MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD. v. COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION
Supreme Court of the US, Kennedy, June 4, 2018,
First Amendment – Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act Commission was required to take a baker’s sincerely-held religious beliefs into consideration prior to taking action against him for denying service to same-sex couples.

Facts:
Masterpiece Cakeshop is a bakery in Colorado offering baked goods. The owner of the shop is a devout Christian who explained that he seeks to “honor God through his work at Masterpiece Cakeshop.” The owner stated that he believes creating a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding
would be equivalent to participating in a celebration that is contrary to his own most deeply held beliefs.
In 2012, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop met with a same-sex couple interested in a wedding cake. He told them that he does not create wedding cakes for same-sex weddings. He explained “I’ll make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don’t make cakes for same sex weddings.”
Colorado’s anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation (including any business engaged in sale to the public) on the basis of “disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry.”
Note: Maryland has a similar law that prohibits discrimination by places holding themselves open to the public on the basis of a “person’s race, sex, age, color, creed, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.”
A complaint was then filed and referred to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Commission heard the case and found against Masterpiece Cakeshop. The Commission did not consider making a wedding cake to infringe on anyone’s religious freedom or freedom of speech and denied Masterpiece Cakeshop’s argument without balancing its First Amendment rights against Colorado’s interest in preventing discrimination.
Moreover, the Commission was “hostile” to Masterpiece Cakeshop’s religious beliefs. One Commissioner told the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop that using religion to deny service is “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use.”
At the same time, the Colorado Commission allowed bakers to deny service to those requesting cakes with anti-homosexual statements. This created a contradiction because it allowed bakers to refuse service based on their conscience but did not allow bakers to refuse service on religious grounds.
Masterpiece Cakeshop appealed through the Colorado courts and lost. It then requested review by the Supreme Court.

Held: The Colorado Civil Rights Commission should have balanced Masterpiece Cakeshop’s First Amendment rights against Colorado’s interest in preventing discrimination. Because they didn’t consider Masterpiece Cakeshop to have any First Amendment rights, this wasn’t done. Sent back for further consideration.

Note: This case did NOT hold that the baker was allowed to discriminate; it only held that the Colorado government failed to take his religious beliefs into consideration when deciding the proper balance between the 1st Amendment and government interest in non-discrimination.

First Amendment – Religion- The First Amendment “ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.”

First Amendment – Limits – The First Amendment does not allow business owners to deny “equal access to goods and services,” however, as long as the law requiring this is “neutral and generally applicable.”

From the Case: “Colorado law can protect gay persons, just as it can protect other classes of individuals, in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public.”

From the Case: “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.”