WASHINGTON ― The Department of Justice told the Supreme Court on Thursday that a baker who is religiously opposed to gay marriage should not be forced to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples. DOJ said that requiring Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, to create a wedding cake for a gay couple under public accommodations laws would violate his constitutional rights. “Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights,” the Justice Department wrote in an amicus brief filed ahead of oral argument in the case. The DOJ brief suggests that such laws should not be able to compel artists to create “inherently communicative” goods, like wedding cakes. DOJ’s filing raises the possibility that if the Masterpiece Cakeshop can’t refuse to bake a cake for the marriage of a same-sex couple, then a freelance graphic designer who designs flyers for Jewish affinity groups might also be forced to do so “for a neo-Nazi group or the Westboro Baptist Church.”

Source: Huffington Post September 07, 2017 22:07 UTC