Christian Baker Supreme Court Case | Rapp Report Weekly 0015 | Striving for Eternity

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Report with Andrew Rappaport where we provide biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church.

Go to strivingforeternity .org. Alright well welcome to another Rapp Report. This time, this week I should say, we're going to deal with a little bit of a sensitive issue, an issue that has been in the news and it is often referred to as the Colorado Baker case that went to the Supreme Court.

Now before we do that we do, I just want to reach out, there's a podcast out there called Theology Driven. Let me let them introduce themselves real quick. Welcome to.

Theology Driven, a weekly mobile podcast in which we explore the open road of.

Life through a biblical lens. Now it seems that they're, they're kind of decided that they're gonna call me out a little bit and we're gonna, we're gonna address that. But you know they talk serious stuff on their podcast.

Let's let's listen to them talk about, well coffee. This is the first time I've had.

Coffee from Zambia and it is Zambia. It's Zambia bro. Says you. How do you know it's not a soft A? Because I've heard everyone, I've heard Vody Bakam pronounce it. I've heard Conrad pronounce it. Vody's got some, Vody just has, he has a heavy thick voice.

James can't even pronounce Bakam. Raise your hand, raise your hand if you've been to Zambia. Okay, Vody wins. So okay they do actually talk.

Some very good theology and serious stuff but they called me out because I did post something that about last week's episode and here's what they said and I'm just gonna address this really quick before we get into our serious.

Content. Now apparently Andrew Rappaport is giving us a hard time. He teased about it on Twitter but the show hasn't dropped yet so I saw I don't know what that's all about. He's blaming whatever it was on Chris from Voice of Reason but I don't know Andrew if you're lumping in with those guys that's that's scary.

I think Chris was on Andrew's show, is that right? Yeah that's what it sounds like and I guess I guess I guess Chris was driving. They decided to do a theology mockumentary episode. So they were driving, huh?

Interesting. That sounds uh they really do a mockumentary of us? I don't know we don't know what it is yet because so Andrew Rappaport tweeted I guess this morning or late last night or something he said whatever you know he tagged theology driven and then he said you know it's not my fault Chris made me throw you under the bus whatever so we don't even know what it is yet.

I'm sure it'll be funny. Hey all I can say is hey Andrew hey listen up buddy we're coming for you all right no matter where you go no matter where you sleep no matter who's there we will find you all right or at least drive near your vicinity.

That's a threat. Yeah we're gonna we're gonna drive we're gonna drive somewhere in the vicinity of New Jersey and we're gonna do an episode about New Jersey. Well can we just drive on the outskirts because I really don't want to go in New Jersey.

Yeah I've been there I've been in New Jersey and no thanks. It's cool though it's it's New Jersey's very similar to a third world country. Well guys listen if you want to come to New.

Jersey and find me the challenge is there. I mean just remember you know we do things different here in Jersey. We may not be allowed to carry weapons you know like you know we have real strict gun control laws but if you want to come after us I mean it's hard to get out of the state.

We have special shoes for you they're cement shoes so if you don't mind sleeping with the fishes I mean you could drive in. I just don't know that you're gonna drive back out. I actually he was joking about third world country but actually I was I was interviewed or introduced when I went to speak at a church and he introduced me as a missionary to the country of New Jersey so he had been a pastor in New Jersey.

So what we'd like to do is today deal with this court ruling and I have with me Michael Laffey and you're from Messina Law and you do so you're back you are a lawyer just for the record. Yes that's correct.

And actually you you teach law business law at my alma mater so we have that in common. At least I didn't wasn't under you when you were teaching there so you're not that old. No. So real quick give us your background and and so folks can know who you are and a little bit about what the the type of law you do and what Messina Law practices.

Sure.

I'm a my basic practice is a general practice for businesses and nonprofits we provide a few full range of legal services for those types of entities but I also do a lot of practice in constitutional law especially with regards to the First Amendment.

