* Court says state panel violated baker's religious rights * Ruling was 7-2, with 2 liberals joining 5 conservatives (Adds details on 2012 incident that triggered the case, Kennedy quote) By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory on narrow grounds to a Colorado Christian baker who refused for religious reasons to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, stopping short of setting a major precedent allowing people to claim exemptions from anti-discrimination laws based on religious beliefs. The justices, in a 7-2 decision, said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed an impermissible hostility toward religion when it found that baker Jack Phillips violated the state's anti-discrimination law by rebuffing gay couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig in 2012. The state law bars businesses from refusing service based on race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation. The ruling concluded that the commission violated Phillips' religious rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. But the justices did not issue a definitive ruling on the circumstances under which people can seek exemptions from anti-discrimination laws based on their religious views. The decision also did not address important claims raised in the case including whether baking a cake is a kind of expressive act protected by the Constitution's free speech guarantee. Two of the court's four liberals, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, joined the five conservative justices in the ruling authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who also was the author of the landmark 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide. "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 wrote. But Kennedy also stressed the importance of gay rights while noting that litigation on similar issues is likely to continue in lower courts. "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," Kennedy wrote. "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," Kennedy added. The case marked a test for Kennedy, who has authored significant rulings that advanced gay rights but also is a strong advocate for free speech rights and religious freedom. Of the 50 states, 21 including Colorado have anti-discrimination laws protecting gay people. The case pitted gay rights against religious liberty. President Donald Trump's administration intervened in the case in support of Phillips. Mullins and Craig were planning their wedding in Massachusetts in 2012 and wanted the cake for a reception in Colorado, where gay marriage was not yet legal. During a brief encounter at Phillips' Masterpiece Cakeshop in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, the baker politely but firmly refused, leaving the couple distraught. They filed a successful complaint with the state commission, the first step in the six-year-old legal battle. State courts sided with the couple, prompting Phillips to appeal to the top U.S. court. Phillips has said a backlash against his business has left him struggling to keep the shop afloat. The case's outcome hinged on the actions of the Colorado commission. In one exchange at a 2014 hearing cited by Kennedy, former commissioner Diann Rice said that "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." 'OPENLY ANTAGONISTIC' Kennedy noted that the commission had ruled the opposite way in three cases brought against bakers in which the business owners refused to bake cakes containing messages that demeaned gay people or same-sex marriage. "Government hostility toward people of faith has no place in our society, yet the state of Colorado was openly antagonistic toward Jack's religious beliefs about marriage. The court was right to condemn that," said lawyer Kristen Waggoner of the conservative Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Phillips. Waggoner said the decision "makes clear that the government must respect Jack's beliefs about marriage." American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Louise Melling, who represents Mullins and Craig, said the high court made it clear that businesses open to the public must serve everyone. "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 added. The case became a cultural flashpoint in the United States, underscoring the tensions between gay rights proponents and conservative Christians. Mullins and Craig said Phillips was using his Christian faith as pretext for unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation. Phillips' lawyers said his cakes are an art form - a "temporary sculpture" - and being forced to create one to commemorate a gay wedding would violate his constitutional rights to free speech and expression and free exercise of religion. The litigation, along with similar cases around the country, is part of a conservative Christian backlash to the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling. Phillips and others like him who believe that gay marriage is not consistent with their Christian beliefs have said they should not be required to effectively endorse the practice. Gay rights advocates said the case is just one part of a bigger struggle seeking greater legal protections for gay, bisexual and transgender people, including in the workplace, even as they fight efforts by conservatives to undermine gains secured in recent years. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.<doc-sep>Colorado regulators violated the freedom of religion when they sanctioned a Christian baker who declined to participate in a gay wedding, according to a landmark Supreme Court ruling. The justices ruled 7-2 in Masterpiece Cakeshops, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission that state authorities unconstitutionally punished the Christian owners of the bakery for declining to participate in a gay marriage ceremony. The Court ruled that the bakers were protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and that the discrimination rules were not viewpoint neutral for religious believers. "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," the ruling says. The dispute began when a gay couple approached a Christian baker in 2012 asking for a cake to celebrate their wedding. The baker declined to make a custom cake for the event, citing his religious beliefs, but told the couple they could purchase other goods in the store. Masterpiece Cakeshop has been one of the most contentious cases in the wake of the Supreme Court's 5-4 Obergefell ruling in 2015, which overturned all state laws defining marriage as between only a man and woman. Justice Anthony Kennedy authored the majority opinions in both cases. The Court found that Colorado's Civil Rights Commission, which enforces discrimination policy, operated in a manner at odds with religious tolerance. Its staff demonstrated a "clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious" and did not make efforts to accommodate the religious freedom of the business owners. Instead the commission compared traditional beliefs about marriage to slavery and the Holocaust. "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," the ruling says. The commission defended the imposition of massive fines on the bakery saying that it had to safeguard gay residents from hostile and discriminatory forces by those who continue to oppose gay marriage. