Wedding cake gay lawsuit
Colorado high court to catch case against Christian baker who refused to build trans-themed cake
On the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court victory this summer for a graphic artist who didn’t want to design wedding websites for same-sex couples, Colorado’s highest court said Tuesday it will now hear the case of a Christian baker who refused to make a cake celebrating a gender transition.
The announcement by the Colorado Supreme Court is the latest development in the yearslong legal saga involving Jack Phillips and LGBTQ rights.
Phillips won a partial victory before the U.S. Supreme Court in after refusing to make a queer couple’s wedding cake.
He was later sued by Autumn Scardina, a transgender female, after Phillips and his suburban Denver bakery refused to make a pink cake with blue frosting for her birthday and to celebrate her gender transition.
Scardina, an attorney, said she brought the lawsuit to “challenge the veracity” of Phillips’ statements that he would serve LGBTQ customers. Her attorney said her cake order was not a “set up” intended to file a lawsuit.
The Colorado Supreme Court didn’t clarify how or why it made the determination to hear the case. It was announced in a
US Supreme Court backs Colorado baker's gay wedding cake snub
The US Supreme Court has ruled in favour of a baker in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
The Colorado state court had found that baker Jack Phillips' decision to change away David Mullins and Charlie Craig in was unlawful discrimination.
But the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a vote that that decision had violated Mr Phillips' rights.
The conservative Christian cited his religious beliefs in refusing service.
Gay rights groups feared a ruling against the couple could set a precedent for treating queer marriages differently from heterosexual unions.
But the Supreme Court's verdict instead focuses specifically on Mr Phillips' case.
The decision does not state that florists, photographers, or other services can now refuse to serve with gay couples.
The verdict comes three years after the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the regulation of the land in its landmark Obergefell v Hodges decision.
In Masterpiece, the Bakery Wins the Battle but Loses the War
In the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled for a bakery that had refused to sell a wedding cake to a homosexual couple. It did so on grounds that are specific to this particular case and will include little to no applicability to future cases. The opinion is full of reaffirmations of our country’s longstanding rule that states can bar businesses that are open to the public from turning customers away because of who they are.
The case involves Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig, a same-sex couple who went to the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver in search of a cake for their wedding reception. When the bakery refused to sell Dave and Charlie a wedding cake because they’re same-sex attracted, the couple sued under Colorado’s longstanding nondiscrimination statute. The bakery claimed that the Constitution’s protections of free speech and release of religion gave it the right to discriminate and to override the state’s civil rights statute. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled against the bakery, and a mention appeals court upheld its decision.
In reversing the decrease court’s ruling, the Supreme Court focused on how t
Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ()
Excerpt: Majority Opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy
In a same-sex couple visited Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery in Colorado, to make inquiries about ordering a cake for their wedding reception. The shop’s owner told the couple that he would not create a cake for their wedding because of his religious opposition to same-sex marriages—marriages the Declare of Colorado itself did not recognize at that time. . . .
The case presents difficult questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles. The first is the authority of a State and its governmental entities to guard the rights and dignity of gay persons who are, or wish to be, married but who face discrimination when they seek goods or services. The second is the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
The freedoms asserted here are both the independence of speech and the free exercise of religion. The free speech aspect of this case is difficult, for few persons who have seen a beautiful wedding cake might have thought of its creation as an practice
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