One of the very contentious decisions before the U.S. Supreme Court is the appeal of a baker in Colorado, who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The couple sued, and said that the baker had violated Colorado law, which said it was wrong for a business or place of public accommodation to refuse service on grounds of sexual orientation (or race or gender or other of the usual reasons for discrimination). The baker contended that his cakes were artistic expressions, and he did not wish to sell one to this couple, based on his religious freedom rights.

Here are some interesting commentaries on this case, which was recently argued, and on which the Court will rule later.

This one by John Gehring appeared in the Catholic magazine Commonweal and represents the views of religious groups, who disagree with the baker.

Now that marriage equality has won in the courts and in the culture (even a majority of Republicans under the age of forty support same-sex marriage), conservative Christian activists are using new tactics to chip away at LGBT rights. By making a First Amendment appeal, lawyers for Phillips recognize that such an approach could have more salience and be more persuasive than a strict religious-liberty argument. David Cole of the American Civil Liberties Union, a co-counsel in the case, deconstructed the free-expression argument in the New York Review of Books this month. “Likening its cakes to the art of Jackson Pollock and Piet Mondrian, Masterpiece Cakeshop claims that they deserve protection as free speech no less than Pollock’s canvases,” Cole writes. “But whether the cakes are artistic is beside the point. As an individual artist, Pollock would not have been subject to a public accommodations law and could have chosen his customers. But if he had opened a commercial art studio to the public, he, too, would have been barred from refusing to sell a painting because a customer was black, female, disabled, or gay.” Cathleen Kaveny, a Boston College professor and Commonweal columnist, thinks there are compelling First Amendment arguments in the case, but worries about an overly broad interpretation of the Court’s eventual ruling. “Every bakery is not a Masterpiece Cakeshop,” she said. “Not everyone is asking for a unique wedding cake to exemplify their soul. The distinguishing features of this case really limit its application. I worry a ruling for Masterpiece would be read as accommodating anyone who is engaged in creative work. But there is a big difference between a couture shop that creates the perfect wedding dress or a cake that incorporates the designer’s artistic vision and a boutique selling off the rack. David’s Bridal isn’t Vera Wang.”

“These debates are not academic. Despite the seismic cultural shift in support for same-sex marriage over the last decade, LGBT people still face substantial discrimination. As shared in the amicus brief they filed, Lambda Legal detailed more than one thousand incidents of LGBT people being denied service in the United States. This demonstrates “an ugly truth,” according to the brief. “With disturbing frequency, LGBT people are confronted by ‘we don’t serve your kind’ refusals and other unequal treatment in a wide range of public accommodations contexts.” Only nineteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws specifically protecting LGBT people in public accommodations.

“As a Catholic with a platform as a writer, I take seriously the public demands of faith. From the abolition of slavery to the civil-rights movement to the resurgence of progressive faith activism in the Trump-era, religion has been and will continue to be a part of the civic fabric of our nation. Religious Americans on the right also recognize that their faith comes with public responsibilities, and progressive people of faith should not blithely dismiss their sincere convictions. But respecting the sincerity of a conviction from a faithful fellow citizen and codifying that conviction into a law governing a diverse society are two different things. As the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative Catholic, noted in a 1990 case, laws of general applicability “could not function” if they were subject to nearly unlimited religious exemptions. Quoting from an 1878 decision, Scalia warned that such exemptions would “permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”

“Pope Francis describes religious liberty as “one of America’s most precious possessions.” We don’t honor religious liberty or the radical inclusivity of Christ by telling people made in the image of God that their love and commitment are not worth a cake.”

David Cole of the ACLU, a co-counsel in the case, wrote in the New York Review of Books:

It is one of the most talked-about cases of the term, in part because it’s so easy to conjure hypothetical variations: What if the cake includes the message “God bless this union”? What if a wedding photographer, who has to be present at the ceremony in order to provide her services, objects to same-sex marriage? Should bakeries or photographers be permitted to refuse their services to an interracial or interfaith couple? Could a bakery refuse to make a birthday cake for a black family because its owner objects to celebrating black lives?…

“The Trump administration has filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the bakery, the first time in history that the solicitor general has supported a constitutional exemption from an antidiscrimination law. One of the Justice Department’s principal responsibilities is to enforce public accommodations and antidiscrimination laws, so it is generally skeptical of arguments for allowing citizens to evade their strictures. But not this administration, at least not when what’s at issue is a religious objection to selling a cake to a same-sex couple…

“Masterpiece Cakeshop’s objection rests on its owner’s Christian beliefs. And its complaint is ultimately a desire not to be associated with a same-sex couple’s wedding celebration; it objected to selling Craig and Mullins even a nondescript cake. But because the Supreme Court has flatly rejected both association- and religion-based claims in such cases already, the bakery stresses that it is making a free speech claim. It maintains that it speaks through its cakes, which should make this case different.

“The reasons for rejecting exemptions based on religion and association, however, are equally applicable to free speech claims. Because almost any conduct can be engaged in for “expressive” purposes, the exceptions would very quickly swallow the rule. As the Supreme Court has recognized, “it is possible to find some kernel of expression in almost every activity a person undertakes.”6 Any business that uses creative or artisanal skills to produce something that communicates in some way could claim an exemption. A law firm, which provides its services entirely through words, could refuse to serve black clients. Photographs are undeniably expressive, so a commercial photography studio could post a sign saying it takes pictures only of men if it objected to depicting women. A sign-painting business whose owner objects to immigration could refuse to provide signs to Latino-owned businesses.

“Likening its cakes to the art of Jackson Pollock and Piet Mondrian, Masterpiece Cakeshop claims that they deserve protection as free speech no less than Pollock’s canvases. But whether the cakes are artistic is beside the point. As an individual artist, Pollock would not have been subject to a public accommodations law and could have chosen his customers. But if he had opened a commercial art studio to the public, he, too, would have been barred from refusing to sell a painting because a customer was black, female, disabled, or gay…

“Only laws that target religion, or that are intended to deny equal treatment to a protected class, trigger heightened scrutiny under the First Amendment’s religion clause and the Equal Protection clause. In a pluralist society, it is inevitable that many generally applicable laws will have incidental effects on different community members. But unless every man is to be a “law unto himself,” there cannot be an exemption for everyone who complains about a law’s indirect effect on his constitutional rights.

“That principle is especially appropriate for antidiscrimination laws, like the Colorado law that Masterpiece Cakeshop seeks to evade. Such laws are by their very nature designed to ensure equal treatment for all, so that no one has to endure the stigma and shame of being turned away by a business that disapproves of who they are. If those laws were subject to exemptions for anyone who could claim his product or service was expressive, they would become not a safeguard against discrimination, but a license to discriminate.”

If the Supreme Court favors the baker, expect businesses to claim that they don’t sell to interracial couples or to Muslims or Catholics or blacks or Jews or any group that offends their religious beliefs. This is an important decision.