Supreme Court's Decision in Colorado "Gay Wedding Cake" Case

[smac97]

Here:

Quote

Supreme Court rules for Colorado baker in same-sex wedding cake case
By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter
Updated 10:20 AM ET, Mon June 4, 2018

The Supreme Court ruled narrowly in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake to celebrate the marriage of a same sex couple because of a religious objections.

The ruling was 6-2.

This story is about 5 minutes old.  I'll provide updates shortly.

Thanks,

-Smac

UPDATE: From USA Today:

Quote

A divided Supreme Court on Monday absolved a Colorado baker of discrimination for refusing to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

The verdict criticized the state's treatment of Jack Phillips' religious objections to gay marriage, ruling that a civil rights commission was biased against him. As a result, the decision did not resolve whether other opponents of same-sex marriage, such as florists and photographers, can refuse commercial wedding services to gay couples.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the court's 7-2 decision against the same-sex couple, departing from his long history of opinions in favor of gay rights dating back a generation. Included among them was the court's 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

Here's the Supreme Court's Decision: MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD., ET AL. v. COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION ET AL. 

Here's the key holding: "The Commission’s actions in this case violated the Free Exercise Clause."

Excerpts from the syllabus of the decision:

Quote

The laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect gay persons and gay couples in the exercise of their civil rights, but religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.
...
Phillips [] was entitled to a neutral and respectful consideration of his claims in all the circumstances of the case.  That consideration was compromised, however, by the Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case, which showed elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs motivating his objection.  As the record shows, some of the commissioners at the Commission’s formal, public hearings endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, disparaged Phillips’ faith as despicable and characterized it as merely rhetorical, and compared his invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. No commissioners objected to the comments. Nor were they mentioned in the later state-court ruling or disavowed in the briefs filed here. The comments thus cast doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the Commission’s adjudication of Phillips’ case. 
...
[T]he Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case violated the State’s duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to a religion or religious viewpoint.
...
[T]he record here demonstrates that the Commission’s consideration of Phillips’ case was neither tolerant nor respectful of his religious beliefs.  The Commission gave “every appearance,” [] of adjudicating his religious objection based on a negative normative “evaluation of the particular justification” for his objection and the religious grounds for it, [] but government has no role in expressing or even suggesting whether the religious ground for Phillips’ conscience-based objection is legitimate or illegitimate. 

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by smac97

[Anijen]

I was just about to post this. Here is a news link.

[HappyJackWagon]

Since when is a 6-2 ruling "narrow"?

[USU78]

4 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Since when is a 6-2 ruling "narrow"?

They didn't meet the real question head on. Trendylefty bigotry was the basis, rather than free exercise. Hence, "narrow."

[Scott Lloyd]

11 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Since when is a 6-2 ruling "narrow"?

That same question occurred to me. What’s narrow about it?  5-4 would have been narrow by my reckoning, but not 6-3. 

Is this another instance of CNN showing its liberal bias in reporting?

Edited June 4, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

10 minutes ago, USU78 said:

They didn't meet the real question head on. Trendylefty bigotry was the basis, rather than free exercise. Hence, "narrow."

I still don’t get it. Please elaborate, USU. 

Edited to add: Is it because the ruling dodged the question of whether photographers and florists can refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings?

Edited June 4, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[Danzo]

11 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Since when is a 6-2 ruling "narrow"?

'narrow' refers to the scope of the ruling, not the vote

[Anijen]

22 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Since when is a 6-2 ruling "narrow"?

It was a 7-2 ruling, Sotormayer and Ginsberg where the 2 dissenting votes.

It appears  the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment was the focus of the violation of the bakers rights. Link here

Edited June 4, 2018 by Anijen

[Danzo]

4 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I still don’t get it. Please elaborate, USU. 

A 'broad" ruling would have been "cake decorating is protected speach' or ' cake decorating is not protected speach'. Instead they decided that the Colorado civil rights commission were jerks.

[Scott Lloyd]

9 minutes ago, Danzo said:

A 'broad" ruling would have been "cake decorating is protected speach' or ' cake decorating is not protected speach'. Instead they decided that the Colorado civil rights commission were jerks.

OK. I’m understanding better now. 

I agree they were jerks, but I wish the ruling against them would have been broader. But this may be the best that could be expected from a liberal justice like Kennedy. 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[smac97]

24 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Since when is a 6-2 ruling "narrow"?

It wasn't about the number of justices, I think.  It's more about the legal grounds upon which the decision is based.  Those grounds are, as USU78 notes, "narrow."

