But, as Justice Alito stressed in his dissent, there is an easy way around the court’s decision: eliminate the Section 3.21 exemption—an exemption the city never used. “If it does that, then, voilà, today’s decision will vanish—and the parties will be back where they started,” Alito explained.

And he is right. The case of Jack Phillips from Masterpiece Cakeshop proves the point. Justice Gorsuch highlighted this in his separate concurrence, which Justices Alito and Thomas also joined.

“After being forced to litigate all the way to the Supreme Court, we ruled for him on narrow grounds similar to those the majority invokes today,” Justice Gorsuch wrote. Specifically, in that case, “because certain government officials responsible for deciding Mr. Phillips’s compliance with a local public accommodations law uttered statements exhibiting hostility to his religion, the Court held, those officials failed to act ‘neutrally’ under Smith.”

However, “with Smith still on the books,” Justice Gorsuch added, “all that victory assured Mr. Phillips was a new round of litigation—with officials now presumably more careful about admitting their motives.” That is precisely what Phillips faces now, being fined and again hauled into court for refusing to craft a “gender transition cake.”

The time has long since passed for the high court to overturn Smith, and Justices Gorsuch and Alito’s concurrences, which Thomas joined, lay bare that reality. So, while yesterday’s decision was a win for CSC, it was not a victory for religious liberty.