Colorado baker takes gay wedding cake case to the U.S. Supreme Court

[DonViejo]

Source: LGBTQ Nation

By Erin Rook · Sunday, July 24, 2016

A Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple filed a petition Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court after the state’s highest court declined to hear his case, the Denver Post reports.

Back in 2012, Masterpiece Cake Shop owner Jack Phillips turned away a gay couple who came in for a wedding cake, citing his religious beliefs. When he was sued for denying the couple service based on their sexual orientation, an administrative law judge found Phillips in violation of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. That decision was upheld on appeal.

Last month, the Colorado Supreme Court decided it would not hear Phillips’ case, so he’s taking it to the highest court in the land.

“No one — not Jack or anyone else — should be forced by the government to further a message that they cannot in good conscience promote,” attorney Jeremy Tedesco said in a statement from the anti-LGBT Alliance Defending Freedom. “And that’s what this case is about.”

-snip-


Read more: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/07/colorado-baker-takes-gay-wedding-cake-case-u-s-supreme-court/?utm_source=LGBTQ+Nation+Subscribers&utm_campaign=90d805a804-20160724_LGBTQ_Nation_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4eab596bd-90d805a804-429583333

[kestrel91316]

1. Baker to lose in 3....2....1....

[63splitwindow]

6. BUT gets a lot more of his and his supporters' $$$$ back into other's hands.

Somebody is paying a lot to fund this exercise in hate.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. Betcha his cakes suck anyways...

[Blue Idaho]

3. "Take this cake to court..."

Sorry - I was channeling Judge Wopner there for a second...

The real question is - who's paying the legal fees?

[Vinca]

4. "No one should be forced to further a message . . ."

And that message would be what exactly? Don't eat cake? If an order comes in for a cake and it's not specified as a "gay" cake, how does this idiot baker know anyway?

[Warpy]

5. Anyone with that kind of morbid religious baggage needs to open a storefront church.

The cake might have featured a rainbow but the money's still green.

This loon would have used the same argument against blacks or-horrors of horrors-an interracial marriage 50 years ago. And he would have lost.

[elleng]

18. Thinking the same thing, Warpy:

LOVING v Virginia! (Not 'on all fours, as we say, but wanted to read it again!)

Chief Justice Earl Warren's opinion for the unanimous court held that:

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

The court concluded that anti-miscegenation laws were racist and had been enacted to perpetuate white supremacy:

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.

Associate Justice Potter Stewart filed a brief concurring opinion. He reiterated his opinion from McLaughlin v. Florida that "it is simply not possible for a state law to be valid under our Constitution which makes the criminality of an act depend upon the race of the actor."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

[yardwork]

31. I doubt very much that the cake would have featured a rainbow.

Gay people want the same wedding cakes as straight people.

Ours was white, three tiers, with white sugar flowers and silver dust. No rainbows. No naked women. It was a beautiful traditional wedding cake.

Our baker was lovely. Easy to talk with, helped us figure out exactly what we wanted, baked a delicious cake, delivered it on time, set it up beautifully.

No drama.

[Warpy]

35. You just never know

I've seen all sorts of themed cakes for weddings, gay and straight. Still, this was a cake, not a fucking Crusade. Even if he didn't have the same sex figurines for the top, he could have told the couple to go to Amazon, Etsy, or even Ebay to find some that suited them well.

I'm glad you found someone sane to bake yours. I can see this guy feeling forced to violate his Tartuffian morality and producing something that would end up at Cake Wrecks.

I grew up in the Jim Crow south and have had a lifetime to dislike public vendors who think they have the right to pick and choose which parts of the public live up to their expectations.

[yardwork]

37. Exactly. There are plenty of tasteless straight wedding cakes.

This is exactly the same mentality as in Jim Crow south. I know because I still live here.

[MohRokTah]

7. 1000 to 1 says the SCOTUS does't grant certiorari. eom

[msanthrope]

8. That's the upside of not filling Scalia's seat. nt

[Feeling the Bern]

39. They need four I believe. Three might say yes. . .I doubt Kennedy will approve.

[guillaumeb]

9. And for any at DU who wish to tell the Alliance what an excellent job they do:

Here is their toll free number:1-800-835-5233

I am certain that they would greatly appreciate hearing from many people on their toll free line.

