The appeal filed by the Colorado baker who refused to bake cake for same-sex marriage is to be heard by the Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices voted Monday to hear the appeal from the owner of a Colorado bakery.
The court is to consider if shop owner, Mr. Jack Phillips, who objected to same-sex marriage based on his religious beliefs, could refuse to bake a cake for Charlie Craig and David Mullins’ same-sex marriage.
Phillips had said that his constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion were violated when the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled in August 2015 that he was required to bake a wedding cake for the gay couple under Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act.
He says he honours God through the art of decorating cakes, and that it would displease God if he were to bake a cake for a gay marriage. “I feel that the Bible is clear — what God defines marriage as,” Phillips said in 2015.
“For me to violate that would be for me to rebel against God, to take what he’s designed and say it doesn’t matter.” But Craig and Mullins claim they were discriminated against by the baker for his refusal to bake a cake for them in 2012. Despite the ruling of the Appeal court, Phillips refused to bake the cake for the couple.
“They said you have to create cakes for same-sex couples, so he removed himself from the market. He chose to stop making wedding cakes,” said Jeremy Todesco, a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, who appealed for Phillips on his behalf.
