BULLETIN:   SUPREME COURT ANNOUNCES MAJOR DECISION – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  This case, involving a baker who declined to bake a cake for a gay couple based on the baker's religious beliefs, has been festering for a long time.  From CNBC: 

The Supreme Court on Monday handed a narrow victory to a Christian baker from Colorado who refused for religious reasons to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

The justices, in a 7-2 decision, faulted the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's handling of the claims brought against Jack Phillips, saying it had showed a hostility to religion. In doing so, the commission violated his religious rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But the court did not issue a definitive ruling on the circumstances under which people can seek exemptions from anti-discrimination laws based on their religious views.

The commission had said Phillips violated the Colorado anti-discrimination law that bars businesses from refusing service based on race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation by rebuffing gay couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig in 2012.

Two of the court's four liberals, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, joined the five conservative justices in the ruling authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

COMMENT:  Details are just coming in on this, but in my view the Court decided correctly, and I am gratified that two liberal justices joined in the decision.

The narrowness of the decision, as noted in the extract above, makes it impossible to draw broad conclusions about future Supreme Court decisions dealing with religious rights versus the rights of others.  But the Court was properly outraged by the behavior of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which showed contempt for the baker's religious beliefs.  It is something we've seen in similar agencies in other states, especially Oregon.

Some initial news stories on the decision show the usual cynicism and manufactured dismay that we have come to expect from liberal news sources.

June 4, 2018