Gay wedding cake supreme court
On June 4, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Colorado civil rights agency held that the cakeshop owner and baker, Jack Phillips, had violated the State’s law against sexual orientation discrimination when he refused to provide a gay male couple with a wedding cake to celebrate their union for religious reasons. Phillips argued that the State had violated his constitutional rights under the First Amendment – which protects the free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech – because his wedding cakes are expressions of his beliefs.
What the Supreme Court said. By a vote of 7 to 2, the Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado Commission had violated Phillips’ right to the free exercise of his religion because it had failed to treat his case impartially. Instead, the Commission had been influenced by bias against his religious beliefs – which the Constitution prohibits. The Court’s majority concluded that the State proceeding had been tainted by anti-religious bias for two reasons: (1) two of the Co
The gay couple at the center of a lawsuit against a conservative Christian baker who refused to sell them a wedding cake slammed the U.S. Supreme Court for putting a dent in LGBTQ rights on Friday.
In an opinion piece for USA Today, Charlie Craig and David Mullins reflected on the new decision five years after the couple narrowly lost their case before the Supreme Court, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
The court’s ruling against Craig and Mullins had left broader questions about discrimination and the First Amendment unresolved.
Its new ruling, in Creative LLC v. Elenis, provided clarity at the expense of gay rights as the conservative court made it easier for businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.
“The court’s decision allows a business owner’s rights to trump the civil rights of less-favored minorities. The opinion promotes supremacy at the expense of equality,” the couple wrote.
Like the Masterpiece case, the Creative lawsuit also grew out of a religious business owner’s refusal to help a gay couple.
But no one had a
Colo. Supreme Court dismisses suit against baker who wouldn’t make cake for transgender woman
Colorado&#;s Supreme Court on Oct. 8 dismissed on procedural grounds a lawsuit against a Christian baker who refused to bake a cake for a transgender woman. Justices declined to weigh in on the free-speech issues that brought the case national attention.
Baker Jack Phillips was sued by attorney Autumn Scardina in after his Denver-area bakery refused to make a pink cake with blue frosting to celebrate her gender transition.
Justices said in the majority belief that Scardina had not exhausted her options to seek redress through another court before filing her lawsuit.
&#;We express no view on the merits of these claims,&#; Justice Melissa Hart wrote for the majority.
Phillips&#; attorney, Jake Warner with the Arizona-based hard Alliance for Defending Freedom, had argued before the state elevated court that the baker&#;s actions were protected free speech and that whatever Scardina said she was going to do with the cake mattered for his rights.
Warner said Tuesday that his client had
Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ()
Excerpt: Majority Notion, Justice Anthony Kennedy
In a same-sex couple visited Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery in Colorado, to form inquiries about ordering a cake for their wedding reception. The shop’s owner told the couple that he would not design 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 adj questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles. The first is the authority of a State and its governmental entities to preserve 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 freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. The free speech aspect of this case is difficult, for