I represent the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the state of New Jersey. I've worked with and provided and had training with the Alliance Defending Freedom and I've worked with a variety of national organizations on free speech and freedom of religion issues.

Free speech that's never an issue for Christians is it? Unfortunately it is often. As someone who.

Does. I do a lot of street ministry and I do a lot of open-air evangelism and so freedom speech issues come up often and one of the things that actually is kind of interesting because we usually find out that some of the street preachers know the First Amendment a little bit better than most police officers it.

Seems. Yes that's probably correct and I have represented a number of street.

Preachers in municipal courts. Yeah we had in Seaside Heights we have a one police officer he's a Jehovah Witness and it's very interesting every year he gives us a hard time like you know we'll have a group of people in different areas have like oh no you all have to be together you have to be in one area sharing handing out tracks and things like that and it's like what law is that and you know it's just interesting and then we'll call the captain and the captain will say you know you can you can continue doing it and but it's it's interesting that like each year we go through that.

It's not unusual. So this we have this case this was seen as a big case for Christians early on this case of the baker in Colorado who refused to make a specialized cake for a homosexual couple for a same-sex wedding.

He offered them other cakes from what I understand he offered to to any of the other non specialized cakes where he wasn't using his his artistic expertise to specifically do this wedding and he and he said that he doesn't do Halloween cakes and he doesn't do many other types of cakes and part of the thing is also that he goes to weddings and so you know Brink cuts the cake even sometimes for them and with them and to celebrate with them and he didn't feel he could do that with this one and he got sued and it well made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Yes. And the thing that you know could you give us kind of an overview of legally what this case was about and what were the issues that came up? Well.

You know you're right. Jack was a Jack was the owner. That was his name. He was a Jack Phillips very religious man. A lot of different cakes that he won't make. He won't make Halloween cakes. He won't make any cakes that denigrate or mock God he has.

He's refused to make cakes with homophobe but what he views as homophobic statements on them. And he explained to these people very clearly that you know look it would violate my religious beliefs my conscience to make you a cake celebrating a gay wedding.

I'll sell you any baked goods you want from my store. I'll give you names of other bakers who will custom make a cake for you. You know I just can't do that for you. That they were not happy with that answer and they filed a complaint with him.

And the complaint started at the Colorado Civil Rights Commission where they held a hearing and he lost. He appealed it all the way through kept losing took it to federal court. Supreme Court decided to hear it and he did win at the Supreme Court level.

Now did he my.

Understanding though is when they went to the Supreme Court they had a choice between arguing for freedom of religion or freedom of speech and he argued for freedom of speech or his lawyers argued for freedom of speech.

That's correct and.

And that's because the and they they always do make all the arguments so the the freedom of religion argument was in their briefs but the the key argument was freedom of speech and there's a very important reason for that so let me give you a little historical context for why that was done.

Originally if you objected to a law to obeying a law because of your religious beliefs the the law was that the state had to show that they had there was a compelling government interest at stake and that this law was the least restrictive way that they could accomplish that.

Okay if they couldn't show those two things your religious beliefs would excuse you with complying from the law. In the 90s there was a case employment division versus Smith and it dealt with a gentleman who was denied unemployment benefits because he was fired from his job from taking drugs.

The drugs he took were peyote and they were he was a member of the Native American Church and peyote is a sacrament in that church and that reached the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said no no this is an unworkable law the way we've been interpreting it and came up with a new standard and the decision was written by Justice Scalia the late Justice Scalia and it basically said if if it's a law of if it's a neutral law of general applicability okay in other words it's not targeted at the religious belief then you can't object to it you have to obey it.

The other way you could get around is it if it was enforced in a discriminatory manner okay that would also be impermissible. It's interesting to note that this decision was widely criticized by people on both ends of the political spectrum.

It was a very unpopular decision as a result the government passed a RFRA law that stands for Religious Freedom Restoration Act and and they applied it to the states which reinstated the old standard.

