The Patriot Post® · Monday Opinion

Best of Right Opinion

• Jeff Jacoby: What the Constitution Says About Cakes and Compelled Speech
• Kathryn Jean Lopez: Set Your Sights on Joy
• Tony Perkins: Happy Holy Days From the Trumps
• Todd Starnes: DC Transit Bans Christmas Messages From Catholic Church
• Burt Prelutsky: Coming to Grips With Groping

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion.

Opinion in Brief

Jeff Jacoby: “On Tuesday, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission — the case of the same-sex wedding cake and the baker who refused to make it. … In Obergefell, the high court emphasized that dissent is entirely legitimate. ‘Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here,’ Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. While same-sex couples would no longer be barred from marrying, he added, nothing should impede the continuation of ‘an open and searching debate.’ Were the justices serious about that? If so — if they truly don’t want the legalization of same-sex weddings to become an excuse to persecute ‘decent and honorable’ Americans who oppose gay marriage — they will use this case to say so. They’ll reverse the decision of the Colorado courts and uphold Phillips’s right not to support a practice he believes is wrong. … One needn’t share Phillips’s opinion of gay marriage to support his right to unmolested freedom of expression. Indeed, some groups that vigorously oppose his beliefs about matrimony have filed amicus briefs on his behalf. The right to have views that others don’t share, they know, is a quintessential American liberty. And the right not to be prosecuted for expressing those opinions is another.”