, girlfriends, daughters, or wives. They complain about boycotting China–it’s too difficult; everything I buy comes from there!
What many pearl-clutchers don’t realize is that the culture of life starts with them: how they give good or bad example. That includes how they treat women, death-row convicts, immigrants, people of color, and even their white neighbors.
Mr Biden’s approach raises questions, but not as many as the politically-opposed-but-morally-in-favor crowd.
Todd, your assumptions here are offensive.
Have there been Republicans who favored abortion? Of course. In a country of hundreds of millions of people, there are always outliers who can be used to try to derail any argument.
But how often in the past 49 years, friend Todd, has abortion been a Republican Party platform plank?
(For the Democrats, the answer is, every one of those 49 years. The Republicans? Never.)
When has opposition to abortion been verboten for Republican candidates?
(The answer, again, *never.*)
You try to run away from the Democrats’ history as the all-in, flat-out, straight-up, passionate and rabid pro-abortion party. But it’s a fool’s errand.
In the past half century, Democrats have espoused no issue more consistently than abortion, prioritized no policy before abortion, promoted no policy more strenuously than abortion.
Whereas the raison d’etre for the Democratic Party pre-1964 was white supremacy, since 1973, it has been abortion.
The Democrats are the all-abortion all-the-time party.
Indeed, what party has even recently abolished the informal, Republican-initiated agreement to prohibit the use of federal dollars to fund abortions? The Democrats.
Most offensive of all is your illogical, almost comical, assertion that opposing abortion means unconcern for troubled women, or disdain for the poor, or a failure to floss adequately, or low scores on the SAT’s, or whatever else you were claiming.
Unless you can claim to have polled each of the dozens of millions of Republicans in America, your assertion is patently absurd.
Actually, no. Even more offensive is your assumption that we who denigrate the Democratic Party for its absolute and unwavering support for abortion are Republicans.
I, good Todd, am personally insulted at your implication.
I have long considered most Republican politicians to be spineless, soulless, unprincipled poltroons.
In fact the only good thing I can think of to say about them is that, in most cases anyway, they’re not Democrats.
Sir, if you choose to vote Democratic despite their unwavering promotion of killing every cute, sweet, funny, beautiful baby they can get their initiatives on, that is your business. And I will pray for you.
But your decision implies nothing about what I do or believe or support.
Noel, your argument doesn’t hold water…
It’s like arguing that the Titanic was in no danger because, after all, there’s more parts to the the Barque of Peter than a simple hole below the waterline.
Not that “complex” after all.
As for the USCCB, here’s what they had to say back in 1998, about faithful citizenship:
…Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing and health care” (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 23). We pray that Catholics will be advocates for the weak and the marginalized in all these areas. “But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community” (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 23).
The theological poison of the late Bernardin is fully on display with a defender of Biden.
Biden, Pelosi, et. al. – ‘catholic’ with a small c.
And yet it stings deeply they are all Catholic, still large-C, still going to Mass, still receiving Communion, still going to confession and receiving absolution, and still walking around not getting hit by lightning. Political lay people don’t get to decide who’s in and who’s out. Last time I checked, the Last Judge is in charge. And he’s not y’all.
President Biden, Pelosi – their actions are beyond disgraceful. It’s one thing to make mistakes in ignorance; it’s another thing entirely to willfully and obstinately promote an evil that robs innocent human beings of their lives. They, as we all, will answer for their actions in this life. Given the Church’s constant teaching, it’s not difficult to imagine how difficult it will be for anyone who remains unrepentant. The stain of mortal sin – i.e., indifference to the murder of countless millions by enabling a culture of death – will be exposed and judged accordingly. “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid… .” – from the Collect for Purity, Divine Worship: the Missal
Biden’s implication that those of us who don’t have a theology degree can’t grasp the enormity of abortion is patronizing and insulting.
P.S. More than one of those lettered theologians have helped bring about the moral confusion we currently live in.