Oral arguments heard in religious liberty case before the Supreme Court

The title at Caffeinated Thoughts has "vital religious liberty case"

Phillips was willing to serve the (activist out-of-state) customers other ways, with pre-made cake, for example. His unwillingness was not "who" the customers are, rather, the "what" they wanted him to write on the cake.

Noel Francisco, solicitor general for U.S. Department of Justice argued:

And I would submit.. that if you were to disagree with our basic principle, putting aside the line about whether a cake falls on speech or non-speech side of the line, you really are envisioning a situation in which you could force, for example, a gay opera singer to perform at the Westboro Baptist Church just because that opera singer would be willing to perform at the National Cathedral.

More really good stuff at the link as Shane Vander Hart goes through the transcript of oral arguments and picks out the best parts.

Colorado wasn't required to do what they expected of Jack Phillips. Alito pointed out that in 2012 Colorado did not allow same-sex marriage. Colorado would not have had to provide a marriage license to the same people that Jack Phillips did not want to make a custom wedding cake for.

So if Craig and Mullins had gone to a state office and said we want a marriage license, they would not have been accommodated.

If they said: Well, we want you to recognize our Massachusetts marriage, the state would say: No we won’t accommodate that. Well, we want a civil union. Well, we won’t accommodate that either.

And yet when he goes to this bake shop and he says I want a wedding cake, and the baker says, no, I won’t do it, in part because same-sex marriage was not allowed in Colorado at that time, he’s created a grave wrong. How does all that fit together?

Good stuff.

While other law professors online taught me to distrust Supreme Court oral arguments for clues to Supreme Court decisions. Sometimes they're rhetorical or counter polemic and they sometimes misdirect. There's an arcane psych! quality to them. Still, it's interesting reading. Things I didn't think about and concerns that were not reported.

If you choose to go over there to Caffeinated Thoughts, brace yourself for the page displayed in light gray. You might want to change that. It's like they're whispering. Youngsters flaunting their superior eyesight. Or maybe coffee improves vision.