That’s the good news. The better news: Wesley Crusher sides against them. Call this a clear win for the right.

Or maybe don’t call it that. After listening to this, I’m not sure which side Stewart lands on, frankly.

“Finally I found myself on the side of the bakers,” he said. “It was not because this was a gay couple that objected, it was not because they were going to be celebrating some kind of marriage, it was the actual words on the cake they objected to, they found them offensive.

There’s a strain of thought in America’s “antidiscrimination versus religious liberty” debate that says bakers should be compelled to cater gay weddings by baking a cake but shouldn’t be compelled to write any messages they object to on the cake. It’s not so much a matter of religious freedom as of free speech: Even if the state can compel the baker to violate his religious conscience in the name of equal treatment in public accommodations, it can’t compel him to “speak” by forcing him to write a statement with which he doesn’t agree. Baking and decorating a cake may not be “expression” for First Amendment purposes but writing surely is. Sounds to me like Stewart might be on that same page. When he says “finally,” it makes me think he’s been on the side of gay customers until now — you can’t turn them away, you can’t refuse to cater their wedding, but you shouldn’t have to let them put words in your mouth. If that’s how Stewart feels, then he’d be on the left’s side in most gay-wedding cases here in the U.S. The freedom of speech is inviolable. The freedom to associate per the dictates of your faith in a business setting? Meh.

I wonder what Captain Kirk thinks about all this. Mr. Sulu’s opinion is, of course, well known.