MICHAEL BARONE: Liberals against freedom of conscience.

Why is it considered “liberal” to compel others to say or fund things they don’t believe?

That’s a question raised by the Supreme Court’s decisions in three cases this year. And it’s a puzzling development for those of us old enough to remember when liberals championed free speech — even when it involved advocacy of sedition or sodomy — and conservatives wanted government to restrain or limit it.

The three cases dealt with quite different issues. In National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, a 5-4 majority of the court overturned a California statute that required anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to inform clients where they can obtain free or inexpensive abortions — something the people operating these centers regard as homicide.

The same 5-4 majority in a second case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, reversed a 41-year-old precedent by ruling that public employees don’t have to pay unions fees covering the cost of collective bargaining. The court, echoing a position taken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, reasoned that collective bargaining with a public employer is inevitably a political matter and that forcing employees to finance it is compelling them to subsidize political speech with which they disagree.

In the third case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court avoided a direct decision on whether a baker, whose Christian beliefs oppose same-sex marriage, could refuse to custom design a wedding cake for a gay couple, despite a state law barring discrimination against gays. Seven justices ruled that the commission showed an impermissible animus against religion, but the four liberal justices endorsed a separate opinion indicating they’d otherwise rule against the baker.

Using naked force against one’s enemies, to their humiliation, is a core appeal of leftism.