(CNSNews.com) – Former Solicitor General Ted Olson told “Fox News Sunday” that it is “not illegal” for a bakery for instance to refuse to participate in a gay wedding under last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
“It's not illegal under this ruling,” Olson said in response to Fox News host Chris Wallace’s question about how the ruling will affect religious freedom.
“There's the question – and it became hot this spring – of religious freedom. Can the proverbial baker or photographer who is selling his services openly, can he refuse to participate in a same-sex marriage because he or she believes that it violates their religious freedom or is that now illegal under this rule?” Wallace asked.
“There may be laws, statutes that cover it, but a bakery, if you walk into a bakery on the street and want to buy a pie or a doughnut or something like that, the bakery under federal law can't discriminate against you on the basis of your race or your religion. So, if there are laws that cover that kind of discrimination that might be illegal,” said Olson.
“It's different than someone being asked to participate in a wedding, to perform a wedding, to sing in a wedding, to participate and be a wedding planner, something like that. People have the right to refuse personal services with respect to things like that on a religious basis,” he said.
“I think some of that dispute is overblown and the courts have been dealing with that kind of an issue for many, many years with respect to religious rights and racial discrimination and discrimination on the basis of gender for a long time,” Olson added.
Olson successfully represented George W. Bush in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore that ended the recount of the 2000 presidential election and eventually served as Bush’s solicitor general. He is also a same-sex marriage advocate.
Olson compared Friday’s Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges to the Loving. V. Virginia, the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in 1967.
“Fourteen times the Supreme Court of the United States held that marriage is a fundamental right, including the right to interracial marriage in 1967,” said Olson. “They didn't call it the right to interracial marriage. They called it the right to marriage. They described it as a right to liberty, privacy, association, of being a part of this country, being a part of the relationship that matters most to most people in this country and to be a part of our community.
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