The Supreme Court’s ruling said that “the outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts.” Some interpret this to mean that the decision benefits only Phillips. That reads the ruling too narrowly. The court was deeply troubled by the fact that the state had punished cake artists who declined to celebrate same-sex marriage but had exonerated those who refused requests to criticize same-sex marriage. Most government officials presented with similar circumstances will interpret their nondiscrimination laws the same way; this means that many other artists who share Phillips’s religious beliefs about marriage will benefit from the court’s decision.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 26: The exterior of the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26, 2012 in Washington, DC. Today the high court, which has set aside six hours over three days, will hear arguments over the constitutionality President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) A general view of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, June 18, 2015. AFP PHOTO/JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)Supreme Court building exterior The U.S. Supreme Court is shown March 29, 2016 in Washington, DC following the first 4-4 tie in a case before the court. The Justices of the US Supreme Court sit for their official photograph on October 8, 2010 at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. Front row (L-R): Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Back Row (L-R): Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr. and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. AFP PHOTO / TIM SLOAN (Photo credit should read TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 25: A gay marriage waves a flag in front of the Supreme Court Building June 25, 2015 in Washington, DC. The high court is expected rule in the next few days on whether states can prohibit same sex marriage, as 13 states currently do. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) The U.S. Supreme Court is shown as the court meets to issue decisions May 23, 2016 in Washington, D.C. Pro-choice activist, Alissa Manzoeillo, of Washington, D.C. waits for rulings in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 27, 2016 in Washington, DC. A ruling is expected in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, a Texas case the places restrictions on abortion clinics, as well as rulings in the former Virginia Governor's corruption case and a gun rights case. WASHINGTON - JUNE 25: The exterior view of the U.S. Supreme Court is seen June 25, 2007 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court has ruled to give more freedom for interest groups and unions to run TV ads before elections, and also ruled to limit taxpayers' rights to challenge government initiatives as unconstitutionally promoting religion. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) People wait in line to enter the U.S. Supreme Court, on April 23, 2018 in Washington, DC. A wedding cake with statuettes of two men is seen during the demonstration in West Hollywood, California, May 15, 2008, after the decision by the California Supreme Court to effectively greenlight same-sex marriage. AFP PHOTO / GABRIEL BOUYS (Photo credit should read GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON - FEBRUARY 05: The U.S. Supreme Court is shown February 5, 2009 in Washington, DC. It was announced today that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) Conservative Christian baker Jack Phillips waves to supporters outside the Supreme Court building December 5, 2017 in Washington, DC. Craig and Mullins filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission after conservative Christian baker Jack Phillips refused to sell them a wedding cake for their same-sex ceremony..Photo by Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press (Newscom TagID: sipaphotosseven621897.jpg) [Photo via Newscom] (CNN) — The Supreme Court ruled 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 objection. The ruling was 7-2. The court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility toward the baker based on his religious beliefs. The ruling is a win for baker Jack Phillips, who cited his beliefs as a Christian, but leaves unsettled broader constitutional questions on religious liberty. “Today’s decision is remarkably narrow, and leaves for another day virtually all of the major constitutional questions that this case presented,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. “It’s hard to see the decision setting a precedent.” The ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, held that members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed animus toward Phillips specifically when they suggested his claims of religious freedom were made to justify discrimination. The case was one of the most anticipated rulings of the term and was considered by some as a follow-up from the court’s decision three years ago to clear the way for same-sex marriage nationwide. That opinion, also written by Kennedy, expressed respect for those with religious objections to gay marriage. “Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth,” he wrote Monday. Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner, who represented Phillips, praised the ruling. “Jack serves all customers; he simply declines to express messages or celebrate events that violate his deeply held beliefs,” Waggoner said in a statement. “Creative professionals who serve all people should be free to create art consistent with their convictions without the threat of government punishment.” She further added that the case “will affect a number of cases for years to come in free exercise jurisprudence. That’s how the court’s decisions work.” Waggoner said Phillips is “relieved” at the court’s decision and that he will be working with the Alliance Defending Freedom to determine when to move forward to continue making wedding cakes. “It’s been a long, six-year battle where his family business, his income, has been hanging in the balance. He’s also, obviously, handling a large volume of calls himself and looking out for the protection of his family, to be candid,” Waggoner said. Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, emphasized the narrowness of the opinion. “The court reversed the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision based on concerns unique to the case but reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the marketplace, including against LGBT people,” Melling said in a statement. Because Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in part, the judgment of the court on the case was 7-2 but the opinion on the rationale was 6-2. Religious tolerance Kennedy wrote that there is room for religious tolerance, pointing specifically to how the Colorado commission treated Phillips by downplaying his religious liberty concerns. “At the same time the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression,” Kennedy wrote, adding that the “neutral consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised here.” “The commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion,” Kennedy said, adding to say that the case was narrow. “The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market,” the opinion states. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent which was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, argued that “when a couple contacts a bakery for a wedding cake, the product they are seeking is a cake celebrating their wedding – not a cake celebrating heterosexual weddings or same-sex weddings – and that is the service (the couple) were denied.” Baker emphasizes Christian beliefs Phillips opened the bakery in 1993, knowing at the outset that there would be certain cakes he would decline to make in order to abide by his religious beliefs. “I didn’t want to use my artistic talents to create something that went against my Christian faith,” he said in an interview with CNN last year, noting that he has also declined to make cakes to celebrate Halloween. In 2012, David Mullins and Charlie Craig asked Phillips to bake a cake to celebrate their planned wedding, which would be performed in another state. Phillips said he couldn’t create the product they were looking for without violating his faith. “The Bible says, ‘In the beginning there was male and female,’” Phillips said. He offered to make any other baked goods for the men.<doc-sep>For the past six years, Jack Phillips says that he’s missed welcoming couples into his shop, hearing their proposal stories and being part of their wedding days -- at least, some of them. After the Supreme Court ruled in his favor Monday, Phillips, who made headlines for refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple in 2012, can once again bake wedding cakes. "One of the main reasons I got in the business is because I love making wedding cakes," Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, told ABC News. In 2012, David Mullins and Charlie Craig filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission after Phillips told them he would not make their wedding cake because it was counter to his religious beliefs. The couple argued he had violated Colorado law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The case started at Phillips's shop in Lakewood and then gained national attention as it moved through the nation's courts, ending with a ruling by Supreme Court on Monday. Mullins told ABC’s Colorado affiliate KMGH his first emotions were "shock" and "disappointment" after the ruling. Phillips said that the last nearly six years have been difficult emotionally as well as financially, as wedding cakes represented 40 percent of his business. "We've had death threats, we've had hundreds of phone calls and emails that were vile and vulgar and vicious," Phillips said. One time, he said he was at the store with his daughter, who also works at the bakery, and his granddaughter when someone called in a death threat and said they were coming to the shop. "I had to have them go hide in the back. It was a crazy situation," Phillips said. "It’s just been an emotional drain on the family all the way 'round," he added. Phillips maintains that he said no to the baking of the cake itself rather than to the couple. "We serve everybody who comes in the shop. We just can’t create every cake they ask us to," he said, adding that he would refuse to make Halloween cakes or ones with "anti-American" themes. "It’s always the message that I decline to create rather than the person," he added. Mullins said he hoped the case raised awareness. "The struggle is real and you know civil rights aren’t gained overnight, and we hope we raised awareness not just in Colorado but across the country about how this form of discrimination affects LGBT people across the country every day," Mullins told KMGH. The ACLU also released a statement Monday in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, saying that the ruling "upholds basic principles of non-discrimination." "The Supreme Court today reaffirmed the core principle that businesses open to the public must be open to all in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The court did not accept arguments that would have turned back the clock on equality by making our basic civil rights protections unenforceable, but reversed this case based on concerns specific to the facts here," the statement read.<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who had refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple. The court’s decision was narrow, and it left open the larger question of whether a business can discriminate against gay men and lesbians based on rights protected by the First Amendment. The court passed on an opportunity to either bolster the right to same-sex marriage or explain how far the government can go in regulating businesses run on religious principles. Instead, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion turned on the argument that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which originally ruled against the baker, had been shown to be hostile to religion because of the remarks of one of its members. At the same time, Justice Kennedy strongly reaffirmed protections for gay rights. “The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts,” he wrote, “all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.” Justice Kennedy often casts the deciding vote in closely divided cases on major social issues. When the court agreed to hear the Colorado case last June, it seemed to present him with a stark choice between two of his core commitments. On the one hand, Justice Kennedy has written every major Supreme Court decision protecting gay men and lesbians. On the other, he is the court’s most ardent defender of free speech.