The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple in a 7 to 2 decision. That decision is in contrast to popular opinion: Most Americans don’t support allowing gay Americans to be denied services because of the religious convictions of a business owner.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had not adequately taken into account the religious beliefs of Jack Phillips, a baker and cake artist who refused to make a wedding cake for the upcoming nuptials of two gay men.
“The Court’s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws,” Kennedy wrote. “Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power” needed to be done in a setting where “religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor.”
In a December op-ed, Phillips wrote:
“What a cake celebrating this event would communicate was a message that contradicts my deepest religious convictions, and as an artist, that’s just not something I’m able to do, so I politely declined.
But this wasn’t just a business decision. More than anything else, it was a reflection of my commitment to my faith. My religious convictions on this are grounded in the biblical teaching that God designed marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”
But allowing business owners to refuse service to gay people because of the religion of the business owner remains pretty unpopular with the American people. Six in 10 Americans oppose allowing a small-business owner in their state to refuse products or services to gay people even if providing them would violate the business owner’s religious beliefs, according to survey findings published in May by the Public Religion Research Institute.
And this high number isn’t just because of the growing number of Americans who no longer claim a particular faith. Opposition to same-sex marriage did not correlate with support for refusing service to gay Americans as strongly as some might think. Even among the 30 percent of Americans who oppose same-sex marriage, nearly half — 45 percent — opposed allowing small-business owners to refuse service to gay people.
In fact, members of most religious groups do not support small-business owners being able to refuse service to gay people for religious reasons.
Read the full story at The Washington Post
