A gay couple, David Mullins and Charlie Craig, married in Massachusetts but were planning a reception in Colorado, where gay marriage was not legal in 2012.
The couple sued the baker Jack Phillips, and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled in their favour. State courts affirmed the Commission’s judgment, Reuters reported.
But now the US Supreme Court has ruled 7-2 that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility towards the Christian baker’s faith.
Two of the Supreme Court’s four liberal judges, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, joined the five conservative justices in the ruling.
Written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the ruling holds that members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed animus toward Phillips when they suggested that his right to religious freedom was a justification for discrimination.
It has been one of the most anticipated rulings since the court’s decision three years ago to allow same-sex marriages. In that opinion, also written by Kennedy, he said religious objections to gay marriage should also be taken into consideration.
According to Kennedy, the “neutral consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised here”.
He added: “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.”
Over the past few years dozens of Christian bakers, photographers, and florists who declined work for gay weddings, have been sued by gays, despite some having long histories of serving homosexual customers.
“Jack serves all customers; he simply declines to express messages or celebrate events that violate his deeply held beliefs,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner, who represented Phillips, said in a statement.
