(Originally posted on washingtonpost.com | Image from washingtonpost.com)
By: Brandon Ambrosino
Supreme Court hears wedding cake case: here’s what you need to know
It may be the most important case for LGBT people since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that marriage is a constitutional right afforded to same-sex couples. It also may be the most important case since then for religious people who object to gay marriage but do business in the public square.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In 2012, a same-sex couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, was denied a wedding cake by Lakewood, Colo., baker Jack Phillips. The baker said he would sell the gay couple other kinds of cakes, but he could not in good conscience sell them a wedding cake, since same-sex weddings violate his religious beliefs.
The couple filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which found that the cakeshop violated the state’s anti-discrimination law. When the state’s Supreme Court agreed with the gay couple, the baker appealed to the Supreme Court.