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In a 7 - 2 decision, SCOTUS set aside a previous Colorado court ruling against the baker, but did not decide the broader issue as to whether a business can refuse to serve gays and lesbians. Nor does it deal with whether a transgender man who marries a transgender woman can be refused service.
The opinion was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote in tight cases. [Kennedy tends to swing both ways judicially.]
The narrow ruling focused only on what the court described as anti-religious bias on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it ruled against the baker.
"The Commission's hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment's guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion," Kennedy wrote.
The two justices who dissented were Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayer, both who have souls as black as the nether regions of George Soros.
The court said the broader issue "must await further elaboration."
"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," Kennedy wrote.
It all began in July 2012 when Charlie Craig and David Mullins of Denver visited Masterpiece Cakeshop to buy a custom-made wedding cake for their homosexual wedding. Phillips, a religious Christian, refused their service, not because they were gay, (he never refused to serve gays or lesbians in the past) but because his religion does not condone same-sex marriage.
The state civil rights commission sanctioned Phillips after the gay men, rather than going elsewhere for their cake, filed a formal complaint.
Mullins described their case as symbolizing "the rights of gay people to receive equal service in business . . . about basic access to public life."
The case also symbolized the 'rights of gay people override the rights of religious beliefs.' And that the LGBTQ community can force someone to provide a service that goes against their moral beliefs.
The Trump administration supported Phillips, who was represented in court by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit organization. But Phillips lost all his legal appeals, bringing the case to the Supreme Court's decision Monday.
In all the time this has been going on, Phillips lost his business and had to let employees go.
Phillips was clear as to why he refused to bake the cake: "It's not about turning away these customers, it's about doing a cake for an event--a religious sacred event--that conflicts with my conscience," he said last year.
The court specifically examined whether applying Colorado's public accommodations law which compelled the baker to crate commercial "expression" violated his constitutionally protected Christian beliefs regarding marriage.
Upon hearing the arguments in December, Justice Kennedy was bothered by certain comments by a commission member. Kennedy said that the commissioner seemed "neither tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips' religious beliefs."
Probably due to the fact that the court's decision today was so narrow, liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined with the conservative justices while Sotomayor and Ginsberg refused.
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