[elmac]

10. Oh man

bet ol Scalia is rolling in his grave.

[forest444]

11. Good thing for the cake that Scaliar isn't around; he'd probably want to marry it.

[bucolic_frolic]

12. Where is this headed?

"I refuse to do brake jobs on vehicles owned by lesbians!"

"I refuse to sell hot dogs to Democrats!"

As kids, when we didn't like what mom cooked, she'd say

"You don't have to marry it, just eat it."

In the jobs I've had, the services I've performed, I don't
put a personal moral element into them. I just do them.
Business is not religion. These people have a problem
with their boundaries.

[elleng]

17. GREAT, 'just eat it!' :-)

and I agree; I tend to see this as a 'commerce' matter, NOT moral/religious/first amendment.

[pipoman]

20. Who in their right mind would want a cake from someone who hates them?

I, for one, have no desire to eat someone's passive aggression. I would much rather know right up front the guy hates me so I can go somewhere else.....don't want to force him to keep his mouth shut only to have him muttering under his breath as he's mixing up my cake.

Be careful what you ask for.

Edit....I bake cakes professionally...there is a zen that makes the difference between mediocre and great bakers...

[bucolic_frolic]

21. Good point

But also, I think most people would provide the product the public asks for,
take the profit from them, and donate the profits politically

To me that would be normal behavior

[pipoman]

23. Exactly. ..normal...I want nothing to do with an abnormal baker...

[yardwork]

32. As a gay person, I don't want to have to worry about this every time I approach a business.

If somebody hates and fears gay people so much that they can't provide a basic service, then they need to close their business.

This is the same argument people used for not serving blacks or Jews. It's illegal. If you run a public business, you have to serve the public.

[pipoman]

46. Just because they have to serve you doesn't mean you want to eat what they make you....

No, I want to know.

[yeoman6987]

28. We already have to many religious objections. This need to stop

All over the country different scenarios are piling up.

Christian pharmacist refuse to sell morning after pill
Muslim refuses to sell alchol on a plane as flight attendant
Muslim refuses to touch pork at grocery store as required by cashier job


Enough! If we don't stop this now. It will get worse until society can't function and then what?

[smirkymonkey]

53. +1000

[cannabis_flower]

42. I once had a mechanic shop

here in Houston refuse to fix my car when he saw a Texas Democrats bumper sticker on it. People are cray cray!

[turbinetree]

13. Case of a Operation hit job right before an election------------see the modis operandi

and we get these astute words:

“No one — not Jack or anyone else — should be forced by the government to further a message that they cannot in good conscience promote,”

We just got 4 days of it this last week

Bawahhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, get over it, I don't like your religion




Honk-----------------------for a political revolution

[christx30]

14. People also forget that this isn't just about

the cake. The baker also gave out the phone number and address of the couple. They got a bunch of hateful and threatening calls.

[elleng]

15. So they're viewing it as a First Amendment case.

'forced by the government to further a message that they cannot in good conscience promote,”'

'However, Chief Justice Nancy E. Rice and Justice Nathan B. Coats would have considered hearing arguments in several areas, including whether applying Colorado’s anti-discrimination law to force Phillips to “create artistic expression” in the form of a wedding cake violated his constitutional free speech rights.

Phillips declined to make a cake for Craig and Mullins, who were married in Massachusetts and planned a celebration in Colorado. The couple filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which ruled in December 2013 that Phillips discriminated against them and ordered him to change his store policy against making cakes for gay weddings or face fines. The Colorado Court of Appeals also ruled against him. . .

He previously said he has no problem serving gay people at his store, but that making a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding would violate his Christian beliefs.

Such issues have been considered by courts and legislators across the country.

A new North Carolina law prevents local and state government from mandating protections for LGBT people in the private sector or at stores and restaurants. The law suffered a blow when a federal appeals court issued an opinion that threatens part of the law requiring students to use bathrooms in line with their gender at birth in public schools and universities.

Colorado lawmakers introduced a bill in February that would have blocked the state from taking any action that may burden a person’s religious freedom unless it was the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest. A House committee indefinitely postponed discussion on the bill.'

