The Supreme Court today denied review in Civil Rights Department v. Cathy’s Creations, Inc., where the Fifth District Court of Appeal, in a published opinion, validated California’s lawsuit against a bakery for violating the State’s Unruh Civil Rights Act by refusing to sell a predesigned cake intended for use at a same-sex wedding reception. There was no recorded dissent.
Among other things, the bakery and its owner claimed a right to refuse service based on their First Amendment free-speech and free-exercise-of-religion rights. The Fifth District held those constitutional rights were inapplicable to the case.
The appellate court, quoting the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n (2018) 584 U.S. 617, held, “If the mere act of providing and/or delivering a predesigned product for use at a same-sex wedding conveys a message of celebration and endorsement for same-sex marriage, a baker could potentially refuse to sell any goods or any cakes for same-sex weddings as a protected form of expression; but this would be a denial of goods and services that likely goes ‘beyond any protected rights of a baker who offers goods and services to the general public . . . . ’ ”
Cathy’s Creations might have raised an issue of statewide importance, but the Supreme Court doesn’t decide all important issues.
