State GOP praises high court cake ruling
Social conservatives in Oklahoma cheered a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday in favor of a Colorado baker punished for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple but the state’s leading gay rights group said the ruling was not a loss for their side.
The high court ruled 7-2 that a state commission violated baker Jack Phillips’ religious liberty. The court’s narrow opinion did not resolve a larger debate over whether businesses can refuse to serve gay and lesbian people by
invoking their religious beliefs.
Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma City Republican, said Monday’s ruling “affirms that the free exercise of religion is more than the freedom of worship, it’s the right to live and work according to a faith of your choosing or to choose no faith at all.”
Last year, Lankford and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, signed an amicus brief that urged the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling and side with Phillips.
Ten other Republican senators joined the brief, along with 75 representatives.
“The free exercise clause of the First Amendment is vital to our individual freedom,” said Rep. Steve Russell, an Oklahoma City Republican and signatory on the amicus brief. “The Supreme Court has overwhelmingly and justly protected the Bill of Rights with this ruling.”
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter had also urged the Supreme Court to side with the baker.
In a separate amicus brief filed last September, Hunter and other Republican attorneys general called Colorado’s actions “anathema to the First Amendment.”
“Few constitutional rights are as important to Oklahomans as the freedom of religious expression,” Hunter said in a statement Monday. “I am dedicated to supporting the First Amendment and will continue to do everything I can to ensure religious liberties continue to be protected in similar cases moving
forward.”
Troy Stevenson, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, said the court’s opinion “was not a loss” for gay rights because it was limited in scope.
“We also agree with Justice (Anthony) Kennedy that states need to address the deficits in anti-discrimination laws, and we look forward to working with Oklahoma lawmakers to do just that,” he said. “We wholeheartedly respect the freedom of religion; however, as was made clear today, it should not be used as a weapon to further marginalize the already marginalized.”
The case arose from an attempt by a gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, to purchase a cake at Phillips’ store in Lakewood, Colorado, in 2012.
Phillips declined to make the cake, citing his Christian beliefs, and the couple purchased one from a different store.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission found Phillips violated a state anti-discrimination law and ordered him to provide cakes for samesex marriages.
Phillips appealed and the case traveled up the American judicial ladder until reaching the Supreme Court last year.
“The commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion,” Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, writing that comments by members of the civil rights commission were not more important than the facts of the case.
“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,” they wrote.
Critics of the Supreme Court opinion are concerned it will lead to a legalization of discrimination against gay and lesbian individuals.
The Peace House, an Oklahoma City civil rights group, said Monday’s ruling “opens the door” to such discrimination.
“Slavery in America was defended on religious grounds for 240 years because ‘it’s in the Bible,’” said Peace House Director Nathaniel Batchelder in an email Monday. “Do cake bakers now have the legal right to refuse service to interracial couples if that violates their religious beliefs? What about Muslims, Hindus and Jews?”
The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, on the other hand, called Monday “a great day for freedom” and said the Supreme Court rightly avoided “giving into newfangled notions of ‘sexual liberty.’”