On Monday, the Supreme Court vacated a decision regarding a 2013 case of a Christian couple in Oregon who owned a bakery and refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.
The matter was taken to a state agency who fined the bakery owners $135,000. It was said that the owners illegally discriminated based on sexual orientation. An Oregon appeals court upheld the ruling. (more…)
Few people can say that they’ve had a case go to the Supreme Court. Jack Phillips can. He’s the Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple in 2012. The couple took this to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission who ruled in favor of the couple.
According to the Supreme Court, the case addressed whether Colorado’s public accommodations law “violates the First Amendment as applied to an individual who declines to design and create custom wedding cakes for same-sex wedding celebrations that violate his sincerely held religious beliefs.”
In a 7-2 ruling, the court ruled in favor of Phillips. (more…)
Today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple who was getting married.
This decision only scratches the surface of the issue. It does not give every Christian who works in a creative field (baking, photography, etc) permission to refuse services for a same-sex wedding.
I’m not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar but it appears to be on an inevitable crash course for another Supreme court decision. Is it a matter of individual liberty? Whereby a person reserves the right to refuse service? Or is it discrimination and the violation of law?
People on both sides of this issue are very polarized. If private business owners do have the legal right to refuse service, some draw analogies to people refusing services to African Americans before passage of Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s.
Persecution takes a variety of forms. There are absolutely people who seek to persecute Christians for their beliefs under the tyranny of law. With Jack Phillips, a couple attempted to force this man to comply. There have been numerous legal victories for the gay rights movement over the last few years. But some seek to crush any dissenters. There have been other businesses who have faced threats, backlash, and thousands of dollars in legal fees for standing by convictions.
Today’s decision does not further enshrine religious liberty. It has more to do with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and their hostility towards Phillips than if Christians have a general liberty to refuse services in situations which conflict with their faith.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
