{"id":65974,"date":"2017-12-04T10:12:12","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T15:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=65974"},"modified":"2017-12-04T19:14:25","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T00:14:25","slug":"pd-the-christian-bakers-unanswered-legal-argument-why-the-strongest-objections-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=65974","title":{"rendered":"(PD) The Christian Baker\u2019s Unanswered Legal Argument: Why the Strongest Objections Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;[this] week, the Supreme Court will hear one of the most important free speech cases in years, a case of special concern to libertarians and conservatives, small business-owners, artisans, and religious believers.\u00a0<a title=\"Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/case-files\/cases\/masterpiece-cakeshop-ltd-v-colorado-civil-rights-commn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Masterpiece Cakeshop\u00a0<\/em>v.<em>Colorado Civil Rights Commission<\/em><\/a>\u00a0involves\u00a0<a title=\"Jack Phillips\" href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2016\/09\/06\/how-a-cakemaker-became-an-enemy-of-the-state\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jack Phillips<\/a>, a baker who claims a First Amendment right not to be compelled to design and create custom wedding cakes for same-sex weddings. Many legal commentators think the case is either a very close call or a certain defeat for Phillips.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Phillips\u2019s case is very strong. It is based on freedom-of-speech doctrines favored by conservatives and liberals alike. One argument for Phillips in particular survives the best objections leveled in briefs filed by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, by the ACLU (on behalf of the couple who sought the cake), and by several\u00a0<a title=\"constitutional\" href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbar.org\/content\/dam\/aba\/publications\/supreme_court_preview\/briefs-2017-2018\/16-111-amicus-resp-american-unity-fund.authcheckdam.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">constitutional<\/a>\u00a0law scholars.<\/p>\n<p>That argument rests on the widely acknowledged principle that freedom of speech has to include the freedom\u00a0<em>not<\/em>\u00a0to speak. You aren\u2019t free to express your convictions authentically if the state can make you affirm its own orthodoxies. Thus, for more than seventy years, in\u00a0<a title=\"cases\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/1940-1955\/319us624\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cases<\/a>\u00a0widely seen as more\u00a0<a title=\"American\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thepublicdiscourse.com\/2017\/10\/20148\/\">American<\/a>\u00a0than apple pie, the Supreme Court has said government can\u2019t force you to say, do, or make something that carries a message you reject. Applying that principle, it has held that the government can\u2019t force\u00a0<a title=\"Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses to salute the flag\" href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/319\/624\/case.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses to salute the flag<\/a>. It can\u2019t force newspapers to\u00a0<a title=\"carry columns by politicians criticized in their pages\" href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/418\/241\/case.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">carry columns by politicians criticized in their pages<\/a>. It can\u2019t force drivers to carry\u00a0<a title=\"license plates with a state-imposed\" href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/430\/705\/case.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">license plates with a state-imposed<\/a>\u00a0(though utterly banal)\u00a0<a title=\"slogan\" href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/430\/705\/case.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">slogan<\/a>\u00a0(\u201cLive Free or Die\u201d). It can\u2019t force companies to\u00a0<a title=\"include third-party messages\" href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/475\/1\/case.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">include third-party messages<\/a>\u00a0in their billing envelopes. Political majorities are entitled to enact their beliefs into law, but not to force dissenting minorities to affirm those or anyone else\u2019s beliefs in word or deed. That would involve \u201ccompelled speech,\u201d which is generally unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thepublicdiscourse.com\/2017\/11\/20581\/\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;[this] week, the Supreme Court will hear one of the most important free speech cases in years, a case of special concern to libertarians and conservatives, small business-owners, artisans, and religious believers.\u00a0Masterpiece Cakeshop\u00a0v.Colorado Civil Rights Commission\u00a0involves\u00a0Jack Phillips, a baker who<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=65974\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[576,175,168,114,98,108,112,34,169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-unions-partnerships","category-anthropology","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-law-legal-issues","category-marriage-family","category-religion-culture","category-sexuality","category-theology","category-theology-scripture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65976,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65974\/revisions\/65976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}