Supreme Court Snippets: Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Rights Comm’n

Facts

In 2012, a same-sex couple visited Masterpiece Cakeshop with the intention of ordering and purchasing a cake for their wedding.  The owner of the shop told the couple that he would not make the cake due to personal religious objections—he would not make a cake for a same-sex marriage.  A discrimination charge was filed based on sexual orientation in accordance with Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.

 

Procedural History

 

The Colorado Rights Commission decided that Masterpiece Cakeshop did in fact violate the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, and it ruled in the couple’s favor.

Opinion

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and BREYER, ALITO, KAGAN, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined.

There are two main issues at the heart of the case: (1) the authority of a State and its governmental entities to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons who are, or wish to be, married but who face discrimination when they seek goods or services, and (2) the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

The reason and motive for the baker’s refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions. The Court’s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws. Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor in the balance the State sought to reach. That requirement, however, was not met here. When the Colorado Civil Rights Commission considered this case, it did not do so with the religious neutrality that the Constitution requires.

Given all these considerations, it is proper to hold that whatever the outcome of some future controversy involving facts similar to these, the Commission’s actions here violated the Free Exercise Clause; and its order must be set aside.

The Commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in manner that is neutral toward religion. Phillips was entitled to a neutral decision maker who would give full and fair consideration to his religious objection as he sought to assert it in all of the circumstances in which this case was presented, considered, and decided. In this case the adjudication concerned a context that may well be different going forward in the respects noted above. However later cases raising these or similar concerns are resolved in the future, for these reasons the rulings of the Commission and of the state court that enforced the Commission’s order must be invalidated.

The judgment of the Colorado Court of Appeals is re­versed.

It is so ordered.

GINSBURG, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined.

Statements made at the Commission’s public hearings on Phillips’ case provide no firmer support for the Court’s holding today. Whatever one may think of the statements in historical context, I see no reason why the comments of one or two Commissioners should be taken to overcome Phillips’ refusal to sell a wedding cake to Craig and Mullins. The proceedings involved several layers of independent decision-making, of which the Commission was but one. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 5a–6a. First, the Division had to find probable cause that Phillips violated CADA. Second, the ALJ entertained the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment. Third, the Commission heard Phillips’ appeal. Fourth, after the Commission’s ruling, the Colorado Court of Appeals considered the case de novo. What prejudice infected the determinations of the adjudicators in the case before and after the Commission? The Court does not say. Phillips’ case is thus far removed from the only precedent upon which the Court relies, Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520 (1993),where the government action that violated a principle of religious neutrality implicated a sole decision making body, the city council, see id., at 526–528.

For the reasons stated, sensible application of CADA to a refusal to sell any wedding cake to a gay couple should occasion affirmance of the Colorado Court of Appeals’ judgment. I would so rule.