Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

1. Read very carefully what the "Jack" bakers were willing to do and not do and what Mr. Phillips was willing to do and not do. Do you think Mr. Phillips would have been willing to have one of his wedding cakes appear as a prop in a movie that was about gay marriage but that was in fact hostile to gay marriage? Does it matter if he would not have objected?

2. Justice Kennedy writes a narrow opinion here, finding that some of the adjudicators expressed hostility to religion? Do you agree that the adjudicators in question were hostile to religion or were they merely noting that religion, misused, could provide cover for other forms of bigotry? Does it matter? Justice Ginsburg notes that there were many other Colorado adjudicators involved who did not express religious hostility. Does this matter?

3. One advantage of writing a narrow opinion is that difficult issues are saved for a time when more facts and permutations become clear. One disadvantage, though, is that Justice Kennedy may have made it too difficult for even benign invocations of religion to make an appearance in any sort of judicial or administrative proceeding. Might that not be a bad thing? Also, do you find persuasive Justice Kennedy's distinction of religion used in making laws and religion (or religious hostility) used in making judicial decisions?

4. Can a state punish a baker who refuses to bake a wedding cake in which the groom is white -- and so appears in an icon of him on the cake -- and the opposite-sex bride is black -- and so appears in an icon of her on the cake -- on grounds that God is opposed to interracial marriages? Does it matter if there is no text on the cake?

5. What does this case have to do with the issue of "cultural appropriation"?