Pray that the Lord will place a righteous judge in the next vacant seat of the Supreme Court and fill our courts with originalist judges. A prominent Christian attorney who has argued before the Supreme Court said that our latest Special Report Prayer Guide: Appealing for our Courts is one of the best prayer guides that he has ever seen about our nation’s judicial system. Pray through it yourself—download HERE.

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. (Jam 1:12)

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There’s been a battle online over whether or not to call Monday’s Supreme Court decision on a Christian baker “narrow.” The vote was 7-2, which isn’t narrow. But the scope of the ruling was. It seemed to say that in this particular case, the Colorado human rights commissars showed explicit, anti-religious bias. That tainted their case that a vital public interest was served by punishing this Christian wedding cake baker. (He would sell cakes to everyone, but wouldn’t design a specific, gay-wedding cake.)

But bureaucrats with a little more tact would likely get away with closing down Christian businesses. At least under the Court as it stands today.

SCOTUSblog explains the decision as follows:

[T]he justices today handed Phillips a victory, even if not necessarily the ruling that he and his supporters had hoped for. Kennedy, the author of some of the court’s most important gay-rights rulings, began by explaining that the case involved a conflict between two important principles: on the one hand, the state’s power “to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons who are, or wish to be, married but who face discrimination when they seek goods or services”; and, on the other, the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.

As a general rule, Kennedy explained, the Supreme Court’s cases make clear that Phillips’ right to freely exercise his religion is not absolute, and can be limited by neutral laws that apply to everyone. But the critical question of when Phillips’ right to exercise his religion can be limited had to be determined, Kennedy emphasized, in a proceeding that was not tainted by hostility to religion.

Here, Kennedy observed, the “neutral and respectful consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised” by comments by members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. One commissioner, Kennedy pointed out, “even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust.” Moreover, Kennedy added, the commission’s treatment of Phillips’ religious objections was at odds with its rulings in the cases of bakers who refused to create cakes “with images that conveyed disapproval of same-sex marriage.”…

No, Silly. Here’s How You Do It.

We need to stuff the court with many more people who think like Justice Thomas

Kennedy, writing for the majority, lays out a little bread crumb trail. The next set of state or federal legislators can follow it. Be tactful. Restrain yourselves from openly comparing Christian religious beliefs to Nazi ideology or racism. Just set up rules that appear to be neutral. Then administer them using neutral language. And I’ll vote your way (wink, wink). See Kennedy:

While the issues here are difficult to resolve, it must be concluded that the State’s interest could have been weighed against Phillips’ sincere religious objections in a way consistent with the requisite religious neutrality that must be strictly observed….

But … Gorsuch

Justice Gorsuch’s opinion, while sound on the legal issues, shouldn’t raise our hopes too high. He asserts:

[N]o bureaucratic judgment condemning a sincerely held religious belief as “irrational” or “offensive” will ever survive strict scrutiny under the First Amendment. In this country, the place of secular officials isn’t to sit in judgment of religious beliefs, but only to protect their free exercise.

What if the U.S. government concludes that it has a “compelling state interest” in squelching opposition to same-sex marriage or “homophobia”? Then it would find room to do so. As long as public servants stay mum about the religious reasons people give for dissenting. Now, a left that can’t resist applying the “c-word” to the president’s daughter isn’t big on tact….

The Hunt Continues

But we can’t count on that. The hatred today’s left feels toward orthodox Christianity is fanatical. Remember how Inspector Javert, in Les Misérables, sought pretext after pretext for imprisoning Jean Valjean? So the left will keep hunting Christians. Justice Kennedy has just told them the opening and closing days for hunting season….

The Tyranny of the Snowflakes

If the government can stifle free speech, or commerce, or association, because allowing it might “embarrass” people, we truly are lost. America will have abandoned the Anglo-American tradition of liberty going back to the Magna Carta. Instead, we’ll be stuck with a Progressive nanny state that corrals, punishes, and even imprisons dissenters…. (Excerpts from John Zmirak article on Stream.org)