Justice Kennedy Will Be Top Chef in Masterpiece Cakeshop Case

After this morning ’s Supreme Court argument in the Colorado wedding-cake case, the only thing that safe to predict about this case is that it’ll end up 5-4. It’s perhaps unavoidable that a case so politically fraught would break down on conventional ideological lines, with the four “conservatives” (presumab ly including the silent Justice Clarence Thomas) siding with the baker who didn’t want to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding, the four “liberals” siding with the couple that wants to use the state’s anti-discrimination law to compel him to do so, and Justice Anthony Kennedy somewher e in the middle. But it’s disappointing – and it’s especially disconcerting that Justice Sonia Sotomayor kept comparing this case toPiggie Park,  Katzenbach v. McClung,  and other cases from the Jim Crow Era when African Americans were denied service at restaurants altogether.It ’s telling that none of the wedding-vendor cases we’ve seen in the courts (or in the news) the last few years have involved any business that refuses to serve gay people altogether. Jack Phillips certainly has – and offered to sell Charlie Craig and David Mullins anything on display in his sto re – as has Barronelle Stutzman,the Washington florist whose fate likely depends on the outcome of  Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. We simply don ’t have situations like we did in the 1960s when businesses claimed both a religious and expressive right not to ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs