I AM AWAITING THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission—the case about a Christian baker who declined to design a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding. He considered this “participating” in the wedding (but he was apparently willing to sell an off-the-shelf cake to all comers). But I can’t say I am eager for the decision, since this isn’t an easy case, and I prefer a well-considered opinion to a quick one.

Cases at the intersection of religious liberty and anti-discrimination law are rarely easy. The Commission on Civil Rights did a report a few years ago on the topic. I was shocked at the level of hostility to religion among my Commission colleagues.  For example, here is what the then-Chairman had to say:

“The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”

Weirdly, in person, he always seemed like an affable guy. Alas, many otherwise affable guys go off the deep end these days when discussing hot-button issues.

My Statement in that report tried to deal with the broad issue of religious accommodation (and tried to deal with some of the fevered arguments made by those on the Left). The latter task was pretty easy, the former very hard. Maybe it’ll be “a piece of cake” for the Supreme Court … but … I doubt it.