Well that went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said federal government you can put that standard on yourself but you don't have any right to force that standard on the states. The court did allow them to do to do some limited imposition on the state and that resulted in a law we call RLUPA which just applies to zoning decisions and rules that apply to institutionalized persons prisoners okay so they can still in those two instances the old standard still applies.

The states a lot of states passed RFRA laws on their own but not all. After gay marriage became an issue all of a sudden that became more difficult to do. That's what happened with the law in Indiana.

Indiana was trying to pass one of those and because of political pressure from people who supported gay marriage Governor Pence at the time now vice president vetoed that because of the political pressure that was being put on the state of Indiana but it's interesting to note that at one time everybody agreed that those laws were were a good thing.

So this non-discrimination law is a law a neutral law of general applicability which would make the freedom of religion argument seem to be a very difficult one to make and that's why they went with the free.

Speech issue. And because they thought the free speech was going to be an easier one to win the case. That's correct. So they weren't and this is thing I think some Christians need to understand that when you go before the Supreme Court as a lawyer you're looking to win a case not necessarily make a political statement or make a religious win.

They have a purpose of winning the case. That's correct. So do you think because there's been a lot of discussion on whether this was a a win for religious rights and or not because it wasn't fought over the religious issue as much as it was a freedom of speech issue.

Do you think this was a win for religious rights? Well I do and.

There's a couple of reasons for that. One of which is the court didn't decide it on the freedom of speech issue. They kicked that can down the road and and I look that's a very important right also for Christians and we shouldn't minimize that that if they had determined it on the freedom of speech issue that would have been a clear win for for everyone including Christians.

But what the court did instead is they looked at what Colorado had done and what the Civil Rights Commission had done and they looked at the statements that the commissioners made during the hearing and they looked at the fact that there were other cases where a gentleman had asked bakers to make a cake that had a religious statement on it that was anti-homosexual and he was refused and he argued well they were discriminating against me because of my religious beliefs and the in those cases the bakers won.

So looking at those two things and the fact that the Colorado commissioners, a couple of them, had made very disparaging remarks about Jack's religious beliefs, the court held that these laws were being enforced in a discriminatory manner in Jack's case and.

That's why Jack won. I remember after that when this case actually started and he first got in trouble or first you know they if this lawsuit started there was someone that went into 13 different Muslim owned bakeries with hidden camera asking to make a same-sex wedding cake and he was chased out of most of them one literally chased out by a broom.

The Muslim owner told him to get out. He didn't leave right away. The guy grabbed the broom and chased him out and it was interesting just to show how there does seem to be a double standard that we're seeing in our country with with Christians right now.

Well I don't know.

If those cases were brought to the Commission and how the Commission would have dealt with them. And you know these were secular bakeries that this this gentleman went to asking for religious cake. But but those were also within the.

The same Commission right? Yes. And so I mean in that case there there is a here someone that's for religious reasons is being denied. Right. Where someone else is being sued because he and he and part of the thing was he didn't say okay I'm not giving you anything I'm denying you all service.

That would have been discriminatory but in this case he just said I'm not gonna I'm not gonna exercise my freedom of expression to something and add my artistic ability to.

Something I disagree with religiously. Right so as the decision came down it was it was 7 -2. Yeah. So five of the justices found both justifications not only the denial of these other cakes but the discriminatory statements made during the hearing as evidence of discriminatory intent.

Two of the seven justices relied just on the statements of the commissioners and they felt that the cakes in the other cases were a different situation and that the Commission was right in that instance to hold that those cakes could be denied.

So there was a concurring decision by two of the justices Breyer and Kagan but really what you had the seven majority on was the issue that these comments by the Commissioner poisoned the well so to speak.

Yeah and and you said some of.

This. They kicked the can down the road. Yes. And so we're still.

Gonna be dealing with this issue I think. Oh yes we are. I mean Justice Kennedy said a lot of things and that left the door open but we're not sure how wide the door was left open. So if you'd like I can read a few statements from the case.

