Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

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Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
On June 4th 2018, the SCOTUS determined a case between Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Supreme Court voted 7-2 in favour of Masterpiece cake Shop and ruled that Colorado Civil Rights Commission had violated the State’s constitutional obligation to treat religious expression neutrally by showing subjectivity and religious hostility to a baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple (Chemerinsky). According to Phillips, his decision not to bake the cake was not discriminatory, but he felt that he should not be compelled to violate his Christian values in his line of work. While the Civil Rights Commission of Colorado found Phillips guilty of discrimination, he appealed to the Supreme Court posing the question 'Whether applying Colorado's public accommodations law to compel Phillips to create the expression that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage violates the Free Speech or Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.'
The gay couple Craig and Mullins wanted Phillips to make their gay wedding cake. Phillips responded to the couple that his bakery would sell cakes for gays and lesbians consumers for other occasions but not for their weddings (Bonauto). According to Phillips, he would not make any design that insulted the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community (Edelman). The baker argued that his work entails art and making the decoration related to occasion would detriment his Christian beliefs as well. Consequently, his principle and beliefs limit the art he can display in his work irrespective of the main aim of starting the business. Although another bakery provided the cake for Craig and Mullins, the couple filed a discrimination complaint against Masterpiece cake shop and Phillips in 2012.
The Colorado Civil Rights Division found a high probability that Phillips could have violated the anti-discrimination Act and further referred the case to the state’s Civil Rights Commission. The commission found that conducting a formal hearing could aid and sent the case of the administrative law judge (ALJ). Consequently, the ALJ summarized the issue and made the judgement in favour of the couple (Chemerinsky). Consequently, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission agreed with the judge that Phillips violated the laws prohibiting business units from discriminating clients based on sexual orientation. However, Phillips could not settle with the ruling made by the Colorado court and he appealed to the Supreme Court for justice. The Supreme Court stated that the commission violated the baker’s rights according to the first amendment of freedom of expression. In this case, the commission should have respected Phillip's decisions irrespective of the underlying arguments. However, the court did not highlight the basis of a bakery refusing to serve a gay couple. The ruling against the couple does not justify any principle on whether they should or should not receive various public services (Savage, 34). The Supreme Court passed the judgement with the issue pending and waiting for further elaborations (Graves). According to the judge, ...