The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who declined to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in 2012.
The 7-2 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission could be a landmark ruling for freedom of religion and conscience cases.
The majority opinion was delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a separate opinion concurring in part, and concurring in the judgment.
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case dates back to July 2012, when owner Jack Phillips was asked by two men to bake a cake for their same-sex wedding ceremony.
He explained to the couple that he could not cater to same-sex weddings – to do so would have been a violation of his Christian beliefs. He said he has also declined to make a number of other types of cakes, including cakes for Halloween, bachelor parties, divorce, cakes with alcohol in the ingredients, and cakes with atheist messages.
The couple then filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for discrimination.
The commission ordered Phillips to serve same-sex weddings and to undergo anti-discrimination training. In a hearing in 2014, the civil rights commissioner Diann Rice compared his declining to serve same-sex weddings to justifications for the Holocaust and slavery.
Alliance Defending Freedom took up Phillips’ case in court. He lost before an administrative judge in 2013, who ruled that the state could determine when his rights to free speech unlawfully infringed upon others’ rights.
Phillips then appealed his case to the state’s human rights commission, which ruled against him. He appealed again to the state’s court of appeals, which also ruled against him. The Colorado Supreme Court did not take up Phillips’ case.
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court. It was re-listed repeatedly throughout the winter and spring of 2017, before the Court decided to take the case.
Throughout the ordeal, Phillips said, he has paid a heavy price for his stand, losing 40 percent of his family’s income and more than half his employees.
The ruling is expected to have far-reaching results, particularly in determining the extent of religious liberty protections following the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. Florists, photographers and other wedding vendors have also faced lawsuits alleging discrimination for declining same-sex ceremonies.
“There is far more at stake in this case than simply whether Jack Phillips must bake a cake,” the US bishops’ conference and other Catholic groups had stated in an amicus brief. “It is about the freedom to live according to one’s religious beliefs in daily life and, in so doing, advance the common good.”
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
It’s not really that far reaching of a case. The 7-2 majority affirmed that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, and that they in fact may have rights that can in certain circumstances limit first amendment freedoms, but that in this particular case, the Colorado commission that heard the case did not give the religious nature of the cake-baker the neutrality that the first amendment requires and did not give the sides the balance of conflicting rights that the Constitution requires.
Anonymous,
Are you sure that Colorado or the courts are requiring that homosexual people be treated with dignity and respect?
Catholicism holds that all people be treated with dignity and respect and, for the most part, this would also be true of American Civics. But I sincerely doubt that the U.S. Supreme Court or the State of Colorado is requiring that any person [including those with a homosexual orientation] be treated with dignity and respect by any other private citizen.
Such a far-reaching law would have a chilling effect on civil discourse and political debate akin to that found in a police state.
Read the opinion of the Court in this case and in its other cases. It is quite clear.
Anonymous,
I personally don’t have the time to review the case. What exactly is the standard that the law uses to determine whether someone has given the proper amount of dignity and respect to another? Also, what is the legal penalty for not doing so?
Waiting anxiously for Fr. Martin’s view on this ruling.
Finally some sanity coming from the Court.
By the way, LGBT wedding ceremonies aren’t marriages in the first place. It’s all pretend. Enforced by law, but still made up pretend land of make believe stuff.
Ed .. Keep in mind that throughout much of history, marriage was defined as a contract between men for the exclusive domestic, sexual, child bearing and child raising services of a woman. I
C&H– whose history are you talking about?? No civilization in history ever had contracts between men for marriage and procreation of children!! Impossible! All civilizations have had marriage contracts between men and women! Most wives throughout history have loved being the “lady of the house,” and having their beloved children, and raising them! And most have been very sad, if they could not have a baby! Most women, historically– have been naturally feminine and domestic, wth only a few “radical” women, very “different”— who disliked marriage, domestic life, and children– that is not normal!
LM .. Just Google “Arranged marriage” and look at the Wikipedia article. The concept of courtly love, freely arrived at between men and women, actually developed in the Christian community fairly down the road in our faith’s history. Oh, my cousin, an 8th grade teacher tells me she has a student who is expected to marry his cousin. BTW, I’m not a “radicaI”” woman as you describe. I greatly admire some of my brothers marriages. Had my girlfriend lived, I envisioned ours would be like theirs. I’m very pro the modern institution of marriage.
Yes Vincent it is a step in the right direction. Without freedom of religious expression you have nothing more than a totalitarian tyranny. Let us all hope and pray that all people’s religious freedom are always protected in America. Turn to a God of love and mercy. Repent and convert! Pray America Pray. Pray Pray Pray!
Yeah but just watch… the 9th circuit will overrule this just like they do all of Trump’s stuff.
God bless these judges for a common sense ruling. How would Justice Ginsberg like it if an Orthodox Jewish baker were sued if he would not make a baptismal or confirmation cake that said ” Jesus Christ is Lord” and take it to a Christian Church? Yet she thinks it is all right to force a Christian to go against his conscience. Things sold in the shop that are already made should be sold to anyone, but whether to make special orders should be up to the owner.
The Freedom NOT To Speak – Howmaboutthat
Some Things Still Need Be Said:
The California Senate needs to hear from you today!
https://frc.quorum.us/campaign/11108/
Next Tuesday, June 12th, the California Senate Judiciary Committee will meet to discuss Assembly Bill 2943. As you know by now this terrible bill has moved quickly through the California Assembly to escape public scrutiny. Now that the bill has been scheduled to be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee your California state senator needs to hear from you. If this bill is enacted, it would ban speech, books, advertisements, talk therapy, etc. which seek to help people come out of unwanted same-sex attraction and/or gender dysphoria.
Let your voice be heard. Click the…
There is as yet no legal test, Steve. Part of the decision basically asks us to get along with each other and stop making every situation into a federal case, which it seems to me, is pretty good advice. I think if you read the decision, you will see that the justices were incensed that the Colorado commission was so hostile to religious points of view, that it didn’t adequately weigh the legitimate balance between the first amendment rights of the baker versus the fourteenth amendment rights of the couple one way or the other. My analogy is like the commission was wearing blinders that didn’t even allow them to determine whether the traffic light was red or green.