So the laws and the Constitution can in some instances and in some instances must protect gay persons and gay couples in the exercise of their civil rights but religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.

While it is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons in acquiring products and services on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public the law must be applied in a manner that is neutral towards religion.

One of the difficulties in this case is that the parties disagree as to the extent of the baker's refusal to provide service. If a baker refused to design a special cake with words or images celebrating the marriage for instance a cake showing words with religious meaning that might be different from a refusal to sell any cake at all.

In defining whether a baker's creation can be protected these details might make a difference. The same difficulties arise in determining whether a baker has a valid free exercise claim, a baker's refusal to attend the wedding to ensure that the cake is cut the right way or a refusal to put certain religious words or decorations on the cake or even a refusal to sell a cake that has been baked for the public generally but include certain religious words or symbols on it are just three examples of possibilities that all but seem endless.

And so that one there is basically the issue that was brought up. Right. Because he did offer them other cakes. In this case he offered him other cakes. He offered him other people yet they could go to.

He didn't deny them service outright. Right. But he just wasn't gonna make a specialized cake. That's correct.

And so there's language in this case that that kind of tries to. I guess you could say soothe both sides of the argument but it kind of it does and it gives both sides something to hang their hat on. So a lot of this is still up in the air.

What's gonna happen with the next case. And I think I think the Supreme Court did this intentionally that way. You know I think they wanted to first of all word the case in a way that they could get the most justices to agree on this issue.

They I think that Kennedy was trying to promote some understanding between the opposing camps. Do I think that that's gonna work. No I think we're gonna see more of these cases. And I think we're gonna see you know that the courts going to have to wrestle with some of these issues.

And look there's a lot of politics in how the court decides cases. They they want to get as many people to agree to a decision as they possibly can we can. They want as much agreement as they can possibly get.

And and for that reason they often decide cases like this one very narrowly. They feel that that makes the decisions less contentious and they feel that it protects the integrity of the court to.

Do it that way. Yeah. And they get to pick which cases they're gonna hear. Yes which does affect things it does. I had previously interviewed Jay Warner Wallace. I don't know if you know who he is. He was a cold case detective for 20 years.

Yes I'm familiar. And the the the joke that you know we kind of had was he's he's never lost a case which sounds really great until you realize that on cold cases they only take the cases that they have good evidence and know pretty much are gonna win.

So it's really it's it sounds really impressive and he's like yeah but they really only take cases. They're really sure they know the outcome that you know they want the out. They know the outcome is gonna win and.

They take that and and often a the you know a judge will will vote to deny what they call cert to hear case because they realize that they don't have enough votes to get the outcome that they want. Yeah so so there's a little bit of.

Politics not just straight law all the time. Oh there's politics in everything unfortunately. Yeah there was a case and I don't I don't remember all the details. I don't even remember which state it is and I don't even know if it's been settled.

I remember there was a case where two women had gotten married. They went to a jeweler and had rings made. They even wrote a very nice review of the jeweler and sometime after they got back from their honeymoon they had gone in the store and they saw a sign in the store that was encouraging people to vote for a traditional definition of marriage which was on the ballot and the two ladies had claimed that they they felt that tainted their rings and they sued him wanting the money back for the rings.

And mind you they wanted to keep the rings but they wanted the money back because they felt his sign tainted their whole wedding after the fact. And I remember hearing about this because he his argument was look they even wrote a great review.

It's I didn't deny them any service whatsoever and I think that they had the last I had heard. I think he had lost that but it was it was being appealed but I didn't hear more what that is but I think we're gonna see more things like that.

Oh yeah and there's.

There's already cases knocking around. I mean there's the Baronell case out of Washington State which involves a florist who was in the same position as Jack in that case. They're hoping that the Supreme Court will take that case.

It's on their docket to consider whether or not they're gonna hear her case. She lost at the state of Washington and if the Supreme Court doesn't take her case my understanding is that she's likely to be put out of business.

No is that the.

Case where if I'm thinking the same one where she actually she did even hire.

