Supreme Court Tries To Draw A Line Around Gay Wedding Cakes

IF DECORATING A cake counts as constitutionally protected speech, what doesn’t count? That was the question at stake during Supreme Court oral arguments in Masterpiece Cake shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

- Stephanie Slade

The case—which centers on whether a state may, in the interest of preventing discrimination, require a private baker to produce a custom wedding cake for a same-sex marriage celebration—was heard in early December.

As Jack Phillips, the baker in question, put it in a recent USA Today op-ed, his creations are “not just a tower of flour and sugar, but a message tailored to a specific couple and a specific event—a message telling all who see it that this event is a wedding and that it is an occasion for celebration.” Such a message in the case of a gay union, he wrote, “contradicts my deepest religious convictions.” His lawyers argue that nonetheless forcing him to “sketch, sculpt, and hand paint” a cake, as the state civil rights commission has done, is “compelled speech” and a violation of his First Amendment rights.