I thought I was done writing about the Cake Jesus case, a/k/a Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, but with oral arguments coming up in a couple of days I was checking the news for any new commentary, and I ran across this delightful piece from George Will in National Review, entitled, “Baking a Cake Is Not Constitutionally Protected Speech.”
Don’t be fooled by the title; the subtitle is, “But the gay couple who took Masterpiece Cakeshop to court behaved abominably.”
And by “delightful,” I meant infuriating.
After going on for seven-plus paragraphs about how Cake Jesus has no free-speech-based excuse for having violated the law, and therefore “ought to lose this case,” this alleged conservative “intellectual” immediately pivots to the blunt and unqualified accusation that “Craig and Mullins, who sought his punishment, have behaved abominably.”
Really? What did they do that was so abominable?
To make his vocation compatible with his convictions and Colorado law Phillips has stopped making wedding cakes, which was his principal pleasure and 40 percent of his business. He now has only four employees, down from ten. Craig and Mullins, who have caused him serious financial loss and emotional distress, might be feeling virtuous for having done so. But siccing the government on him was nasty.
“[S]iccing the government on him”? Meaning, filing a civil complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for a violation of their rights under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act? Excuse me, George, but didn’t you just get finished saying that Cake Jesus did break the law, and has no viable defense? Didn’t he therefore violate Craig’s and Mullins’s legal rights? What else are you supposed to do when someone violates your legal rights, besides file a civil complaint (be it in court or with a quasi-judicial entity like the CCRC)?
Denver has many bakers who, not having Phillips’ scruples, would have unhesitatingly supplied the cake they desired. So, it was not necessary for Craig’s and Mullins’ satisfaction as consumers to submit Phillips to government coercion.
Oh, right. “Just go somewhere else.” No problem.
And what’s this nonsense about Craig and Mullins “hav[ing] caused [Cake Jesus] serious financial loss and emotional distress”? Remind us again, George: Between Cake Jesus, Craig and Mullins, which one broke the law? Which one violated the legal rights of the other two? Whose choice was it to go into the wedding-cake business, and whose choice was it to stop making wedding cakes altogether rather than do business lawfully? Cake Jesus made his own bed, now it’s their fault that he has to lie in it? I thought that’s what conservatives were supposed to believe; you and you alone, the choices you made, are responsible for your predicament.
And one more thing: civil liability is not “government coercion.” Every business is at risk of civil liability every minute of every day. If you don’t want to get sued, DON’T. BREAK. THE. LAW.
Somehow Craig and Mullins were supposed to just let this slide, but it never occurs to anyone that maybe the right thing for Cake Jesus to have done, and the way for him to avoid all that “financial loss and emotional distress”, would be to just bake the cake, take their money, say a prayer and get on with his life.
Evidently, however, it was necessary for their satisfaction as asserters of their rights as a same-sex couple.
Urrrrggghhhh.
Will concludes this risible piece by calling for “more magnanimity from the victors” in the “struggle over gay rights”, especially when the retaliatory but totally non-animus-based actions of the losing side do not “seriously inconvenience[] them.”
No offense, George, but go f*** yourself. Really, really hard.
What this alleged conservative intellectual is arguing is exactly what I read a year and a half ago on a comment thread: Gay people should just meekly acquiesce and allow themselves to be discriminated against by “Christian” merchants; go shop somewhere else, and if they can’t get comparable goods and services from merchants who “have [no] scruples”, just do without, and most importantly, never, ever complain or assert their legal or civil rights to any court of law or other tribunal. Which, in the end, is all Craig and Mullins did. This is what George Will thinks was “abominabl[e]” behavior on their part.
Will admits that Cake Jesus broke the law and violated Craig’s and Mullins’s civil rights, then castigates them for not simply letting him get away with it.
Let me ask you something, George: When was the last time you let someone violate your legal rights, and didn’t bring a lawsuit or civil complaint? I’m sure if National Review decided not to pay you for this bowl of verbal bouillabaisse, you’d just let it slide and go write for Breitbart instead, and never sue for breach of contract or violation of wage laws. You know, because “siccing the government on [them would be] nasty.” And “abominabl[e]”.