Colorado Supreme Court denies baker’s appeal over same-sex wedding cake
The Colorado Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of a Lakewood baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
The decision is yet another reiteration that the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop Jack Phillips broke discrimination laws when he refused to to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because it was against his religious beliefs.
Phillips refused to bake a cake for David Mullins and Charlie Craig then they approached the bakery in 2012.
In 2013, Judge Robert N. Spencer of the Colorado Office of Administrative Courts ruled Phillips broke discrimination laws. In May 2014, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission found the bakery was in violation of the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act. Phillips then appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which heard the case in July 2015 and once again denied him.
“We reject Masterpiece’s related argument that its willingness to sell birthday cakes, cookies, and other non-wedding cake products to gay and lesbian customers establishes that it did not violate (the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act),” the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled last year in a 66-page ruling.
“Masterpiece’s potential compliance with CADA in this respect does not permit it to refuse services to Craig and Mullins that it otherwise offers to the general public.”
