Gay cake bakery lawsuit
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 retail a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. It did so on grounds that are specific to this particular case and will have little to no applicability to future cases. The opinion is full of reaffirmations of our country’s longstanding command 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 hunt of a cake for their wedding reception. When the bakery refused to sell Dave and Charlie a wedding cake because they’re gay, the couple sued under Colorado’s longstanding nondiscrimination regulation. The bakery claimed that the Constitution’s protections of free speech and freedom of religion gave it the right to discriminate and to override the state’s civil rights law. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled against the bakery, and a articulate appeals c
Colorado high court to hear case against Christian baker who refused to produce 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 catch 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 same-sex attracted couple’s wedding cake.
He was later sued by Autumn Scardina, a transgender chick, after Phillips and his suburban Denver bakery refused to make a pink cake with cobalt 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 organize was not a “set up” intended to file a lawsuit.
The Colorado Suprem
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 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 autonomy of speech and the free exercise of religion. The free speech aspect of this case is difficult, for
Reflections on the Ashers&#; &#;gay cake&#; case - three months on
On 10 October the Supreme Court handed down their judgment in the case of Lee v Ashers Baking Corporation Ltd (Ashers) &#; Ors (commonly referred to as the ‘gay cake’ case).
The question the Supreme Court had to decide was whether “it is unlawful discrimination, either on grounds of sexual orientation, or on grounds of religious belief or political belief, for a bakery to refuse to supply a cake iced with the message “support gay marriage” because of the genuine religious belief of its owners that gay marriage is inconsistent with Biblical teaching and therefore unacceptable to God.” The Supreme Court found “in a nutshell, the objection was to the message and not to any particular person or persons”.
At first instance, a district assess in the County Court found that the refusal to make the cake was direct discrimination (where A treats B less favourably than A would treat others) on the grounds of sexual orientation and religious belief and political opinion. Ashers confused an appeal of this decision to the Northe