It all started with a No , from a suburban Denver baker, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who refused to make a cake for a gay couple, because it would violate his religious beliefs. Amid recent marriage equality laws passings, the denied couple filed a suit just this past Tuesday with the Colorado Court of Appeals.
The attorneys representing the denied gay couple, who were denied a wedding cake in 2012, feels that allowing businesses to turn away customers through religious exemptions will facilitate future discrimination.
This is only the beginning of continued tensions of religious-freedom advocates and gay-rights supporters following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last month legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
This case is not unprecedented as other gay-couples have been denied and won their discrimination cases including just last week where Aaron and Melissa Klein, a couple who declined to artistically design and create a cake for a same-sex ceremony, to pay $135,000 in damages to the couple who ordered the cake.
The Colorado case includes baker Jack Phillips, owner of Lakewood’s Masterpiece Cakeshop, and Charlie Craig and David Mullins, who were married in Massachusetts and wanted a wedding cake to celebrate in Colorado.
Craig and Mullins held hands by the side of the courtroom during the arguments while Phillips sat near his attorneys. He told reporters afterward that he doesn’t regret his decision to decline baking a cake for Craig and Mullins. One of his attorneys said they would consider appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lose at this stage.
