30 percent of Democrats oppose mandates to force bakeries to make same-sex wedding cakes
Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman/Getty Images
Chuck Ross • October 20, 2022 3:30 pm
Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman pleaded with people not to vote for him if they think bakers shouldn’t be required to make cakes for same-sex weddings, a position that puts him at odds with many voters in the party his.
In a 2020 interview, Fetterman rattled off a list of policy positions he refused to give up, including releasing people serving time in prison for marijuana possession, accepting Syrian refugees and supporting same-sex marriage. He also weighed in on the controversy over a Colorado bakery’s religious refusal to create a cake for a same-sex wedding.
“If you think two people can’t love what they want … or you think someone should be able to not bake someone a wedding cake,” Fetterman said, “I’m begging you, vote for the other person, because I don’t it’s like that. it’ll ever be me.”
Fetterman’s steadfast position would be bad news for him if voters in the new state of Pennsylvania take his advice at the ballot box next month. According to a 2017 Pew Research poll, Americans were evenly split on whether bakers should be required to make cakes for same-sex weddings. According to the poll, 30 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans opposed the mandates. Fetterman’s Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz support same-sex marriage, but has not publicly weighed in on the wedding cake issue.
Fetterman’s views also put him at odds with some of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices. In a 7-2 vote in 2018, the Court sided with Masterpiece Cakeshop in a case against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The commission had sued to compel shop owner Jack Phillips to design a cake for a same-sex wedding, but he refused to do so on religious grounds. Liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined all the conservative justices in supporting Phillips.
Fetterman weighed in on the cake controversy days after his 2020 interview, referring to Phillips as a “goth” on Twitter. He too said that anyone who refuses to bake a cake for a gay wedding on religious grounds “might need a new religion.”
Phillips’ legal drama hasn’t gone away. A Colorado state judge fined Phillips $500 last year for refusing to bake a birthday cake for a woman celebrating the day she came out as transgender. Phillips’ lawyers at the Alliance Defending Freedom said an “activist lawyer” ordered the cake in order to “test” Phillips.
“Radical activists and government officials are targeting artists like Jack because they will not promote messages on marriage and sexuality that violate their core beliefs,” his lawyers said.
Fetterman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
