US Supreme Court backs Colorado baker's gay wedding cake snub
REUTERS
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 turn away David Mullins and Charlie Craig in 2012 was unlawful discrimination.
But the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that that decision had violated Mr Phillips' rights, in a 7-2 vote.
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 gay marriages differently to 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 work with gay couples.
The ruling comes three years after the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the land in its landmark 2015 decision, Obergefell v Hodges.
GETTY IMAGESWhat did Monday's ruling say?
The Supreme Court's majority opinion said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had been biased against Mr Phillips.
The verdict said the commission had shown evidence of hostility towards religion during public hearings.
The commissioners, said the ruling, had implied religious beliefs "are less than fully welcome in Colorado's business community".
"The Civil Rights Commission's treatment of [Mr Phillips'] case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection," said the ruling.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that while Colorado law "can protect gay persons in acquiring products and services on the same terms and conditions that are offered to other members of the public, the law must be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion".
The high court's opinion also cited the following comment from a Colorado commissioner during a public hearing:
"Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to use their religion to hurt others."
The opinion called such language disparaging of Mr Phillips' religion and inappropriate for a commission charged with "fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado's anti-discrimination law - a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation".
GETTY IMAGESHow did the legal action start?
In July 2012, Mr Mullins and Mr Craig went to Mr Phillips's Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, near Denver, to order a cake for a party to celebrate their planned marriage in Massachusetts later that year.
But Mr Phillips refused, saying it was his "standard business practice not to provide cakes for same-sex weddings".
Instead, he offered them other products, including birthday cakes and biscuits.
Mr Phillips argued "creative artists" have a right to decide what they sell.
As the Supreme Court verdict notes, Mr Phillips told the couple: "I'll make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don't make cakes for same-sex weddings" because doing so would amount to personally endorsing "something that directly goes against the teachings of the Bible".
Colorado is one of 22 states that include sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination law, which allowed Mr Craig and Mr Mullins to win their case before the state's Civil Rights Commission.
Which Justices disagreed with the ruling?
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor were the two dissenting votes.
Justice Ginsburg wrote that she "strongly disagree[d]" with the Court's decision.
"Phillips would not sell to Craig and Mullins, for no reason other than their sexual orientation, a cake of the kind he regularly sold to others.
"What matters is that Phillips would not provide a good or service to a same-sex couple that he would provide to a hetereosexual couple."
Justice Ginsburg added that she did not agree with the finding that the Commission acted unfairly, citing "several layers of independent decisionmaking of which the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was but one" in the state case.
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