People that were practice homosexuality. Oh yeah she she had homosexuals working for. She'd made flowers for this guy in the past. She said she would continue to make flowers for them. She just said as Jack did.

I can't use my artistic talents my God-given artistic talents to celebrate something that I believe goes against God's will. And you know she was taken to court by the state of Washington in this case for that and has lost every step of the way in Washington and now her only hope is that the Supreme Court takes her case and you know the Supreme Court's going again.

Have to struggle with some of these.

Issues now. Did she. Did she have to shut down her business yet or she sold. She's still in business at this point. Yes now did. Jack. He was being fined or something.

Yeah he was he was fined he had to attend non-discrimination classes or what I would call you know re-education classes but he did stop selling wedding cakes to anyone so that he wouldn't be put in this position which obviously.

Hurts his business. Yeah. And is he still doing that then he's still not doing any.

Wedding cakes. I don't know since this decision came out what has happened with.

Him and it's you're saying re-education. So my background being Jewish having grown up a generation after the Holocaust you we would go through in Hebrew school and we would end up having where we basically relive the Holocaust often I mean we would be taught about it.

The the teachers didn't want us to ever forget. And it's hard for some Christians to understand. I tell people. I remember I remember the the teachers lining all the kids up. I was maybe at the time 10 years old 11 years old and they lined all of us up and the one teacher just did like a machine gun went through and she's like that's what Jesus Christ the Christian God would do to you.

And so I was. That was how I grew up thinking of. Jesus Christ wasn't exactly someone I was in year two but but it was a thing always what amazed me about the Holocaust. And even to this day I read anything I can get on it is even within these countries where the Germans were executing Jewish people the citizens just couldn't believe it was happening.

They put it out of their mind. Oh we're too civilized. That was the phrase that always amazed me. The Germans were like we're too civilized for this to be happening. And it was this slow progression of events where first the Jews weren't allowed to practice law they weren't allowed to be in political office.

They couldn't be teachers. Any anything that influenced the next generation. And we're seeing that a little bit even Bernie Sanders had publicly stated that someone couldn't shouldn't be qualified for public office because he thinks Islam is wrong even though Islam would think Christianity is wrong.

But you know it's like just we don't look at that and it was like okay it can't be in public office. There's people that are being told they can't they they shouldn't be able to practice law if they don't accept same-sex marriages.

And it's just it's this slow progression that I see it really mimics what happened in Nazi Germany. And it was a re-education that was it was everyone had to. You had to carry or you know keep the the party line or you were in.

Trouble. Well and that's one of the that's probably the most helpful thing about this case is if you have had a good majority of the justices sign on to an opinion that says you can't denigrate the religious belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.

You know that's a protected view and and I think it's very important that the court did state that. And that is probably the most important thing that's come out of this case for Christians. Yeah yeah I mean I.

Think I don't think this is gonna be end of it though as you had said. No no I.

Mean there's already been a case out of Arizona that was decided after this case involving wedding invitations. People who make wedding invitations who challenged Arizona's non-discrimination law they did what's called a pre-enforcement action you know.

In other words you shoot. They sued before the hammer was dropped on them and the Arizona Appeals Court has said no no no this situation is different than Colorado. And they hung their hat on the language in the case that favors their view to find that you know the state of Arizona.

Can you know force you to make invitations for a gay wedding. You know. And it's an interesting.

Thing because I think the law is supposed to try to be fair to all people and and one of the things I think people don't usually think about they talk morality law is morality. I mean you're saying this is right and this is wrong.

So it is the it is the instituting of a moral system and if we're gonna say something's right and wrong we it has to be. You know what. At least we believe it should be fair to all. And I think in what we're seeing is there seems to be and I'm trying to generalize so it's not gonna be in all cases.

But there seems to be an intolerance of people who practice homosexuality who are pushing that agenda. I would last week or weekend weekend before was in Ohio and we're we do a conference there every year and we've been doing it for eight years.

