US

Couple Refusing To Bake Gay Wedding Cakes Appeal To State Supreme Court

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The Christian Colorado couple refusing to bake a wedding cakes for same-sex marriage ceremonies filed an appeal to Colorado Supreme Court Friday.

Jack Phillips has owned Masterpiece Cakeshop for more than 20 years. He closes down Sundays and doesn’t bake cakes for Halloween because of his religious convictions.

Charlie Craig and David Mullins came to Masterpiece Cakeshop in July 2012 and asked for a cake for their same-sex wedding ceremony. Phillips refused because of his religious beliefs.

Craig and Mullins filed a complaint and teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled in May 2014 that Phillips must make cakes for same-sex ceremonies or face legal consequences. Phillips and his staff were also ordered take re-education classes and file quarterly compliance reports for two years.

“The freedom to live and work consistently with one’s faith is at the heart of what it means to be an American,” Jeremy Tedesco, Senior Legal Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal group representing Phillips, said in a statement. “Jack simply exercised the long-cherished American freedom to decline to use his artistic talents to promote a message with which he disagrees.”

The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled in August that refusing to bake the cake was discrimination not protected by his right to religious freedom.

“The fact that an entity charges for its goods and services reduces the likelihood that a reasonable observer will believe that it supports the message expressed in its finished product,” the court ruled. “Nothing in the record supports the conclusion that a reasonable observer would interpret Masterpiece’s providing a wedding cake for a same-sex couple as an endorsement of same-sex marriage, rather than a reflection of its desire to conduct business in accordance with Colorado’s public accommodations law.”

Now Phillips has appealed to the state’s Supreme Court, but the case could end up going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Phillips’ lawyers told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

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