Why Jack Phillips’ win at the Supreme Court was a win for Christian conservatives
There’s a lot of discussion about Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision which pitted religious freedoms against LGBT rights. Was the ruling really that significant? Since it was so narrow in scope, should Christian conservatives really rejoice? Did the justices merely kick the can down the road? (For my own take, see here and here .) Scores of articles have already been written on this, which means that it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. The bottom line is that Jack Phillips won. His religious freedoms were upheld. There was a pushback against governmental hostility towards religion. All that is very good news. To put this in perspective, what if the Supreme Court had ruled against Phillips? What if the justices said that the state was within its rights to punish him for declining to design a same-sex “wedding” cake? What if there was no pushback against Colorado’s overt and explicit hostility towards Phillip’s Christian beliefs? What then? What would headlines hav...