The decision is pretty long (59 pages), so it'll take a little bit to digest.  A preliminary skim, however, indicates that SCOTUS found the mistreatment of the baker's religious beliefs to be deeply problematic.  That mistreatment started with the state Civil Rights Commission, which openly and brazenly disparaged those beliefs, which remarks the reviewing state court disregarded:

Quote

One commissioner suggested that Phillips can believe “what he wants to believe,” but cannot act on his religious beliefs “if he decides to do business in the  state.” Tr. 23. A few moments later, the commissioner restated the same position: “{I}f a businessman wants to do business in the state and he’s got an issue with the—the law’s impacting his personal belief system, he needs to look at being able to compromise.”
...
On July 25, 2014, the Commission met again. This meeting, too, was conducted in public and on the record. On this occasion another commissioner made specific reference to the previous meeting’s discussion but said far more to disparage Phillips’ beliefs. The commissioner stated: 

Quote

“I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust, whether it be—I mean, we—we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination.  And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others.”

To describe a man’s faith as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use” is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical—something insubstantial and even insincere. The commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. This sentiment is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s antidiscrimination law—a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.

The record shows no objection to these comments from other commissioners. And the later state-court ruling reviewing the Commission’s decision did not mention those comments, much less express concern with their content. Nor were the comments by the commissioners disavowed in the briefs filed in this Court. For these reasons, the Court cannot avoid the conclusion that these statements cast doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the Commission’s adjudication of Phillips’ case. 

I am once again grateful for the protections the Constitution provides people like me from . . . people like those on the Colorado "Civil Rights" Commission (and state courts).

Contrast the Commission's treatment of Phillips from subsequent decisions, in which bakers were protected from being compelled to decorate cakes with messages they deemed offensive:

Quote

As noted above, on at least three other occasions the Civil Rights Division considered the refusal of bakers to create cakes with images that conveyed disapproval of same-sex marriage, along with religious text. Each time, the Division found that the baker acted lawfully in refusing service. It made these determinations because, in the words of the Division, the requested cake included “wording and images [the baker] deemed derogatory,”[]; featured “language and images [the baker] deemed hateful,”[]; or displayed a message the baker “deemed as discriminatory.

The treatment of the conscience-based objections at issue in these three cases contrasts with the Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ objection. The Commission ruled against Phillips in part on the theory that any message the requested wedding cake would carry would be attributed to the customer, not to the baker. Yet the Division did not address this point in any of the other cases with respect to the cakes depicting anti-gay marriage symbolism. 

...

The treatment of the other cases and Phillips’ case could reasonably be interpreted as being inconsistent as to the question of whether speech is involved, quite apart from whether the cases should ultimately be distinguished. In short, the Commission’s consideration of Phillips’ religious objection did not accord with its treatment of these other objections.

SCOTUS is spot-on here.  The Commission's disparate treatment of the "messaging" in cakes was glaringly partial.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited June 4, 2018 by smac97

[pogi]

Quote

Phillips [] was entitled to a neutral and respectful consideration of his claims in all the circumstances of the case.  That consideration was compromised, however, by the Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case, which showed elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs motivating his objection.  As the record shows, some of the commissioners at the Commission’s formal, public hearings endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, disparaged Phillips’ faith as despicable and characterized it as merely rhetorical, and compared his invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. No commissioners objected to the comments. Nor were they mentioned in the later state-court ruling or disavowed in the briefs filed here. The comments thus cast doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the Commission’s adjudication of Phillips’ case. 
...
[T]he Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case violated the State’s duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to a religion or religious viewpoint.
...
[T]he record here demonstrates that the Commission’s consideration of Phillips’ case was neither tolerant nor respectful of his religious beliefs. 

Intolerance on the part of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, all in the name of tolerance   

[Anijen]

13 minutes ago, Danzo said:

A 'broad" ruling would have been "cake decorating is protected speach' or ' cake decorating is not protected speach'. Instead they decided that the Colorado civil rights commission were jerks.

I would have used different wording, but essentially you are correct. According to how the opinion was written, I would have worded your response this way;

Colorado Civil Rights Commission demonstrated animus towards religion in their decision making.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Anijen

[Scott Lloyd]

32 minutes ago, smac97 said:

It wasn't about the number of justices, I think.  It's more about the legal grounds upon which the decision is based.  Those grounds are, as USU78 notes, "narrow."

The decision is pretty long (59 pages), so it'll take a little bit to digest.  A preliminary skim, however, indicates that SCOTUS found the mistreatment of the baker's religious beliefs to be deeply problematic.  That mistreatment started with the state Civil Rights Commission, which openly and brazenly disparaged those beliefs, which remarks the reviewing state court disregarded:

I am once again grateful for the protections the Constitution provides people like me from . . . people like those on the Colorado "Civil Rights" Commission (and state courts).

