Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm'n
The Supreme Court sided with a Colorado baker who refused, on religious grounds, to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, ruling that the state civil rights commission had shown clear hostility toward his religious beliefs when it decided his case.
The Court stopped short of deciding whether business owners generally have a right to refuse service to same-sex couples, or whether cake-making is protected speech, leaving those bigger questions for future cases.
“the record here demonstrates that the Commission’s consideration of Phillips’ case was neither tolerant nor respectful of Phil- lips’ religious beliefs.”
The Court's central finding that the Commission failed to treat Phillips's religious objection neutrally.
How it got here: A state administrative law judge and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled against Phillips; the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed; Phillips asked the Supreme Court to review, and it agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Jack Phillips, a devout Christian who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, told a same-sex couple, Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins, that he would not make them a wedding cake because of his religious opposition to same-sex marriage, though he offered to sell them other baked goods. The couple filed a discrimination complaint under Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act, which bars sexual-orientation discrimination by public-facing businesses.
The question before the Court
Could a Colorado bakery lawfully refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple based on the owner's religious objections to same-sex marriage?
Why it matters
The decision means the baker's discrimination penalty is wiped out, but it does not give other business owners a blanket religious exemption from anti-discrimination laws. Civil rights commissions and other government bodies must now be careful to avoid even the appearance of hostility toward religious objectors when they enforce public accommodations laws, or risk having their rulings struck down.
What changes now
The Commission's order requiring Phillips to make cakes for same-sex weddings and to file ongoing compliance reports is set aside. Because the ruling turns on this Commission's specific hostile and inconsistent handling of the case rather than a general rule, it does not resolve future disputes between religious objectors and antidiscrimination laws; the Court said such conflicts must await further elaboration in later cases.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether creating a wedding cake is constitutionally protected speech, whether business owners generally may refuse service to same-sex couples on religious grounds, or how future similar disputes should come out. The ruling turns narrowly on the Commission's specific hostile and inconsistent handling of this particular case.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan agreed the Commission acted with impermissible hostility but wrote to explain that a neutral, principled distinction between Phillips's case and the other bakers' cases existed in CADA itself: those bakers refused messages they would have refused for any customer, while Phillips refused a wedding cake he would have sold to an opposite-sex couple. She stressed the difference turned on lawful application of CADA, not government approval of any message's offensiveness.
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch argued Phillips's case and the other bakers' cases were legally indistinguishable, because in both situations bakers refused to make a particular product for reasons unrelated to the customer's protected trait. He faulted the Commission for applying an intent standard to the other bakers but presuming discriminatory intent against Phillips, calling this inconsistency clear evidence of anti-religious bias.
Concurrence in part — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed the Free Exercise Clause was violated but wrote separately to argue Phillips also had a valid free-speech claim the majority didn't reach. He argued that custom wedding cakes are expressive conduct, that Colorado's law compelled Phillips to convey a message endorsing same-sex marriage, and that the Colorado court's reasoning would justify nearly any law compelling speech.
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
Justice Ginsburg argued the Commission's disparate treatment of Phillips and the other bakers, and the commissioners' hearing comments, did not show the kind of religious hostility that justifies overturning the judgment. She argued Jack's cases and Phillips's case were not comparable because Phillips refused service based on the customers' identity while the other bakers refused a specific offensive message, and would have affirmed the Colorado Court of Appeals.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the principle from Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah that even a generally applicable law violates the Free Exercise Clause if the government enforces it with hostility toward someone's religious beliefs rather than genuine neutrality.
- To gauge neutrality, the Court looked at factors Lukumi identified for spotting disguised religious hostility in official action: the historical background, the specific sequence of events, and contemporaneous statements made by the decision-making body.
- Applying these factors, the Court found that some commissioners at Phillips's public hearings disparaged his faith as 'despicable' and merely 'rhetorical,' and compared his religious objection to justifications for slavery and the Holocaust, none of which the Commission or the State ever disavowed.
- The Court also found the Commission treated Phillips inconsistently with three other bakers who, on grounds of conscience, had refused to make cakes with anti-gay messages: the Commission accepted their reasoning that any message belonged to the customer, not the baker, but rejected that same reasoning when Phillips raised it.
- Because the Commission's own conduct showed it was passing judgment on the legitimacy of Phillips's religious justification rather than applying the antidiscrimination law neutrally, the Court concluded his objection had not received the neutral, respectful consideration the Free Exercise Clause requires.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah (508 U. S. 520)
Used as the controlling framework for judging whether government action shows impermissible hostility toward religion.
Reaffirms Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith (494 U. S. 872)
Reaffirmed that neutral, generally applicable laws usually survive free-exercise challenges, as lower courts had applied here.