Let Them Bake Cake

Free enterprise and freedom of speech sort of received a stay of execution on Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who didn’t want to decorate a cake for a gay couple.

Mind you, I wrote “decorate,” and not “bake.”

So, super quick, let’s just review the facts in this case that has gotten an extreme amount of press coverage but whose coming historical significance may not be what defenders of religious freedom were hoping for.

Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, told Charlie Craig and David Mullins that he could not make them a wedding cake based on his belief that marriage is reserved for a relationship between a man and woman. He did offer to bake a birthday cake and let the couple know that they could decorate it as they wished, post-the-purchase.

This stance prompted the gay couple to file a discrimination suit, but Phillips stood his ground based on First Amendment provisions. Phillips asserted that his work – high-end cake decoration popular for special occasions – represents his artistic free speech as well as his freedom of expression and his personally held religious beliefs.

The Supreme Court did vote by 7-2 in his favor, but analysts are commenting the Court opinion has not provided a clear path of free speech within a business environment.

Hum.

Being a conservative, I support Phillips.

As a business owner, he does have not only the right, but also the responsibility, to refuse service to transactions that violate what his business represents.

It’s a bit of a different take on this case, but let’s just take a look at a flipped scenario regarding what responsibility a business owner really has to provide any member of the public with services.

What if there was a supremely flamboyant drag queen who also was the absolutely, positively best baker in your town, but because this baker did not believe in heterosexual marriage, this baker would not produce wedding cakes for union between a man and woman?

Should that baker be forced by the government to make a cake with a female bride and a male groom atop?

Sit down folks, this conservative chickie is going to say an adamant, “no.”

While I personally believe marriage is something intended for a man and a woman, I also believe that business dealings are transactions that are based on what a seller offers from their own passion to sellers that are interested in such.

Now, some gay, lesbian or transgender bakers may have no business or personal issue with the idea of baking/decorating a cake for a hetero couple. And some folks that personally believe, as Phillips does, that marriage is reserved for the hetero couple may also not have an issue with baking/decorating a cake for a non-hetero couple.

That’s okay, too, because that is their business decision.

On a personal level, I was hopefully that Philips would be vindicated in court. But beyond my own little world, I was hopeful the Supreme Court would clearly, beyond any shadow of a doubt hold up the American free enterprise notion that business owners truly are allowed – without repercussion or sanction – to conduct their business according to what they can live with by day and not have to think about or worry about at night when they lay their heads down.

Is that really so unreasonable?

It shouldn’t be.

Not in America.

This country was founded with many ideals – one being that we ought to be able to agree to disagree and remain peaceable toward each other over that.

Let’s take this notion just a little further:

What if a cake baker tells me that he or she won’t make me a cake because I am a type II diabetic and he or she has deeply held beliefs regarding that health issue?

Well, okay.

I am headed to my favorite baker that makes those gluten-free and sugar-free hockey puck things anyway. But, the point is ... yes, I am going to be a bit annoyed that I wasted time in the bakery that refused me service, but as an American, I am compelled to respect the decision of that business owner.

There are just so many applications for the notion.

Cake baking isn’t the only niche in which a business owner may have a personal conflict with the request of a potential customer.

Mind you, I just wrote “potential” customer.

Good grief, in this country of abundance and choices a plenty, if one business cannot facilitate your request, another can, and most likely will.

Not every potential business transaction has to turn in to a political brew-ha-ha.

So let them bake cake.

Reach Amy Armstrong via email at: asocialbutterfly@gci.net.