Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) filed a Supreme Court amicus curiae brief with dozens of organizations supporting the First Amendment rights of Catherine Miller, a Christian baker who declined to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding and was punished for it by the State of California.
Since opening her bakery, Ms. Miller has declined to create many cakes that do not match her beliefs, including cakes that supported drug use, a cake announcing a divorce, and cakes that were lewd and graphic. When a same-sex couple approached her for a wedding cake, she declined due to her religious beliefs but offered to refer them to another bakery nearby. The couple launched a public smear campaign and filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, which filed a lawsuit against Ms. Miller for violating the state’s nondiscrimination law. Now, she is appealing to the United States Supreme Court, asking it to intervene and stop the censorship.
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Although the Supreme Court has already held that states cannot show hostility toward citizens’ sincere religious beliefs, questions have remained since then about whether states can require business owners to engage in speech they do not want to affirm—such as creating a cake that sends a message supporting same-sex marriage.
Many states have nondiscrimination laws that attempt to force business owners to abandon their beliefs or face consequences because the laws essentially criminalize opposing matters like same-sex marriage and transgenderism. The laws put Americans in an impossible position, forcing them to change their beliefs in violation of the First Amendment.
SLF and amici write, “American business owners have a right to express their religion in their place of business just as much as they do in their homes and places of worship. Yet some states have made it difficult to exercise that right.” They are urging the Supreme Court to take up this case and declare that anyone who runs a business has a right to voice their beliefs.