Bakery refuses gay cake
Colorado high court to notice case against Christian baker who refused to create 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 hear 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 lady, after Phillips and his suburban Denver bakery refused to make a pink cake with blue 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 order was not a “set up” intended to file a lawsuit.
The Colorado Suprem
In summary
A California appeals court rules a baker can’t decline 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 law when she refused to market a cake to a lesbian couple for their wedding, a state 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 same-sex couple’s wedding. The decree was based on the court’s conclusion 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 same-sex marriage on religious grounds
'Gay cake' row: What is the dispute about?
In October , the owners of the bakery beaten their appeal against the decision that their refusal to create a "gay cake" was discriminatory.
Appeal court judges said that, under law, the bakers were not allowed to provide a service only to people who agreed with their religious beliefs, external.
Reacting to the ruling, Daniel McArthur from Ashers said he was "extremely disappointed" adding that it undermined "democratic freedom, religious liberty and free speech".
The firm then took the case to the Supreme Court and they won.
The UK's highest court ruled the bakery's refusal to make a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage was not discriminatory.
Then president of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, ruled the bakers did not refuse to fulfil the order because of the customer's sexual orientation.
"They would contain refused to make such a cake for any customer, irrespective of their sexual orientation," she said.
"Their objection was to the message on the cake, not to
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 lgbtq+ couple. It did so on grounds that are specific to this particular case and will acquire 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 queer , the couple sued under Colorado’s longstanding nondiscrimination rule. The bakery claimed that the Constitution’s protections of free speech and liberty of religion gave it the right to discriminate and to override the state’s civil rights statute. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled against the bakery, and a articulate appeals c