Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-111diff2_e1pf.pdf
Page Number: 33.0

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

7 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

its  cause.  This  isn’t  a  case  where  the  Commission  self-
consciously  announced  a  change  in  its  legal  rule  in  all 
public accommodation cases.  Nor is this a case where the 
Commission  offered  some  persuasive  reason  for  its  dis-
crimination that might survive strict scrutiny.  Instead, as 
the  Court  explains,  it  appears  the  Commission  wished  to
condemn Mr. Phillips for expressing just the kind of “irra-
tional”  or  “offensive  . . .  message”  that  the  bakers  in  the 
first  case  refused  to  endorse.    Ante,  at  16.    Many  may 
agree  with  the  Commission  and  consider  Mr.  Phillips’s 
religious beliefs irrational or offensive.  Some may believe
he  misinterprets  the  teachings  of  his  faith.  And,  to  be 
sure,  this  Court  has  held  same-sex  marriage  a  matter  of
constitutional right and various States have enacted laws 
that  preclude  discrimination  on  the  basis  of  sexual  orien-
tation.  But  it  is  also  true  that  no  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.  Just as it is the “proud-
est boast of our free speech jurisprudence” that we protect
speech that we hate, it must be the proudest boast of our 
free  exercise  jurisprudence  that  we  protect  religious  be-
liefs  that  we  find  offensive.  See  Matal  v.  Tam,  582  U. S. 
___,  ___  (2017)  (plurality  opinion)  (slip  op.,  at  25)  (citing 
United  States  v.  Schwimmer,  279  U. S.  644,  655  (1929) 
(Holmes, J., dissenting)).  Popular religious views are easy 
enough  to  defend.  It  is  in  protecting  unpopular  religious 
beliefs that we prove this country’s commitment to serving
as  a  refuge  for  religious  freedom.   See  Church  of  Lukumi 
Babalu Aye, supra, at 547; Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indi-
ana  Employment  Security  Div.,  450  U. S.  707,  715–716 
(1981); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 223–224 (1972); 
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 308–310 (1940). 

Nor  can  any  amount  of  after-the-fact  maneuvering  by