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the majority, contrasting Masterpiece Cakeshops from other Christian bakeries that appeared before the commission. She also dismissed the idea that the commission's handling of the case was hostile to religion. "What matters is that Phillips would not provide a good or service to a same-sex couple that he would provide to a heterosexual couple," Ginsburg said. "What prejudice infected the determinations of the adjudicators in the case before and after the Commission? The Court does not say." The bakery defended itself by pointing out that it continued to serve gay customers and objected only to participating in matrimonial services. The justices ruled that the commission should have weighed this evidence before punishing Masterpiece Cakeshop. "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 majority says. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in the case. He noted that the majority opinion promised that "religious liberty lives to fight another day," but added that he expects future conflict to continue based in part on Justice Kennedy's reasoning in Obergefell, which attributed laws banning gay marriage primarily to hostility toward sexual minorities. He said the Court must embrace a more expansive defense of free speech, as well as religious liberty, in light of the growing movement to sanction speech that offends the sensibilities of others. "Colorado would not be punishing Phillips if he refused to create any custom wedding cakes; it is punishing him because he refuses to create custom wedding cakes that express approval of same-sex marriage," Thomas said. "States cannot punish protected speech because some group finds it offensive, hurtful, stigmatic, unreasonable, or undignified."<doc-sep>Christian baker Jack Phillips (C), his wife Debi and other members of their family walk into the U.S. Supreme Court building, December 5, 2017. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Supreme Court rules on narrow grounds for Colorado baker in same-sex wedding case The court punted on spelling out how the government must weigh the need to both prevent sexual-orientation discrimination and protect religious freedom. The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a Christian baker in Colorado who refused to make a custom cake for a same-sex couple, but the court punted on spelling out how the government must weigh its responsibilities to both prevent discrimination and protect religious freedom. Writing for the court’s majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips’ rights by showing “hostility” to his religious beliefs as he was found to have violated the law and ordered to attend anti-discrimination training. However, the high court’s 7-2 ruling in the closely watched case left open the question of how a state enforcing anti-discrimination laws in a different fashion must accommodate an individual’s right to religious freedom and free expression. Phillips in 2012 rejected a request from a Colorado couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, to make a custom cake for their celebration, citing his religious beliefs. The state civil rights commission required Phillips to “cease and desist” from his refusal to bake custom cakes for same-sex couples, to change his business policies, to undergo “comprehensive staff training” along with his employees, and to keep records for two years about any refusals of service. Lawyers for Phillips had framed his case more as a free-speech issue than one of religious freedom, but the court's ruling Monday took the opposite tack, focusing almost entirely on what the justices viewed as disrespect shown to the baker’s religious convictions. Kennedy said comments by members of the anti-discrimination panel about Phillips’ religious beliefs “compromised” his right to “neutral and respectful consideration” of his claims for a religious accommodation. “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 wrote. “Phillips was entitled to a neutral decisionmaker who would give full and fair consideration to his religious objection as he sought to assert it in all of the circumstances in which this case was presented, considered, and decided." POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or updates from POLITICO and you agree to our privacy policy and terms of service. You can unsubscribe at any time and you can contact us here. This sign-up form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Kennedy seized in particular on one commissioner’s comment that invoked slavery and the Holocaust before blasting Phillips’ religious freedom claim as “one of the most despicable piece of rhetoric that people can use to ... to use their religion to hurt others.” “This sentiment is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado's anti-discrimination law — a law that protects discrimination [sic] on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation,” Kennedy wrote. Gay rights advocates offered divergent reactions to the narrowly framed decision. "The bakery may have won the battle, but it’s lost the war," said James Esseks of the ACLU, which represented the gay couple who filed the discrimination complaint. "We read this decision as a reaffirmation of the court’s longstanding commitment to civil rights protections...The bakery got a get out of jail free card because of what the court saw as misbehavior by the civil rights commission." However, a group of LGBT attorneys blasted the ruling. “The National LGBT Bar Association is devastated by the Supreme Court’s decision,” the group said. “We believe the rights of minority groups to be free from the oppression of a majority religion cannot be infringed. Freedom of religion is an important and cherished right guaranteed in our Constitution, but that right does not and should not give anyone the right to treat certain Americans as second-class citizens.” Advocates for those with conservative religious views hailed the decision as a victory, despite the ambiguity in the decision. “The First Amendment prohibits governments from discriminating against citizens on the basis of religious beliefs,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “The Supreme Court rightly concluded that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission failed to show tolerance and respect for Mr. Phillips’ religious beliefs.” “We looked forward to celebrating this victory and protecting the right of all Americans to be able to live consistent with their beliefs,” said attorney Kristen Waggoner