Wedding cakes, equality, and rhetorics of religious freedom. Issue 1 (3rd July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: West, Isaac
• Is Part Of: First amendment studies. Volume 53:Issue 1/2(2019)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 21
• Publication Date: 2019-07-03
• Subjects: Religious freedom -- equality -- wedding cakes; Freedom of speech -- United States -- Periodicals; Freedom of speech -- Periodicals; 323.44
• DOI: 10.1080/21689725.2019.1604246
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2168-1430

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Wedding cakes are a site of vigorous debate about the meaning and scope of religious freedom. Unfortunately, when we privilege religious freedom as a frame for understanding these controversies we do so at the expense of a fuller commitment to equality. In an analysis of three conservative news sources as well as three sites of discourse, small business, religious freedom, and wedding cakes, this essay explores how and why particular assertions of religious freedom inform the sense that religious freedom should be favored over the full and fair application of state and federal equality laws.