And this is the first year that happened to fall on the day where they had a gay pride parade. Now the parade ended at three o 'clock and we went out there at about five o 'clock. So we were there after the the event.

But just us being there and one lady even said the fact that I was standing there with a Bible in my hand was offensive and meant that I shouldn't be there and that the only reason I was there was for their gay pride parade and and I was like we've been coming here for eight years seven of those years we never had that we come to the same place to evangelize in all those years.

And the thing that really struck me is how intolerant they all seemed that they just got done having a parade to publicly show their views and yet me standing there with a Bible had.

To be stopped there's no question that that the Christian viewpoint on homosexuality is viewed by the homosexuals and and their their allies as despicable and that you know it's not good enough for them to have gained the rights that they have gained but they want to eradicate any any thought that homosexuality is not moral.

Yeah it's clear that that that that is the.

Eventual goal it's it's it's really the intolerance from the tolerant crowd right. I mean they're the ones asking for tolerance. It was interesting because I was open-air evangelizing for two or three hours and there were others there as well that were doing it before.

So we were there for a couple of several hours. But I had four people come up to me afterwards to apologize for their behavior in the way they were speaking to me when I was doing the open-air once I stopped they want to come over privately and apologize.

And it was interesting because one thing that I kept bringing up over and over again I purposely did not bring up the issue of homosexuality because I realized there be a bunch of people that were still there from the parade and I don't need to.

They kept bringing it up and I kept pointing out wait a minute I'm not bringing this issue up. You are. I'm not judging you. I'm asking you if you ever lied and I'm look that's God's standard. We shouldn't lie we shouldn't steal we shouldn't murder.

Right. I'm just giving you what God's standard is. I'm not judging you. I'm letting you judge yourself. And it was interesting how over and over again I kept having to point out that they were being intolerant of my views and that if you know I even said to one of them I said look do you want people to be tolerant of you.

And she said yes. And I said well don't you think then you of all people should be tolerant of other people's views. And she was like not if they disagree with mine it was like well there you go. I mean I said I'm tolerant of you.

I'm not telling you how you have to live. I'm just telling you that you're gonna be accountable for how you have to live. But I'm saying that to the person who lies the person who cheats the person who commits adultery person who murders.

All of us are gonna have to be accountable.

To God for how we behave and and that's why the free speech component of this case was was also very important. And you know that one of the things that was made clear in the oral arguments is that look we're not saying that anybody can refuse to serve someone just because they're gay.

You can't refuse to serve them in a diner. You can't refuse to you know serve them in your store. We we agree that that it's the law and that that law is constitutional. What we're saying is that you can't force people to use their expressive gifts their artistic gifts to affirm a message that we disagree with.

That's all we want is the right to to disagree and not be forced to accept your viewpoint. It was.

Interesting I think just this week the CEO of Twitter was shamed into apologizing because he went to a Chick-fil-a. Yes and it's like Chick-fil-a is a restaurant. They serve food if he happens to like the food but.

But this seems to be the bullying tactic that we've seen over and over you know. Threatening the NFL if they don't allow anyone to use whatever bathrooms they want you know. Threatening states with with economic reprisals.

It's just it. To me it seems like a bullying tactic that is being played over and over. Well I.

Agree. I mean I think it's very sad day for America when you know you not only can't eat at a restaurant because you might disagree with the viewpoint of the owner or the person who runs the business but it goes even beyond that is if that somebody does eat there that person also deserves to be shamed.

So I it's just it really is a sad day for this country that we've come to that.

Christian Liberty, Free Speech, and the Baker’s Rights

Yeah and I'm gonna play a commercial and after that I'm gonna tell you about case. Well it's not case cuz they didn't sue. But what happened when it was reversed and there was Christians who were denied service or actually kicked out of a place because the owner was homosexual.

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Org store. So there was a group that is very active in in the abortion ministry. I don't actually agree with this group. I actually think they're a cult but but nonetheless I think they have the right to hand out their literature as they were doing.