Contrast the Commission's treatment of Phillips from subsequent decisions, in which bakers were protected from being compelled to decorate cakes with messages they deemed offensive:

SCOTUS is spot-on here.  The Commission's disparate treatment of the "messaging" in cakes was glaringly partial.

Thanks,

-Smac

I’ve only started to read the ruling. Is there anything in there about the commission’s heavy-handed enforcement? They would have required the baker to give “comprehensive staff training” to his employees and to provide quarterly reports of the same. To me, that carries the stench of despotic rule in which a regime forces people to undergo “re-education” pertaining to party ideology. 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[RevTestament]

25 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Since when is a 6-2 ruling "narrow"?

From the case syllabus:

"the Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case violated the State’s duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to a religion or religious viewpoint. The government, consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise, cannot impose regulations that are hostile to the religious beliefs of affected citizens and cannot act in a manner that passes judgment upon or presupposes the illegitimacy of religious beliefs and practices. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520. Factors relevant to the assessment of governmental neutrality include “the historical background of the decision under challenge, the specific series of events leading to the enactment or official policy in question, and the legislative or administrative history, including contemporaneous statements made by members of the decisionmaking body.” Id., at 540. In view of these factors, the record here demonstrates that the Commission’s consideration of Phillips’ case was neither tolerant nor respectful of his religious beliefs. The Commission gave “every appearance,” id., at 545, of adjudicating his religious objection based on a negative normative “evaluation of the particular justification” for his objection and the religious grounds for it, id., at 537, but government has no role in expressing or even suggesting whether the religious ground for Phillips’ conscience-based objection is legitimate or illegitimate. The inference here is thus that Phillips’ religious objection was not considered with the neutrality required by the Free Exercise Clause. The State’s interest could have been weighed against Phillips’ sincere religious objections in a way consistent with the requisite religious neutrality that must be strictly observed. But the official expressions of hostility to religion in some of the commissioners’ comments were inconsistent with that requirement, and the Commission’s disparate consideration of Phillips’ case compared to the cases of the other bakers suggests the same. Pp. 16–18. 370 P. 3d 272,"

So the court did not rule that the Baker could actually do what he did legally, but that the state did not impartially adjudicate the Baker's rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religious views. In other words if the state had impartially balanced the the Baker's freedom of expression against the civil rights of the gay customer, the Court may not have reversed. I don't know that it is too clear, however, how the state is supposed to make this decision without appearing to make some judgment on the validity of a particular religious belief, so this could be a long-term win for conscientious objectors. If the state just keeps religious language and hostility out of its adjudication process and decision, would that be enough for it to pass constitutional muster? Undecided. Traditionally in the sticky wick of balancing constitutional rights of opposing parties, the Court puts the onus of passing constitutional muster on the state, and will increase its scrutiny of state laws and regulations. Often this involves seemingly "kicking the ball down the road." 

[6EQUJ5]

57 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

But this may be the best that could be expected from a liberal justice like Kennedy. 

Kennedy is hardly a liberal.

[USU78]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I still don’t get it. Please elaborate, USU. 

Edited to add: Is it because the ruling dodged the question of whether photographers and florists can refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings?

The issue is, or should have been, whether one's "free exercise" rights under the First Amendment trump statutory enactments which enthrone anti-discrimination rights.  The Court, as I understand it, merely interpreted the anti-discrimination enactments  ...  a much easier task, since you can always infer discriminatory intent where there either is or could be a discriminatory outcome. 

Easier to beat up on the trendylefty state enforcement wonks than to read the Constitution's plain language:  If they had faced the constitutional question head on, they probably would have had to throw out all of the anti-discrimination laws when they run up against the constitutional free exercise rights of religious folks.  They probably lacked the votes to enforce the actual Constitution's language, as amended.

[smac97]

7 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I’ve only started to read the ruling. Is there anything in there about the commission’s heavy-handed enforcement? They would have required the baker to give “comprehensive staff training” to his employees and to provide quarterly reports of the same. To me, that carries the stench of despotic rule in which a regime forces people to undergo “re-education” pertaining to party ideology. 

I'm not sure.  I only skimmed it.

