Posted on 07/10/2015 7:40:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The owner of a family business that makes custom cakes today asked a Colorado appeals court to strike down state rulings that he discriminated against a same-sex couple by declining to provide a cake to celebrate their wedding.
“People shouldn’t be forced to choose between earning a living and exercising their fundamental rights.”—@AllianceDefend’s Jeremy Tedesco
Lawyers for “cake artist” Jack Phillips argued that compelling the suburban Denver baker to express his artistic talents in connection with the 2012 wedding of two men would violate his First Amendment rights not only to freedom of religion but also free speech or expression.
“The gist is that one side … is defending the First Amendment rights of artists like Jack Phillips to create expressions consistent with his beliefs and to avoid creating expressions that violate his belief,” Jeremy Tedesco, senior legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal after representing Phillips at the hearing.
“The other side of the case thinks there are no First Amendment rights in the commercial context and once you open a business, you cede all First Amendment protections.”
>>> Commentary: On Marriage, What Do We Do Now?
Lawyers for Charlie Craig and David Mullins, who were to marry in Massachusetts but wanted to buy a custom cake to celebrate upon their return to Colorado, said Phillips’ business, Masterpiece Cakeshop, discriminated against them by turning down their order.
“Religious beliefs do not put the cake shop above the law,” Ria Mar, a lawyer representing the couple for the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued in the hearing.
Craig and Mullins filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division.
“Religious beliefs do not put the cake shop above the law.”—@ACLUofColorado
Phillips is asking the Colorado Court of Appeals to reverse decisions by one administrative judge who ruled in December 2013 that Masterpiece Cakeshop violated the state’s public accommodations law and a second administrative judge who, in May 2014, certified the denial of the bakery’s appeal by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
The state agency ordered Phillips to change store policy against making cakes for same-sex weddings or be subject to fines. Since the rulings, his 22-year-old shop in Lakewood, Colo., has stopped making wedding cakes.
The state ACLU chapter, which has publicized the case, did not respond to a request for comment by The Daily Signal. The state Attorney General’s Office, which represented the state agencies, referred reporters to the ACLU for comment.
The three-judge appeals court is expected to rule within several months in the case, which ultimately could head not only to Colorado’s highest court but to the U.S. Supreme Court.
>>> Related: State Silences Bakers Who Refused to Make Cake for Lesbian Couple, Fines Them $135K
After last year’s commission ruling, Amanda C. Goad, staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project, said in a release:
While we all agree that religious freedom is important, no one’s religious beliefs make it acceptable to break the law by discriminating against prospective customers. No one is asking Masterpiece’s owner to change his beliefs, but treating gay people differently because of who they are is discrimination plain and simple.
In the interview with The Daily Signal, Tedesco said:
The judges’ questions certainly revealed their concerns with the First Amendment ramifications of the case, and a concern with the scope of the ACLU’s and the state’s argument. People shouldn’t be forced to choose between earning a living and exercising their fundamental rights, but that’s what the state and the ACLU are saying in this case.
When one judge asked whether an oil painter had to create a painting celebrating same-sex marriage, an ACLU lawyer replied yes, Tedesco noted.
“And if they don’t want to have to do that, then they can close down their business and just paint on the side.”
The hearing comes 11 days after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the nation.
>>> Commentary: How to Preserve Religious Freedom After Supreme Court’s Ruling
The case tests the scope of First Amendment protections that federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, have upheld for free expression in the visual arts and entertainment.
Rather than solely argue Phillips’ right to exercise his Christian religion as a businessman, his lawyers hold that the government can’t force him or his staff to exercise their artistic gifts in a way that violates their faith.
Phillips has said he willingly serves all sorts of customers, including gays and lesbians, but could not in good conscience create a cake especially for the wedding of Craig and Mullins.
He said he offered to make any other kind of cake for them, for any other event. The couple went to another shop and successfully ordered a cake with a rainbow theme to symbolize their union.
Tedesco noted that Alliance Defending Freedom recently supported the right of three other Colorado bakers to refuse to make a custom cake for a Christian who asked for it to express his opposition to same-sex marriage. In those cases, the state ruled against the customer.