[TeamPooka]

16. remember, selling a wedding cake is participating in gay marriage but selling a gun isn't

participating in murder.
They do want it both ways.

[bucolic_frolic]

22. Great thoughts for a bumper sticker

can you distill it to something brief?

[TeamPooka]

24. there's a meme online about it

[kentauros]

45. How about this:

Cake = Gay Love
Guns ? Murder/Death

[JudyM]

19. Personally, I'd want to know homophobes would be baking the cake, and bring my business

elsewhere. Yeeech.

[Moonwalk]

25. But he was happy to sell cakes to gays...

So how would they know he's a homophobe prior to asking for a wedding cake?

[JudyM]

26. If he said he'd rather not bake their gay wedding cake.

I wouldn't want it "energetically" and who knows... Gross thinking about what he could do to it, like spit in the batter, if he was forced to make it.

[Moonwalk]

29. I very much agree that I wouldn't want someone making me a cake who didn't want to do so...

...but then, if you let someone get away with this, then you begin to get people saying, "you can't sit at this lunch counter..." So, I'm all for the suit, though no, I wouldn't want to go through with the order if it was clear the guy was homophobic.

[JudyM]

41. LGBT rights challenge people who are used to being told what's right and wrong and just following.

Unless it's something they really want, like having an affair, abiding by the religious rules is what they just do. Now they're being challenged to consider disobeying religion and convention(al bigotry) for possibly the only time in their lives.

[Rex]

27. He is lying then, there is nothing in his faith that discriminates against gay couples.

What he really means is that he is a bigot and wants to refuse service based on his personal belief in right and wrong - not based on an organized religion's canon.

[yardwork]

34. Thank you. You are always so clear about this.

[Rex]

47. Good to see you yardwork!

Christ preached peace and tolerance above all other things. I hope the SCOTUS ignores him, his personal issues are his cross to bear.

[8 track mind]

30. I think the bigger question to ask in all of this

is how in the flying fuck did so many nasty people wind up in the cake decorating business?

[Feeling the Bern]

33. These people need to get their religion out of other people's bedrooms

Only religious people will turn away good men because they think the invisible Sky Daddy will be angry.

[TexasBushwhacker]

36. Bullshit. Whoever is providing him pro bono legal representation

is taking it to the Supreme Court. Just like the young who didn't get into University of Texas and tried to say she was a victim of reverse discrimination. She was provided pro bono legal teptesentation by people who want to get rid of ALL affirmative action, especially in awarding government contracts.

There are PTB that want to be able to discriminate againt LGBT for EVERYTHING, not just bakers making wedding cakes. They are the ones pushing this agenda.

[Little Tich]

38. It's an interesting case.

Even if the Supreme Court probably will decline to hear the case, there are still a lot of people who think this is an issue about religious freedom that hasn't been resolved. Perhaps if the Supreme Court decided to hear the Discriminating Baker vs US Constitution case, there will be less doubts in the future about who is right.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

40. This is so clear to me...

If he uses a religious belief to discriminate, he violates civil law. For the bajillionth time, the US is not a theocracy. ....

[philosslayer]

43. So what if a baker refused to bake a cake for a Donald Trump fundraiser?

Should that be illegal as well?

[bucolic_frolic]

44. Wedding Cake Class Action

there are so many of these cases it's only a matter of time

[RAFisher]

48. If the Colorado Supreme Court won't hear this case I highly doubt SCOTUS will

I guess there's a chance, just like there is a chance the 76ers will be NBA champions next season

[Skittles]

49. they need to state they refuse to serve gay folk

on their door / website - so all of us can decide if we want to buy from bigots

[truthisfreedom]

50. This is more complicated than it looks.

What if the baker sees himself as an artist? What if he sees this as being forced to say something he doesn't want to say, or express something he doesn't want to express artistically? It seems it could be defended as a first amendment "freedom of expression" issue. I've always had my doubts about this particular one, the cakes, because they are basically art, which is protected expression.

[Odin2005]

51. I didn't know cakes could have a sexual orientation...

[Motley13]

52. I'd be afraid to buy a cake from them

If they don't like you, what are they going to put in the cake? How do they stay in business?

I don't think the Supreme Court has time for cake justice.