Court decision must not enable intolerance

The Supreme Court decision Monday that supported a Colorado baker’s right to refuse, on religious grounds, to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple would at first glance seem a setback for gay rights in this country. But the 7-2 decision is nuanced. It does not rule that businesses have a constitutional right to discriminate based on personal religious beliefs. And Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority affirmed protections for gay people.

Our concern is, in a time when complex issues get reduced to sound bites or are twisted in meaning, that the decision will embolden intolerance.

The case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, started in 2012 when David Mullins and Charlie Craig went into the bakery to order a wedding cake. Baker Jack Phillips refused their business, saying he did not want to use his talents to infer support for same-sex marriage, which was against his religious beliefs.

The couple filed a civil rights complaint saying the baker had violated a state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation. They won and succeeded in state court appeals.

The case represented an interesting entwinement of the First Amendment rights of free speech and expression and freedom of religion, faced with growing protections for a class of people, the LGBT community.

The majority did not agree with Phillips that baking is a form of communication and free speech. The narrow focus was that at least one member of the civil rights commission had acted with “clear and impermissible hostility” toward religion toward and thus did not look at the case neutrally.

Focusing on those flaws, the decision did not settle whether business owners can use their religious beliefs to refuse service.

Writing in the dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said people seeing a wedding cake made by Phillips would not think it conveyed his views on same-sex marriage. “What matters is that Phillips would not provide a good or service to a same-sex couple that he would provide to a heterosexual couple.”

The majority decision does not deny gay rights. Justice Kennedy wrote: “Colorado law can protect gay persons, just as it can protect other classes of individuals, in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public.”

Even in a more liberal state like Connecticut, one of the first to approve same-sex marriages, misunderstanding or discrimination can flourish. Rainbow flags, a symbol of support for gay rights, were stolen twice from the front lawn of a Danbury church last year, for example.

We must be sure the Supreme Court decision does not empower the intolerant. That was not the decision’s written intent.

“Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth.” — Justice Kennedy

‘Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth.’ — Justice Anthony Kennedy