In the end, the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling was narrow without being close. Justice Kennedy won over liberals Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer into a 7-2 majority to rule that Colorado had improperly shown contempt for Jack Phillips’s religious views while considering the case against him brought by wedding-cake hopefuls Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins. By deciding the case on those grounds, Kennedy sidestepped the broader question that has dominated public discussion of the case all year: When does it violate the First Amendment to require business people to accept work they believe implicates them in expression contrary to their beliefs? Dodged today, that question will assuredly be back in future.
Despite early melt-the-screen reactions from some on the left (bake a take as fast as you can!) Kennedy specifically did not carve out any new exceptions from state LGBT anti-bias measures; he even took pains to praise that body of law. Instead, his message to Colorado was: Go back and run the process again without showing animus toward people’s religious beliefs.