of the Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case for Phillips. “The court has said the law has to be applied in an even-handed manner ... It’s a strong statement about religious hostility and that it has no place in our society.” Waggoner acknowledged, however, that the court left unresolved what states are required to do when faced with a genuine religious or free-speech objection to laws barring discrimination against LGBT people. “We expect that the court will eventually have to grapple with these issues,” she said. The court’s decision seemed deeply influenced by Kennedy’s thinking on the potential collision between gay rights and the views of those who oppose same-sex unions for religious or moral reasons. At oral arguments in the case in December, Kennedy seemed troubled by what he viewed as hostility to the baker’s religion. At the same time, it seems unlikely that Kennedy would bless any ruling that he expected to deeply undercut gay rights. Kennedy has been responsible for all the Supreme Court’s major decisions backing gay rights in the past couple of decades and wrote the landmark 5-4 ruling the court issued in 2015 requiring all states to legalize gay marriage. Kennedy’s majority opinion Monday seemed intent on narrowing the impact of the ruling. He argued that Phillips had been treated differently than other bakers brought before the commission. Kennedy also repeatedly noted that the episode that led to the civil charges against Phillips occurred in 2012, when Colorado law did not recognize same-sex marriage. Kennedy also stressed that the court was not resolving the broader questions in situations different from Phillips’ case. “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,” said Kennedy, a Reagan appointee and frequent swing justice. Only the court’s two most liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented. They said they would have upheld the state’s action against Phillips. “Whatever one may think of the statements in historical context, I see no reason why the comments of one or two Commissioners should be taken to overcome Phillips’ refusal,” Ginsburg wrote. She said the other situations where the Colorado panel found no violation of anti-discrimination law involved situations where a baker was asked to make a cake with an explicit message the baker found offensive. “The cases the court aligns are hardly comparable,” Ginsburg wrote. Two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, signed onto a concurring opinion concluding that Phillips’ design of custom cakes was “expressive” conduct entitled to First Amendment protection. Thomas’ opinion on the point stopped just short of saying it is unconstitutional to order someone to prepare such a cake.<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory on narrow grounds to a Colorado baker who refused based on his Christian beliefs to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, stopping short of setting a major precedent allowing people to claim religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. The justices, in a 7-2 decision, said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed an impermissible hostility toward religion when it found that baker Jack Phillips violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by rebuffing gay couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig in 2012. The state law bars businesses from refusing service based on race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation. The court concluded that the commission violated Phillips’ religious rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. But the justices did not issue a definitive ruling on the circumstances under which people can seek exemptions from anti-discrimination laws based on religion. The decision also did not address important claims raised in the case including whether baking a cake is a kind of expressive act protected by the Constitution’s free speech guarantee. Two of the court’s four liberals, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, joined the five conservative justices in the ruling authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who also wrote the landmark 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide. The baker case became a cultural flashpoint in the United States, underscoring the tensions between gay rights proponents and conservative Christians. Both sides claimed a measure of victory. The couple’s supporters noted that the ruling embraced the importance of gay rights and made it clear that businesses open to the public must serve everyone. The baker’s lawyers said the ruling emphasized that the government must respect religious beliefs. “It’s hard to believe that the government punished me for operating my business consistent with my beliefs about marriage. That isn’t freedom or tolerance,” Phillips said in a statement. “Today’s decision means our fight against discrimination and unfair treatment will continue,” Mullins and Charlie Craig said in a statement. “We have always believed that in America, you should not be turned away from a business open to the public because of who you are.” Slideshow ( 3 images ) Seventy-two percent of U.S. adults believe that businesses should not have the right on religious grounds to deny services to customers based on their sexual orientation, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday showed. “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,” Kennedy wrote. But Kennedy said the state commission’s hostility toward religion “was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion.” In one exchange at a 2014 hearing before the commission cited by Kennedy, former commissioner Diann Rice said that “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.” Kennedy said the commission ruled the opposite way in three cases brought against bakers in which the business owners refused to bake cakes containing messages that demeaned gay people or same-sex marriage. SESSIONS HAILS RULING Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, which intervened in the case in support of Phillips, welcomed the ruling. “The First Amendment prohibits governments from discriminating against citizens on the basis of religious beliefs,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. The decision made it clear that even if the court ultimately rules in a future case that bakers or other businesses that sell creative products such as florists and wedding photographers can avoid punishment under anti-discrimination laws, most businesses open to the public would have no such defense. Slideshow ( 3 images ) Of the 50 states, 21 including Colorado have anti-discrimination laws protecting gay people. The case marked a test for Kennedy, who has authored significant rulings that advanced gay rights but also is a strong advocate for free speech rights and religious freedom. “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,” Kennedy wrote.