Gay bakery court case
In summary
A California appeals court rules a baker can’t refuse to sell a generic cake to a lesbian couple. It’s part of a series of cases shaping the debate over free speech and anti-discrimination laws.
A Kern County baker violated California commandment when she refused to sell a cake to a lesbian couple for their wedding, a declare appeals court ruled this week in a suit brought by the state’s Civil Rights Department.
If the scenario sounds familiar, that’s because it’s central to a series of cases that have for years been shaping the nation’s legal debate over free speech and anti-discrimination laws.
In , the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Colorado ruling that a baker had violated that state’s nondiscrimination law when he refused to bake a cake for a lgbtq+ couple’s wedding. The verdict was based on the court’s finding that the Colorado civil rights commission handling the case had been prejudiced against the baker’s religious beliefs.
The court in ruled, also in a Colorado case, in favor of a website designer who opposed queer marriage on religious grounds
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 possess 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 male lover, the couple sued under Colorado’s longstanding nondiscrimination rule. 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 commandment. 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 notice 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 male lover 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 sky 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 arrange was not a “set up” intended to file a lawsuit.
The Colorado Suprem
Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ()
Excerpt: Majority Perspective, Justice Anthony Kennedy
In a homosexual couple visited Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery in Colorado, to construct inquiries about ordering a cake for their wedding reception. The shop’s owner told the couple that he would not build a cake for their wedding because of his religious contradiction to same-sex marriages—marriages the Declare of Colorado itself did not recognize at that time. . . .
The case presents complicated questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles. The first is the authority of a State and its governmental entities to safeguard 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