The Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling in favour of the Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding is a victory for the rights and freedoms of individuals across the Western liberal world.
The freedom of expression at the basis of our democracy is under attack from an increasingly authoritarian left. They seek to correct the morality of their citizens through legislative force, picking up what the radical right-wing social policy culminating during the Nixon era started, but taking it in a different direction.
Not all discrimination is based on hate. For example, Carleton discriminates based on the academic achievement of students. If the university stops discriminating by passing versus failing grades, then our degrees would become meaningless. So, unequal outcomes and discrimination are not inherently based on hate. Instead, they are essential mechanisms that make systems functional and worthwhile.
Therefore, condemning the baker in this case for promoting unequal outcomes through discrimination is an incomplete analysis. First, we must ask whether this act was based in hate, and whether legislating the forced baking of wedding cakes will improve or worsen the situation.
To determine hateful intent, we must examine the reasoning that the baker, Jack Phillips, used in making the decision to decline the couple service. He mentioned the core reasons he refused service in an interview with CNN, saying, “I didn’t want to use my artistic talents to create something that went against my Christian faith.” He specified that he has also declined to make many other cakes that went against his religious convictions, including cakes for Halloween celebrations.
David Mullins, one of the customers who was declined service in this case, said, “This case is about more than us, and it’s not about cakes. It’s about the right of gay people to receive equal service.”
In regards to the case, Noel Francisco, the U.S. Solicitor General, had this to say: “A custom wedding cake is not an ordinary baked good; its function is more communicative and artistic than utilitarian. Accordingly, the government may not enact content-based laws commanding a speaker to engage in protected expression. An artist cannot be forced to paint, a musician cannot be forced to play, and a poet cannot be forced to write.”
Critics argue that this case decision is a violation of religious neutrality that must be upheld in the commercial sphere. In response to this, Anthony Kennedy, a former Supreme Court justice strongly reaffirmed protections for individual rights. He wrote that disputes like these “must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.”
It is important to remember the role that politics plays in society. Politics and legislation are euphemisms for power and coercion—doing what cannot be done through consent by using force. When we try to legislate away the freedom to express religious convictions, we see equal opposite reactions that nullify all of our protective legislation.
As the government parents society by trying to force bakers to make cakes for everyone indiscriminately, animosity builds. As people’s livelihoods become dependent on providing services they morally disagree with, citizens, afraid to have the wrong opinions, participate less in productive debate. This makes it harder to distinguish prejudice in society as people are forced to fake tolerance.
The most powerful way to dissuade prejudice in business is through boycotting those that uphold prejudiced convictions and supporting rival bakeries that will service gay couples and through baking more beautiful and delicious cakes. This is how our society gets better in a positive feedback loop—when passionate individuals out-compete, out-plan, and out-serve their dissenters, rather than trying to force them to conform to their moral ideals.
This ruling was a victory for individual freedom.
