SCOTUS Term: Free Exercise "Happy talk" (Two Updates)

The Court decided Masterpiece Cake on the narrowest, least generally applicable grounds it could find--that some Colorado Civil Rights Commissioners made anti-religion statements in deciding the case, thereby failing to decide the case with the "religious neutrality that the Constitution requires"  or the "neutral and respectful considerations to which the baker was entitled. But the Court did not recognize Free-Exercise exception to public-accommodation laws and seemed to accept that religious beliefs do not provide an out to public-accommodations laws. That is, the problem was not the decision the Commission made (and the state courts affirmed), but the statements made in the course of making that decision.

• The majority's basic rationale is incoherent. It criticizes the "lack of due consideration for Phillips' free exercise rights and the dilemma he faced" and the failure to consider his religious objection "with the neutrality" required by the First Amendment. But the point of Smith is that there is no dilemma. Religious preferences, no matter how deeply held, yield to laws of general applicability. The required neutrality is in the law's application--the law cannot treat conduct performed for religious reasons less favorably than identical conduct performed for non-religious reasons. The majority here imposes some sort of neutrality of consideration. But what it really imposes is a "happy-talk" requirement--officials must speak respectfully and kindly and happily about religion religious objections to neutral laws, even while rejecting those objections. Because allowing those objections would eviscerate public accommodations laws.

• I have not seen this argued anywhere, but why wasn't this case moot? I believe I read that Phillips closed his bakery. So the sanctions imposed on him--cease-and-desist discriminating, comprehensive staff training, and quarterly compliance reports--no longer have any effect. [Update: In light of comments and further thought, the mootness point seems clear--the possibility of reopening the business renders the case not moot. I was incorrectly recalling a case in which the Court held that closing a nude bar did not render moot the challenge to an anti-nude-dancing ordinance. Apologies for raising an unnecessary issue]

[Second Update: So what happens next. The case came to SCOTUS on direct review from the state court, which was reviewing the Commission decision. The state court of appeals decision affirming the commission is reversed and so, therefore, is the Commission decision and order. One commentator to the Civ Pro listserv described this as an "implicit remand"--the Colorado court now can remand to the Commission to do the case over in a "neutral" manner. Then the question is whether the Commission wants to pursue the case anew, which may get us back into the question of whether Phillips is still running the bakery and/or whether he intends to do so in the future.