I just found this nice bit from Justice Gorsuch's concurring opinion (page 27):

Quote

[T}he Colorado Civil Rights Commission failed to act neutrally toward Jack Phillips’s religious faith. Maybe most notably, the Commission allowed three other bakers to refuse a customer’s request that would have required them to violate their secular commitments. Yet it denied the same accommodation to Mr. Phillips when he refused a customer’s request that would have required him to violate his religious beliefs.  As the Court also explains, the only reason the Commission seemed to supply for its discrimination was that it found Mr. Phillips’s religious beliefs “offensive.”  That kind of judgmental dismissal of a sincerely held religious belief is, of course, antithetical to the First Amendment and cannot begin to satisfy strict scrutiny. The Constitution protects not just popular religious exercises from the condemnation of civil authorities. It protects them all. Because the Court documents each of these points carefully and thoroughly, I am pleased to join its opinion in full. 

The only wrinkle is this. In the face of so much evidence suggesting hostility toward Mr. Phillips’s sincerely held religious beliefs, two of our colleagues have written separately to suggest that the Commission acted neutrally toward his faith when it treated him differently from the other bakers—or that it could have easily done so consistent with the First Amendment.  But, respectfully, I do not see how we might rescue the Commission from its error. 

A full view of the facts helps point the way to the problem.  Start with William Jack’s case. ...

He goes on to outline the wildly disparate treatment the bakers in Mr. Jack's case received from the "Civil Rights" Commission ("All three bakers refused Mr. Jack’s request, stating that they found his request offensive to their secular convictions" yet "the Division declined to find a violation, reasoning that the bakers didn’t deny Mr. Jack service because of his religious faith but because the cakes he sought were offensive to their own moral convictions").  Gorsuch sums things up very well:

Quote

The facts show that the two cases share all legally salient features. In both cases, the effect on the customer was the same: bakers refused service to persons who bore a statutorily protected trait (religious faith or sexual orientation).  But in both cases the bakers refused service intending only to honor a personal conviction. To be sure, the bakers knew their conduct promised the effect of leaving a customer in a protected class unserved. But there’s no indication the bakers actually intended to refuse service because of a customer’s protected characteristic. We know this because all of the bakers explained without contradiction that they would not sell the requested cakes to anyone, while they would sell other cakes to members of the protected class (as well as to anyone else). So, for example, the bakers in the first case would have refused to sell a cake denigrating same-sex marriage to an atheist customer, just as the baker in the second case would have refused to sell a cake celebrating same-sex marriage to a heterosexual customer. And the bakers in the first case were generally happy to sell to persons of faith, just as the baker in the second case was generally happy to sell to gay persons. In both cases, it was the kind of cake, not the kind of customer, that mattered to the bakers. 

...

The real explanation for the Commission’s discrimination soon comes clear, too—and it does anything but help its cause. This isn’t a case where the Commission selfconsciously announced a change in its legal rule in all public accommodation cases. Nor is this a case where the Commission offered some persuasive reason for its discrimination that might survive strict scrutiny. Instead, as the Court explains, it appears the Commission wished to condemn Mr. Phillips for expressing just the kind of “irrational” or “offensive . . . message” that the bakers in the first case refused to endorse. 

Yep.  Good luck, "Civil Rights" Commission, in getting past your prior findings which condemned the baker's speech, particularly given your treatment of the Jack case.  Trying to come up with a constitutionally-permissible way to coerce a Christian baker into engaging in compelled speech after having disparaged his religious convictions?  And after having protected other bakeries from being compelled into coerced speech due to their secular convictions?  Yeah, good luck with tat.

I think Phillips has already won.  The Civil Rights Commission really put itself into a bind.  Naked prejudice against a constitutionally-protected class will not fly.  Justice Gorsuch put it well:

Quote

The Commission cannot have it both ways. The Commission cannot slide up and down the mens rea scale, picking a mental state standard to suit its tastes depending on its sympathies. Either actual proof of intent to discriminate on the basis of membership in a protected class is required (as the Commission held in Mr. Jack’s case), or it is sufficient to “presume” such intent from the knowing failure to serve someone in a protected class (as the Commission held in Mr. Phillips’s case). 

SCOTUS is civil in its rhetoric, as it should be, but this is about as close to taking the Commission "to the woodshed" as we can hope to see.

The next question is this: Why did the Commission behave this way?  Why did the Commission's members openly disparage religious beliefs in their deliberations?  They apparently thought they could get away with it.  I think they knew the reviewing state court would have their back (and it turns out they were right about this).  Taking this up to the Supreme Court was apparently too remote a possibility.  And even if they had, I suspect they figured they'd have Hillary Clinton in the White House, with a congruently more hostile-to-religion leaning Supreme Court.

But in the end, Justice Gorsuch was not the determinative player here.  Even Justice Kennedy (!!) couldn't stomach what the Commission did.  I think this demonstrates just how out of touch our hostile-to-religious-belief friends are to basic Constitutional jurisprudence.  

Cool!

