Minority Stress is Real, but Wedding Cakes Don’t Cause It

Today, Tuesday, December 5, the Supreme Court will revisit same-sex marriage. In the case orally argued today, David Mullins and Charlie Craig—a same-sex couple from Colorado—hold that Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, discriminated against a class of persons by his refusal to create a custom wedding cake for their celebration. Phillips, on the other hand, says he has no objections to doing business with gay or lesbian customers, but he will not violate his conscience concerning the nature and structure of marriage.

Antigay stigma, bullying, and violence are old and lamentable things. When scholars claim that these have, and can still have, an ill effect on individuals’ health and wellness, I don’t have trouble believing it. “Minority stress” is real, and it has been and can be a problem.

The key questions, though, are (1) what is “minority stress,” (2) how big a problem is it, and (3) how is it at work in a case about cake? I wrote a brief on this case about the claims being made that social stress—in particular, the unique stress that one’s sexual minority status can entail—is powerfully at work here, contributing directly to diminished psychological, physical, and relational health. Here’s what I found when I looked into it.

Read here