During the 2016 Libertarian Party Primary Gary Johnson, who won the party nomination, famously departed from basic libertarian principles and argued that Jewish Bakers should be forced by the government to bake a Nazi cake. Now, the US Supreme Court is hearing arguments over a case that will decide this matter – should businesses, particularly creative businesses, be forced to be neutral and non-discriminatory, regardless of religious preferences. Should a separation of Church and State be extended to a separation of Church and Enterprise?
From a libertarian perspective, the answer is simply no. Discrimination and bigotry are social ills that can only be stopped through social mechanisms, not by government gun. Trade, in order to be voluntary, must be transparent, and forcing business owners to hide their bigotry means that people inadvertently patronize these businesses, thus funding them.
This sort of government intervention also deprives socially progressive businesses from exploiting a market opportunity, and that can have very real long term impacts. As Dr. Robert Weems, renowned professor of African American history, details in his book, Desegregating the Dollar, “White-Owned businesses, rather than unfettered black consumers, were the primary beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
