Colorado court dismisses suit against baker who wouldn't make transgender-themed cake
Colorado’s top court ducked the question of whether a Christian baker had the right to refuse to create a cake for a customer celebrating a gender transition.
Colorado’s top court on Tuesday ducked the question of whether a Christian baker had the right to refuse to create a cake for a customer celebrating a gender transition by dismissing the discrimination case on procedural grounds.
Lower courts in Colorado had concluded that Masterpiece Cakeshop and the bakery’s owner, Jack Phillips, had violated Autumn Scardina’s rights by refusing to make her a pink cake with blue frosting because of her identity as a transgender woman.
Phillips, whose prior refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay couple was at the center of a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, had on appeal urged the Colorado Supreme Court to conclude that requiring him to make the cake would infringe his free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
But the state high court on a 4-3 vote avoided that issue entirely by instead concluding that under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, Scardina, a lawyer, was not permitted to sue the baker in 2019 following an earlier administrative process.
Scardina had initially filed a discrimination complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division after Phillips refused to make the cake she wanted to order to celebrate her birthday and her identity as a transgender woman. She said he refused her order because of her identity.
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