Wedding cake discrimination case goes to Supreme Court

Wedding cake discrimination case goes to Supreme Court
Image: Photo: Stephanie Astono Salim.

THE high-profile US case of a baker who refused to create a cake for a gay wedding is to appear before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from the baker, who originally lost the discrimination case over the cake, according to the The New York Times.

The case, which will be a test of the balance between religious freedom and anti-discrimination laws, started in 2012.

The baker, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, refused service to David Mullins and Charlie Craig for their wedding. The couple made a discrimination complaint, and won before a civil rights commission and the courts.

“This has always been about more than a cake,” said Mullins.

“Businesses should not be allowed to violate the law and discriminate against us because of who we are and who we love.”

The couple’s lawyer wrote during the case, “It is no answer to say that Mullins and Craig could shop somewhere else for their wedding cake, just as it was no answer in 1966 to say that African-American customers could eat at another restaurant.”

Phillips argued that his First Amendment rights to expression and religious freedom overrode anti-discrimination laws, allowing him to refuse service.

A Colorado appeals court ruled against him, saying, “Masterpieces does not convey a message supporting same-sex marriages merely by abiding the law and serving its customers equally.”

The Supreme Court’s decision is expected next year.

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One response to “Wedding cake discrimination case goes to Supreme Court”

  1. The cake shop’s argument is rubbish. Religion has been used to justify any number of terrible acts throughout its history, and many laws we now have contradict ancient religious law (eg stoning adulterers is no longer not only not practiced, it’s heavily illegal whereas the once criminalised adultery is now totally legal).

    The simple fact is that if you’re in retail business you can’t discriminate. The baker should have never gone into retail. If he’s all about making straight wedding cakes, he should have shut down his shop and gone to work directly for homophobic churches who can then include the wedding cake in their total wedding package. That way he maintains both his career and his religious freedom. It’s not like he didn’t have options.

    The way he’s gone about it is just stupid and hateful and I hope the court wipes the floor with him.

    As an aside, this debate about cake-making has spread to Australia. It would be fun to run a similar case here (when the baker runs the defence that same sex marriage isn’t legal here, they’re discriminating on the basis of marital status so that’s a slam dunk breach of discrimination law) but I doubt there’s a baker in Australia who would refuse the business. Does anyone know any homophobic bakers here?