On Tuesday, December 5, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The latter agency ruled that baker Jack Phillips, a Christian, had violated a state law against discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations when he declined to design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
One of the key arguments being made on Phillips’ behalf is that the creation of (or decision not to create) a custom-designed wedding cake is quite different from simply buying a product off the shelf, because it is an act of creative artistic expression—and is therefore protected by the First Amendment.
In light of that, one of the more fascinating briefs filed in the case came from a group of “cake artists as amici curiae in support of neither party.” While taking no position on the other arguments in the case, this brief does assert that “this Court should make clear . . . that cake artists are indeed practitioners of an expressive art and that they are entitled to the same respect under the First Amendment as artists using any other medium.”
Among the unique aspects of this brief are that it includes full color photographs of a number of unique, creative, and beautiful cakes for both weddings and other events. However, I also thought that this paragraph (on p. 33)—challenging the argument that cakes are not “art” because they are designed to be eaten—was a work of beauty in itself:
For example, cakes are perishable, designed to radiate beauty but for a moment, and then to be consumed. But the fact that any given cake is a vanishing work does not distinguish it from artistic performances on the stage (or, indeed, protests on the street). Nature’s beauty is no less revealed through the flower that blooms for a single day than through the tree that lives for a thousand years; likewise, an ice sculpture is not inherently less artistic than one carved from stone. The same is true of cakes—they are made from a canvas designed for consumption rather than permanent display. And like other vanishing works of art, cakes can be given a measure of permanence by being recorded—as with the pictures in this brief. Cake is not the only “art” than can be consumed—but the consumption of cake merges more senses (sight, taste, touch, smell) than the consumption of a speech or a song.