Craig and Mullins, holding hands, sat at one side of the courtroom during arguments, the Associated Press reported. Phillips, who sat near his attorneys, told reporters afterward that he doesn’t regret his decision not to bake the cake.
>>> Related: How Religious Business Owners Could Protect Themselves After Supreme Court’s Marriage Decision
homosexuals do not get it or don’t want to , due to them being little children having a tantrum.
You can intimidate, sue and even attack, but the fact remains there are millions who still think they have s sickness and won’t go along with them.
Maybe he could bake the cake, but not decorate it.
I don’t think he or any other baker has an opposition to baking a cake or any other baked good.
It is the forced speech that is the issue.
Imagine requiring a Jewish bakery to write “Happy Birthday Adolf” for a KKK party.
Or a Muslim bakery being required to make Bar Mitzvah greetings on theirs.
I’d never require that of anyone even though I have no particular sympathy for their beliefs. I would never force the speech of another.
That is beyond “doing business.”
With all of the variety and creativity involved in specialized cakes, it would seem easy enough for a baker to just limit the selection he offers to cakes that have no appeal to flaming queers.
Love how he calls what he does an “expression”. This is pure genius. Let the leftard fascists come after freedom of expression.
It would take a special sort of fool to actually eat a cake that he forced someone else to bake for him.
How could you swallow the dang thing!?
“Here’s your cake sir, I hope you can enjoy it” ;-)
No one is asking Masterpiece’s owner to change his beliefs
Sure they are by making them celebrate a marriage they oppose on religious grounds.
The homofascists are forcing a Satanic Religion on Christians-—or a pagan religion, or Ba’al Worship which ALL uses sodomy on their altars to their goat-god. The State is in collusion with this Satanic religion, literally forcing Satanic Ethics (religion) on a business.
SCOTUS has NO power to “change” 3000 years of Traditions and destroy the meaning of words. There is no “union” between two same sex people. It is an obscene, vile, irrational use of the body—using humans as a Means to an End. And it creates a system where babies are bought and sold and denied their Natural biological parent (a true Natural Right) which is pure satanism and Marxism, which is also a religion (faith).
There is supposed to be separation of Church and State. All the State is doing is destroying Christian Ethics (in the public square) and forcing Satanism in the public square.
Everyone has a Faith-—and the State is ALWAYS forcing a “faith” by forcing “actions” onto Individuals. The USA has to have REASONED Law and “Just” Laws (promoting Virtue only) based on Christian Ethics, that which formed our Rule of Law and is the only compatible ideology with Natural Law Theory (Reason and Science).
If we have Individual Natural Rights from God-—which we ALL DO-—we have the fundamental RIGHT to not celebrate Satanic religions who endorse sodomizing others and children and goats on their altars.
To force celebration of Vice in a Justice System is unconstitutional anyhow. Natural Law (Reason/Logic/Science) and God’s Laws BOTH consider sodomy a VICE and making sodomy a Virtue is establishing Satanism which is incompatible with Natural Law.
The 5 justices need to be put in prison for Treason and promoting Vice to our children. They are as evil and vile as any pervert molesting children....worse—they are molesting the minds of our children and destroying Virtue by declaring evil, vile behaviors, good.
Not change - just violate.
Even worse.
Guarantee 100% the gay couple went shopping every bakery in the region until they found one place that wouldn’t make a cake. If the couple’s address was available online and I could do a search of all the bakeries in the area I would bet the bakery is very far away.
“You will see however many fingers we want you to see” -Gaystapo 1984 Reboot
You know, one of the liberties noted by our Founders was the one in which a man is enabled by God to morally ply a trade in which he is able to monetarily take care of his family. This is not a right it is a basic liberty. At one time, the federal government took it as one of their prime responsibilities to safeguard that liberty.
We are way past that, I’m afraid.
L
We must immediately stir the spirit of active, courageous resistance in our fellow countrymen, to rescue the country from judges and their enablers who are practicing the jurisprudence of the loony bin, in the make believe land of rainbows and unicorns. If we fail to act, and swiftly, this great free republic which was gifted to us by God and by our forebears will be gone, and our posterity will be destroyed. If we do act, en masse, we will win easily. The other side is not as strong as so many seem to fear, and our strength, if we act together, is far greater than most seem to realize. Fight!
Is it any surprise that liberals are eager to reinstate slavery?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.