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A view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., Dec. 4, 2017. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) WASHINGTON ( JTA ) — The Supreme Court’s much-anticipated decision in the case of the Colorado baker who was penalized because he refused, on religious grounds, to create a cake for a same-gender wedding ceremony must have disappointed both sides.
The baker won, but the majority’s reasoning leaves him unsure whether he may reject a similar request tomorrow.
The court’s ruling also was a setback for the LGBTQ groups that insist that a retail establishment’s statutory duty to service the celebrations of newly recognized sexual-privacy ceremonies prevails over religious conscience. These advocates may still win, however, if and when the court revisits the issue, and it can do so as soon as the next term of court.
The baker’s case presented immensely important constitutional issues for religious observance by America’s Jewish community. It tested whether the legal advances the Supreme Court has granted recently for sexual liberty will trump private religious obligations. Supporters of the Colorado decision censuring the baker view religious observance as secondary to the right to engage in conduct that society used to condemn but now, with Supreme Court approval, have become an integral component of liberty in the United States.
I noted in the amicus curiae brief I filed in the case for a number of Orthodox Jewish organizations that Jewish law prohibits active participation in violations of halachah under the biblical principle of not placing a stumbling block before the blind (“lifnei iver lo titeyn michshol”). The Colorado baker was really invoking this rule against aiding and abetting violations when he refused to take an active role in a gay marriage. Since the gay couple could obtain a similar wedding cake from other bakers (and actually received one free), the legal action against the baker was an assault on religious observance.
The case was argued orally on Dec. 5, 2017, in a session that the Supreme Court extended to accommodate vigorous questioning from the bench. Justice Anthony Kennedy unexpectedly asked the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s lawyer to comment on a gratuitous slap […]