Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission is a pending case before the Supreme Court of the United States that will be heard in its 2017 term. The case centers on whether creative businesses can refuse service due to its First Amendment rights of free speech and free exercise of religion in light of public accommodation laws, in particular, by refusing to provide creative services, such as a custom wedding cake, for same-sex marriage ceremonies on the basis of one's religious beliefs.
Video Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
Background
In July 2012, same-sex couple Charlie Craig and David Mullins from Colorado made plans to be legally wed in Massachusetts and return to Colorado to celebrate with family and friends. At that time, Colorado did not recognize same-sex marriages, but since 2014, the state has since allowed same-sex marriages, and the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) that marriage is a fundamental right that extends to same-sex couples.
Craig and Mullins visited Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver to order a custom wedding cake for their return celebration. Masterpiece's owner Jack Phillips, who is Christian, refused to bake the cake on the basis of it going against his religion. While another bakery provided a cake to the couple, Craig and Mullins filed a complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission under the state's public accommodations law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits businesses open to the public from discriminating against their customers on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Colorado is one of twenty-one U.S. states that have anti-discrimination laws against sexual orientation. Craig and Mullins' complaint resulted in a lawsuit, Craig v. Masterpiece Cakeshop. The case was decided in favor of the plaintiffs; the cake shop was ordered not only to provide cakes to same-sex marriages, but to "change its company policies, provide 'comprehensive staff training' regarding public accommodations discrimination, and provide quarterly reports for the next two years regarding steps it has taken to come into compliance and whether it has turned away any prospective customers."
Masterpiece appealed the decision with the aid of Alliance Defending Freedom, and refused to comply with the State's orders, instead opting to remove themselves from the wedding cake business. Alongside the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the American Civil Liberties Union represented Craig and Mullins during the appeals. The State's decision was upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court on appeal. In its decision, the Colorado Supreme Court asserted that despite the artistic nature of creating a custom cake, the act of making the cake was part of the expected conduct of Phillips' business, and not an expression of free speech nor free exercise of religion.
Maps Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
Supreme Court
Masterpiece Cakeshop petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari (review), under the case name Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, of the following question:
Whether applying Colorado's public accommodations law to compel Phillips to create expression that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage violates the Free Speech or Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
Both the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal, fearing that a Court decision in favor of the business would create a "gaping hole" in civil rights laws on the basis of religion. The final briefs at the certiorari stage were received in December 2016. The Court has agreed to hear the case in the 2017 term, with oral arguments to be heard in December 2017.
In further filings, Masterpiece requested that the Colorado anti-discrimination law be reviewed by the Supreme Court under "strict scrutiny". He further identified that while the state's law is to assure that same-sex couples had access to the same services as heterosexual couples, the law goes too far in its enforcement, since Craig and Mullins were able to obtain a wedding cake from a different vendor in the state easily. Masterpiece further believed the anti-discrimination law can be used to selectively discriminate against religion, as the Commission has allowed bakers to refuse to provide cakes with anti-same-sex marriage messages on them, even though the Commission said these refusals were appropriate due to the offensiveness of the messages and not on the basis of religion. The State and the ACLU countered these points, stating the law was aimed only at conduct of a business, not their speech, and in cases like a wedding cake, "[no] reasonable observer would understand the Company's provision of a cake to a gay couple as an expression of its approval of the customer's marriage". They further argued that the cakeshop could provide catchall language to explain that any services they provide do not endorse any expressions of free speech associated with it, an allowance within the anti-discrimination law.
Around 100 legal briefs were filed by third parties, roughly equally split in supporting either side of the case. Among those supporting Phillips include the United States Department of Justice under the Republican Trump administration. While the Department asserts that anti-discrimination laws are necessary to prevent businesses that provide goods and services, these laws cannot be used to compel a business into expressing speech they do not agree with, nor used to provide goods and services with such expressions without the ability for the business to assert they do not agree with those expressions. The brief was criticized by several groups, including those that support LGBTQ rights, seeing the brief as a pattern of anti-LGBTQ actions by the current administration and fearing that a decision in favor of Masterpiece would enable such businesses to have a "license to discriminate".
Experts believe the Supreme Court's opinions in the case will be divided, with the ultimate decision falling on the opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has historically been a supporter of same-sex rights and free speech, and who had written the majority opinion for Obergefell.
See also
- Sweet Cakes by Melissa
- Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. - U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing closely held for-profit corporations to be exempt from a regulation its owners religiously object to if there is a less restrictive means of furthering the law's interest
- Arlene's Flowers lawsuit - A Washington State Supreme Court decision in February 2017 that ruled that flower arrangements were not a form of protected speech.
References
External links
- SCOTUSblog case page
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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