-Smac

[smac97]

1 minute ago, USU78 said:

The issue is, or should have been, whether one's "free exercise" rights under the First Amendment trump statutory enactments which enthrone anti-discrimination rights.  The Court, as I understand it, merely interpreted the anti-discrimination enactments  ...  a much easier task, since you can always infer discriminatory intent where there either is or could be a discriminatory outcome. 

Easier to beat up on the trendylefty state enforcement wonks than to read the Constitution's plain language:  If they had faced the constitutional question head on, they probably would have had to throw out all of the anti-discrimination laws when they run up against the constitutional free exercise rights of religious folks.  They probably lacked the votes to enforce the actual Constitution's language, as amended.

Could they also have just wanted to go with the narrower path (the Commission was plainly out of line) rather than the broader one (litigants and government cannot use Public Accommodation / Anti-Discrimination laws to compel speech abhorrent to the individual's First Amendment rights)?

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Since when is a 6-2 ruling "narrow"?

The article I read quoted it at 7-2 and I thought the same thing.  How is that narrow?  

[USU78]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

Could they also have just wanted to go with the narrower path (the Commission was plainly out of line) rather than the broader one (litigants and government cannot use Public Accommodation / Anti-Discrimination laws to compel speech abhorrent to the individual's First Amendment rights)?

Thanks,

-Smac

Coulda, but plainly couldn't get the votes to, assuming anybody truly cared what the free exercise clause actually says and means.  If you throw out anti-discrimination in this instance when it butts up against the 1st Amendment, how do you differentiate when the case involves a religiously motivated discrimination based upon race?   

[Scott Lloyd]

12 minutes ago, bluebell said:

The article I read quoted it at 7-2 and I thought the same thing.  How is that narrow?  

I wondered that as well but have now had it explained to my satisfaction: “Narrow” refers to the scope of the ruling, not to the vote count. 

That is to say, the ruling would not disallow an administrative body in a future such case to rule against the baker where the administrative body was less blatantly anti-religious than in this case. 

[Scott Lloyd]

27 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I'm not sure.  I only skimmed it.

I just found this nice bit from Justice Gorsuch's concurring opinion (page 27):

He goes on to outline the wildly disparate treatment the bakers in Mr. Jack's case received from the "Civil Rights" Commission ("All three bakers refused Mr. Jack’s request, stating that they found his request offensive to their secular convictions" yet "the Division declined to find a violation, reasoning that the bakers didn’t deny Mr. Jack service because of his religious faith but because the cakes he sought were offensive to their own moral convictions").  Gorsuch sums things up very well:

Yep.  Good luck, "Civil Rights" Commission, in getting past your prior findings which condemned the baker's speech, particularly given your treatment of the Jack case.  Trying to come up with a constitutionally-permissible way to coerce a Christian baker into engaging in compelled speech after having disparaged his religious convictions?  And after having protected other bakeries from being compelled into coerced speech due to their secular convictions?  Yeah, good luck with tat.

I think Phillips has already won.  The Civil Rights Commission really put itself into a bind.  Naked prejudice against a constitutionally-protected class will not fly.  Justice Gorsuch put it well:

SCOTUS is civil in its rhetoric, as it should be, but this is about as close to taking the Commission "to the woodshed" as we can hope to see.

The next question is this: Why did the Commission behave this way?  Why did the Commission's members openly disparage religious beliefs in their deliberations?  They apparently thought they could get away with it.  I think they knew the reviewing state court would have their back (and it turns out they were right about this).  Taking this up to the Supreme Court was apparently too remote a possibility.  And even if they had, I suspect they figured they'd have Hillary Clinton in the White House, with a congruently more hostile-to-religion leaning Supreme Court.

But in the end, Justice Gorsuch was not the determinative player here.  Even Justice Kennedy (!!) couldn't stomach what the Commission did.  I think this demonstrates just how out of touch our hostile-to-religious-belief friends are to basic Constitutional jurisprudence.  

Cool!

-Smac

You say you think Phillips has already won. Isn’t that foregone? 

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

..................

This story is about 5 minutes old.  I'll provide updates shortly.

.................................

Here's the Supreme Court's Decision: MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD., ET AL. v. COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION ET AL. 

Here's the key holding: "The Commission’s actions in this case violated the Free Exercise Clause."

.....................................

Once again, anti-religious bigotry has muddied the waters.  This case thus tells us nothing about the way the court will rule in the future.

[smac97]

19 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

You say you think Phillips has already won. Isn’t that foregone? 

Hmm.  Yes, he "won" in that the Colorado Court of Appeals decision was reversed.  However, SCOTUS did not remand the case (that is, it did not send the case back to the lower courts for further action).  I had thought that the case had been remanded.

-Smac