The Supreme Court turns Tuesday to a controversial case pitting a Colorado baker against a same-sex couple denied a wedding cake.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court turns Tuesday to the most contentious case on its docket, featuring a Colorado baker who refused to design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
The five-year-old legal battle between Jack Phillips’ confections and the gay couple’s affections will test the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and religion against state laws prohibiting discrimination. For the justices, it could be a close call.
Phillips, 61, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, is fighting for the rights of “creative artists” to choose what they will sell. Charlie Craig, 37, and David Mullins, 33, are fighting for the rights of LGBT customers to choose what they will buy.
Thus far, Craig and Mullins have won at the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and the state Court of Appeals. But the Supreme Court, bolstered in April by the addition of stalwart conservative and fellow Coloradan Neil Gorsuch, could be a different story.
The high court has weighed in twice on the subject of same-sex marriage. In 2013, it ruled that the federal government must recognize gay and lesbian marriages in the 12 states that had legalized them. In 2015, it extended same-sex marriage nationwide.
But even as he authored the court’s landmark decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy held out an olive branch to religious conservatives.
“It must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned,” Kennedy wrote.
Only three issues in recent years come close to engendering as much emotion at the court as the continuing battle over same-sex marriage: Abortion, affirmative action and Obamacare.
Over the past three months, the high court has been flooded with nearly 100 “friend of the court” briefs, equally divided between the two sides. The briefs raised difficult arguments about free speech and religious liberty, equal rights and anti-discrimination laws.
All those issues likely will be raised in court Tuesday by four lawyers representing the baker and the Trump administration on one side, and the gay couple and Colorado on the other. A decision is not expected until the spring.
