Jack Phillips is a Christian. He was the baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding, prompting, among all the legal action, a predictable rabid reaction from the unhinged left. He was even called a Nazi.
This week, the Daily Signal published a video interview with Phillips, in light of the story being back in the news.
“I don’t have words for it,” Phillips told The Daily Signal. “But it’s wrong.”
On Thursday, the Trump administration filed an amicus brief in the upcoming SCOTUS case involving Phillips and his bakery. Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission will be heard, but Hot Air notes that’s not necessarily a reason to be optimistic.
The question now comes before the Supreme Court, but not before they avoided it for as long as possible. In fact, the decision to grant cert to Masterpiece Cakeshop may have been more surprising than the DoJ’s amicus brief. The court had refused to grant cert for Elane Photography, a New Mexico case with almost identical circumstances; the denial left the penalties against the photographer in place for refusing to work at a same-sex wedding ceremony. That meant that fewer than four justices wanted to review it at that time, while Antonin Scalia was still alive and conservatives had at least four votes.
That’s pretty much the same situation as today, which may mean only that one more of the conservatives finally decided that the court needed to rule precedentially on this matter. That may not be great news for conservatives, especially since Anthony Kennedy remains the likely swing vote. After writing Obergefell, which raised same-sex marriage to a constitutional right, Kennedy may want to rework the First Amendment to limit freedom of expression to fit into that new paradigm. It’s a risk, but at this point, religious liberty advocates appear to have nothing to lose on the bake-the-damned-cake front.
Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey goes into more detail (worth a read) but the bottom line is that nothing is known now how this will turn out.
Maybe being called a Nazi for practicing Christianity will become the norm.