Shotgun wedding? Forcing religious vendors to participate in wedding ceremonies

Sep 19, 2017 by Jill

by Hannah Smith and Eric Rassbach, MercatorNet:

Counsels for a case in the US Supreme Court outline their argument.

Weddings are kind of a big deal. What some have called the “wedding-industrial complex” seems to grow larger every year, and by some accounts, the average American wedding now costs over $25,000. So it is no surprise that wedding ceremonies themselves have become one of the first flashpoints to arise in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges. Who has to participate? Who has to help celebrate? And when may the state employ its monopoly of force to require individuals to participate, even when they have conscientious religious objections? These questions are front and center in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and its companion (but not-yet-granted) case Arlene’s Flowers, Inc. v. Washington.

Religious tests

In answering these questions the Supreme Court does not write on a blank slate. In fact, there is a long and ignominious history in Anglo-American law of “tests” – requirements that an individual participate in or celebrate a particular ceremony as a condition of entry into certain offices or professions, with the goal of forcing compliance with a particular set of beliefs. For example, from the reign of Henry VIII until well after the Glorious Revolution, English law required national and municipal government officials, military officers, members of particular professions, and students at Cambridge and Oxford to take part in communion ceremonies celebrated by the Church of England, generally at least once a year. Unless these individuals went through with the ceremony and passed the “test,” they were debarred from these positions of prominence.

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