A California baker has asked the Supreme Court to hear her challenge to a state law that would force her to create wedding cakes for same-sex couples in violation of her Christian faith.
It’s the second cake-making dispute to reach the high court in recent years: In 2018, the justices ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who was punished by Colorado Civil Rights Commission for refusing to create a same-sex wedding cake due to his faith.
In the California case, baker Cathy Miller is challenging the state’s Civil Rights Department, which is seeking to sanction her for refusing to create a wedding cake celebrating a homosexual union.
“If she does not agree to design and create cakes for same-sex wedding ceremonies despite her undisputedly sincere religious objections, California says she must give up her cake-design business altogether. Miller must bake the cakes or give up her livelihood,” her lawyers said Tuesday in their petition to the high court.
“California’s eight-year civil prosecution of Miller violates both the Free Speech Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The Bill of Rights does not leave ‘it open to public authorities to compel [Ms. Miller] to utter what is not in [her] mind.’ […] And because designing and creating one of the most well-known and universal of all wedding symbols involves both Miller’s speech and her religion, both Clauses are implicated,” the petition states.
Ms. Miller’s legal trouble began in 2017, when two women came to her for a wedding cake to celebrate their wedding, which they wanted to do before President Trump took office for fear they would be unable to wed afterward.
The trial court ruled in her favor in 2023, reasoning that she did not discriminate against LGBTQ people via hiring or business practices. But she lost the appeal of that ruling, with the appellate court saying the First Amendment did not protect her refusal to create custom wedding cakes for LGBTQ clients.
The California Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal, prompting her to ask the justices to weigh in.
Ms. Miller opened her bakery, Tastries, in 2013 in Bakersfield, California. She and her husband wrote the business mission statement align with their faith: “Honor God in all that we do.”
She displays Bible verses on her business cards and has design standards in writing to reflect her Christian beliefs, which was suggested to her after counseling with her pastor. She says she will not create bakery items to celebrate same-sex weddings, divorces, violent content, pornographic images, drug use or witchcraft.
When a customer requests an item that violates her written standards, Ms. Miller refers them to a nearby bakery. That is what happened when she refused to create a custom wedding cake for the same-sex wedding of Mireya and Eileen Rodriguez-Del Rio in 2017. She referred the women to another baker nearby.
California’s Civil Rights Department sued Ms. Miller in 2018, claiming she had violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act, a state ban against discrimination in business.
Ms. Miller’s case is similar to that of baker Jack Phillips, whose 2018 challenge in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights was vindicated by the justices.
The high court ruled that Mr. Phillips was not given a fair hearing by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and remanded the case back to lower court for further proceedings. The justices at that time did not address the dispute between religious freedom and discrimination against LGBTQ people.
However, the court in 2023 ruled in favor of a Colorado graphic web designer who opposed being forced to design wedding websites for same-sex couples in violation of her faith. That case was 303 Creative v. Elenis.
Ms. Miller’s lawyers say those rulings “have not yet stopped government attempts to suppress religious objectors.”
A spokesperson for California’s Civil Rights Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is Catherine Miller v Civil Rights Department. It would take four justices to vote in favor of hearing the dispute for oral arguments to be granted.
