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Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins embrace outside the US Supreme Court as Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission is heard on December 5, 2017 in Washington, DC. Like a good wedding cake, the Supreme Court’s 7–2 decision on Monday in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission has a little something for everyone. Gay people, who were justifiably terrified that the case could undermine their right to equal service, get a reaffirmation of their “dignity and worth.” Religious liberty advocates get a continued expansion of the Free Exercise Clause. Anti-gay activists get a victory—a midsize and possibly temporary but still very real win, in a case that few initially expected to even reach the Supreme Court.
Who loses? Everybody who hoped this decision would definitively settle the ostensible clash between LGBTQ rights and religious freedom. In the end, Masterpiece Cakeshop barely resolves anything, and doesn’t even touch the free speech claim at the center of the case. Instead, it punts that question, leaving lower courts (and American society) to continue fighting about how, exactly, Justice Anthony Kennedy should feel about it. A great wedding cake might leave you wanting more, but Masterpiece Cakeshop just leaves you craving something you can actually sink your teeth into.
The story of Jack Phillips, Colorado’s most famous baker, has been widely told by the publicity team at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the anti-LGBTQ rights law firm that represents him. In 2012, Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins asked Phillips to bake them a wedding cake. He refused, explaining that he would not make wedding cakes for same-sex couples. But Colorado law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public accommodations, so Craig and Mullins filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The commission referred the case to a state administrative law judge, who found that Phillips had, indeed, violated Colorado’s civil rights law. Then the commission affirmed the judge’s decision, ordering him to stop turning away gay couples, and to train his staff to comply with the law.
ADF urged Phillips to fight the order, but initially he had little luck. The […]