In major Supreme Court case, Justice Dept. sides with baker who refused to make wedding cake for gay couple
a major upcoming Supreme Court case that weighs equal rights with
religious liberty, the Trump administration on Thursday sided with a
Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
The Department of Justice on Thursday filed a brief on behalf of baker
Jack Phillips, who was found to have violated the Colorado
Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to created a cake to celebrate the
marriage of Charlie Craig and David Mullins in 2012. Phillips said he
doesn’t create wedding cakes for same-sex couples because it would
violate his religious beliefs.
The government agreed
with Phillips that his cakes are a form of expression, and he cannot be
compelled to use his talents for something in which he does not believe.
“Forcing
Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that
violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First
Amendment rights,” Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey B. Wall wrote in the
brief.
DOJ’s decision to support Phillips is the latest in a series of steps
the Trump administration has taken to rescind Obama administration
positions favorable to gay rights and to advance new policies on the
issue.
But Louise Melling, the deputy legal counsel of
the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the couple,
said she was taken aback by the filing.
“Even in an
administration that has already made its hostility” toward the gay
community clear, Melling said, “I find this nothing short of shocking.”
Since
taking office, President Trump has moved to block transgender Americans
from serving in the military and his Department of Education has done
away with guidance to schools on how they should accommodate transgender
students.
The DOJ also has taken the stance that gay
workers are not entitled to job protections under federal
anti-discrimination laws. Since 2015, the Equal Employment and
Opportunity Commission has taken the opposite stance, saying Title VII,
the civil-rights statute that covers workers, protects against bias
based on sexual orientation.
Federal courts are split on that issue, and the Supreme Court this term might take up the issue.
Indeed,
lawyers for Jameka Evans, who claims she was fired by Georgia Regional
Hospital because of her sexual orientation and “nonconformity with
gender norms of appearance and demeanor,” on Thursday asked justices to
take her case.
Citing a 1979 precedent, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rejected her protection claims.
Taking that case, along with Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,
would make the coming Supreme Court term the most important for gay
rights issues since the justices voted 5 to 4 in 2015 to find a
constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry.
The
case of Phillips, a baker in the Denver suburbs, is similar to lawsuits
brought elsewhere involving florists, calligraphers and others who say
providing services to same-sex weddings would violate their religious
beliefs. But these objectors have found little success in the courts,
which have ruled that businesses serving the public must comply with
state anti-discrimination laws.
Mullins and Craig
visited Masterpiece Cakeshop in July 2012, along with Craig’s mother, to
order a cake for their upcoming wedding reception. Mullins and Craig
planned to marry in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriages were legal
at the time, and then hold a reception in Colorado.
But
Phillips refused to discuss the issue, saying his religious beliefs
would not allow him to have anything to do with same-sex marriage. He
said other bakeries would accommodate them.
The civil
rights commission and a Colorado court rejected Phillips’ argument that
forcing him to create a cake violated his First Amendment rights of
freedom of expression and exercise of religion.
The court said the baker “does not convey a message supporting same-sex marriages merely by abiding by the law.”
