DOES SAME-SEX MARRIAGE TRUMP THE FIRST FREEDOM IN THE FIRST AMENDMENT? That’s the essential question facing the U.S. Supreme Court as it deliberates in what quite possibly will become a landmark case. Remember the name: Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Court hears oral arguments Tuesday.

Jack Phillips, owner of the cakeshop, refused five years ago to design a wedding cake for a gay couple’s ceremony. An evangelical Christian, Phillips believes his creative participation in a process that violates his faith would make him a party to legitimizing sin. The bureaucrats at the commission ruled that protecting same-sex marriage is more important than upholding Philips’ exercise of the first freedom named in the First Amendment.

The case has occasioned a deluge of politically correct mis-information and mis-representation in the national media, as exemplified by this recent op-ed in the New York Times. I refer readers to NRO’s sage David French for the critical analysis there. One wonders how long before a Muslim man asks the Court to affirm his right to marry a nine-year-old girl.

In the meantime, the Alliance Defending Freedom – the evangelical legal defense group representing Philips – offers a collection of the key documents in the case, an overview of the facts that occasion the litigation, and a summary of the legal issues at stake. They just don’t come any more significant than this one.

UPDATE: George Will also gets the Masterpiece Cakeshop wrong, according to French.