I think the Supreme Court has been for a long time and remains, unlike the rest of our government, a serious institution made up of grown-ups who have strong differences, but try to address them through reasoned argument.

Hi, and welcome to Amicus Slate's podcast about the Supreme Court and the courts in the law.

I am Dahlia Lethwick.

I cover the courts for Slate.

And with this special Thanksgiving weekend edition podcast, I just want to start by saying that we are thankful for you, listeners, and super thankful because this week our guest on the show is Adam Liptack, who covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times.

He writes their wonderful sidebar column.

Adam was a finalist for the 2009 fueled surprise and explanatory reporting and has been a good friend and steady influence at the court.

So Adam, first and foremost, welcome back to Amicus.

It's great to be here, Dahlia.

Always a treat to do this show.

So, among other things, Adam has done great quantities of on-the-spot reporting about

masterpiece cake shop. That's a case that the court's going to hear in a few short weeks.

And Adam, I wanted to have you on the show because I suspect that listeners know a lot about this case. I, in fact, taught

sixth graders about this case this weekend. They knew more about it than I did. But I don't know

that we know all that you know. And so I wondered if you could start us off this week by setting the

table just before we get into the nuts and bolts. Why is this case kind of the event of the year at the

Supreme Court? You know, it's curious, Dahlia, because it's not the most consequential case.

We have cases on gerrymandering that could reshape American democracy. We have cases on

digital privacy that could completely transform Fourth Amendment law. But this case is so

delicious because it's easy to

understand and because everyone has strong feelings about it on one side or the other, and because

the facts, as you were suggesting, actually reflect, and this is not true of most Supreme

...