SCOTUS got the Masterpiece Cake Shop decision badly wrong

The Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in the gay wedding cake case yesterday.  It hasn't made as much of a splash as expected because the justices tried to split the baby and sidestep making what might otherwise have been a contentious decision.  But I think they failed and got it wrong anyway.

The gist of the ruling was that Jack Phillips, the cake shop owner, wins the case because the Colorado Civil Rights Commission exhibited "hostility" towards Jack Phillips religion when its members failed to contest the following statement made by one of its members:

I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust, whether it be—I mean, we—we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others.

About which the Court's opinion says:

To describe a man’s faith as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use” is to disparage his religion...

But the statement does not describe Jack Phillips faith as  "one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use."  What is despicable is not Phillips's faith, it is the use of that faith to hurt others which is being said to be despicable.  (And it is.)

The opinion goes on:

The commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips’ [sic] invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. This sentiment is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti- discrimination law—a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.

Again, it is very important to distinguish between two very different things.  It would indeed be inappropriate to compare Phillips's specific claim to slavery or the holocaust.  There is absolutely no moral equivalence there.  But again, that is emphatically not what the CCRC commissioner's statement says.  That statement is making the general observation that, historically, atrocities have been justified on religious grounds.  And that is simply a fact.

Ultimately this opinion is a reflection of Christian Persecution Complex, the unfounded belief held by many Christians in the U.S. that the mere existence of public critiques of Christianity is an attack and potentially an existential threat.  To say that Christianity was overtly used as a justification for slavery in the U.S. is disparagement and conclusively indicative of covert and nefarious bias, never mind that this is in fact demonstrably true.  The First Amendment apparently protects people from hearing anything unpleasant said about their religion by a government agent, even if those things are factually correct.

I do respect the Court's attempt to thread the needle here and come up with an inclusive ruling that would leave neither gays nor Christians out in the cold.  Unfortunately, it's simply not possible in this case.  The sad fact of the matter is that Jack Phillips and his ilk are simply on the wrong side of both history and morality, just as the defenders of slavery and segregation were in their day.  There is nothing wrong with being gay, just as there is nothing wrong with being black.  Discriminating against gay people is every bit as wrong as discriminating against dark-skinned people, notwithstanding anything you may believe, however sincerely, about what God has to say about it.