From The Trussville Tribune staff reports
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Monday, June 4, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado business owner who declined to prepare a cake for a same-sex wedding based upon his religious beliefs.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s 7-to-2 decision focused on what he described as religious bias on the part of Colorado Civil Rights Commission members who ruled against baker Jack Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop.
“The neutral and respectful consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised here,” Kennedy wrote, adding that the commission’s decision that the baker violated the state’s anti-discrimination law must be set aside.
But Kennedy acknowledged that the decision was more of a start than a conclusion to the court’s consideration of the rights of those with religious objections to same-sex marriage and the rights of gay people, who “cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth.”
Alabama was one of 20 states that filed an amicus brief in September in support of the First Amendment rights of the business owner.
“This Supreme Court decision should send a strong message to activist courts and bureaucrats alike that Americans’ right to religious expression cannot be trampled and the Constitution cannot be ignored,” said Attorney General Steve Marshall.
“The Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission is major a victory for the First Amendment right of religious expression in America,” Attorney General Marshall added.
“The State of Colorado determined that baker Jack Phillips violated state law by declining to bake a wedding cake for a gay marriage. The Supreme Court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated Mr. Phillips’ First Amendment rights by acting with a ‘clear and impermissible hostility’ toward Mr. Phillips’ ‘sincere religious beliefs’ that marriage is ‘the union of one man and one woman.'”
“Justice Gorsuch said it best in his concurrence: ‘In this country, the place of secular officials isn’t to sit in judgment of religious beliefs, but only to protect their free exercise.’”
The September 7, 2017, multi-state amicus brief was filed by the attorneys general of Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin, and Governor LePage of Maine.