My Guest Appearance on First Mondays: "Stale Cake"

I discuss last week's Supreme Court opinions and much more with Professors Dan Epps and Ian Samuel.

Last Friday, I appeared as a guest host on one of my favorite podcasts, First Mondays. It is a podcast about the Supreme Court run by two law professors, Dan Epps and Ian Samuel. In the episode you can find out my cockamamie scheme for controlling interruptions at Supreme Court oral arguments, my various thoughts on Masterpiece Cakeshop (and the relevance of Godwin's Law), and much more.

You can get the episode here or listen below.

Comments

[Josh R]

Thanks for the link to a thoughtful discussion.

You spent some time discussing how Gorsuch thought a double-standard was used in the Phillips and Jack cases in the level of generality in the state's analysis of the two cases, and how the level of generality is an unavoidable and perplexing issue as it was in Obergefell. I think that's wrong and Kagan missed an opportunity to counter Gorsuch without relying on the level of generality when Gorsuch said (my emphasis):

If Mr. Phillips's objection is "inextricably tied" to a protected class,then the bakers' objection in Mr. Jack's case must be "inextricably tied" to one as well. For just as cakes celebrating same-sex weddings are (usually) requested by persons of a particular sexual orientation, so too are cakes expressing religious opposition to same-sex weddings (usually) requested by persons of particular religious faiths.

Kagan could have countered with what Eugene wrote:

The bakers in the William Jack cases were opposed solely to his anti-gay message, not to his religion; there is no reason to think they would have accepted a secular anti-gay cake while rejecting the religious one.