More on the “Masterpiece Cakeshop” Case

I posted an entry the other day about the United States Supreme Court’s controversial 4 June decision in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission:

“A victory for religious liberty, and for liberty in general”

Here, now, is a follow-up to that entry:

First, I’m grateful to Michael Schroth for bringing the following piece to my attention.  It’s by the distinguished jurist and Stanford law school professor Michael McConnell, whom I was once privileged to co-host for a small event many years ago when he was teaching at the University of Utah.  (He is not, by the way, a Latter-day Saint, and never has been.)  In my judgment this is a very clearly-written and persuasive little essay, and I hope that all of the readers here who are interested in the recent Supreme Court case will give it careful attention.  It was written back in March, nearly three months before SCOTUS issued its ruling:

“Dressmakers, Bakers, and the Equality of Rights”

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The great George Will responds to the ruling in National Review:

“SCOTUS Gives Free-Speech Advocates Temporary Respite in Masterpiece Cakeshop”

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Writing in First Things, Professor Darel Paul shares Wills’s sense that the decision represents less of a victory than many defenders of religious freedom and the First Amendment had hoped for and, at the first, thought that they had been given:

“No Victory for Religious Liberty”

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Andrew McCarthy, writing in National Review, is even more pessimistic about the Supreme Court’s ruling:

“Masterpiece Cakeshop Is a Setback for Liberty”

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Christianity Today provides a helpfully varied (but supportive) commentary on the ruling that includes passing incidental mention of the LDS Church:

“Will Supreme Court Cake Ruling Actually Help Christian Businesses? Masterpiece Cakeshop case tests religious and LGBT rights, but justices choose the narrow way.”

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Some will be interested in this:

“The Key Part Of RBG’s Dissent In The Supreme Court ‘Cakeshop’ Case:  “I strongly disagree… with the Court’s conclusion that Craig and Mullins should lose this case,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote.”

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued an official response to the SCOTUS decision on the day that it was announced:

“LDS Church responds to Supreme Court ruling about baker, same-sex wedding case”

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“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”  (Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 23 September 1800, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson 32:168)

Posted from Richmond, Virginia