Tuesday, December 5, 2017

On the Place of Religion in Business: Refusing to Serve Gays

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in December 2017 in a case on whether a baker in Colorado had been justified in refusing to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. He claimed that his Christian faith forbid him from making wedding cakes for gay couples. “I follow Jesus Christ,” he declared when interviewed at his store. The Gospels are silent on the issue of homosexuality—it being said to be a sin only in the Old Testament—so the inference that following Jesus requires opposition to gay marriage (not to mention that homosexuality is an important issue in following Jesus) can be questioned. If the inference is tenuous, then it is the baker’s ideological stance that was actually at issue before the court. More broadly, is religion vulnerable to acting as a subterfuge, or cover, for what are really personal prejudices?
In terms of constitutional law, the baker contended that the First Amendment, “whose guarantees of free speech and religious exercise supersede any state law, exempts him from [Colorado’s] antidiscrimination act,” which has covered sexual orientation since 2007.[1] The question, I submit, is whether free speech and religious exercise are salient in a business context. Colorado was not contesting the baker’s freedom to speak out against gay marriage and engage in religious worship (i.e., expression) on his own time; the problem is the baker’s assumption that political speeches and religious practice apply directly in business. To claim that decorating a cake—and artistic expression more generally—is free speech over-applies the constitutional doctrine and ignores the fact that a product to be sold is being produced.
Moreover, the domain of business can be distinguished from both the political and religious domains. Even though they may be related, each has its most salient attributes, customs, and laws. In opening a business to serve the public, serving customers trumps making political or religious statements or decisions at the expense of customers. Put another way, in opening doors to serve the public, political and religious differences cannot justify refusing some of the public; the responsibility in serving the public thus supersedes circumscribing service based on personal political and religious prejudices.
“’No one disputes that [the baker] is ‘a man of deep religious faith whose beliefs guide his work, or that the Free Speech Clause protects his right to give voice to those beliefs,’ Colorado’s brief argues. ‘But when a business opens its doors to the public, a state may require that [the business] serve customers on equal terms, regardless of their race, sex, faith, or sexual orientation.”[2] The baker’s religious faith is most salient in the religious domain (e.g., at church), while serving the public is most salient in business. That which is foremost in one domain cannot legitimately claim such a status in another domain, even over its foremost customs and laws. In assuming that his business was a place for free speech and expression of his religious faith at the expense of serving the public, the baker misconstrued the distinct nature of business. In being open to the public, a business takes on an obligation to be open to the public rather than a part thereof based on religious grounds, especially if the religiosity is mere cover for what is actually a personal prejudice.  Overstating the importance or status of minor factors even over major ones in a given domain applies also in giving priority to an Old Testament dictum in what it means to follow Jesus Christ. In Christianity, as distinct from Judaism, the New Testament is more important than the Old Testament. The baker seems to have overlooked the main point in the New Testament: self-giving love towards others, especially when it is inconvenient (i.e., even toward enemies).



[1] Jess Bravin, “Supreme Court Set to Hear Gay-Rights Case,” The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2017.
[2] Ibid.