Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-111_new2_22p3.pdf
Page Number: 57

6 

MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD. v. COLORADO 
CIVIL RIGHTS COMM’N
 
GINSBURG, J., dissenting
 

couple that he would provide to a heterosexual couple.  In 
contrast,  the  other  bakeries’  sale  of  other  goods  to  Chris-
tian customers was relevant: It shows that there were no 
goods the bakeries would sell to a non-Christian customer 
that they would refuse to sell to a Christian customer.  Cf. 
ante, at 15. 

Nor  was  the  Colorado  Court  of  Appeals’  “difference  in 
treatment of these two instances . . . based on the govern-
ment’s  own  assessment  of  offensiveness.”    Ante,  at  16. 
Phillips declined to make a cake he found offensive where
the offensiveness of the product was determined solely by 
the identity of the customer requesting it.  The three other 
bakeries  declined  to  make  cakes  where  their  objection  to
the  product  was  due  to  the  demeaning  message  the  re-
quested  product  would  literally  display.    As  the  Court 
recognizes,  a  refusal  “to  design  a special  cake  with  words
or images . . . might be different from a refusal to sell any 
cake  at  all.”    Ante,  at  2.5    The  Colorado  Court  of  Appeals 
did  not  distinguish  Phillips  and  the  other  three  bakeries
based simply on its or the Division’s finding that messages 

—————— 

5 The  Court  undermines  this  observation  when  later  asserting  that
the treatment of Phillips, as compared with the treatment of the other 
three  bakeries,  “could  reasonably  be  interpreted  as  being  inconsistent
as  to  the  question  of  whether  speech  is  involved.”    Ante,  at  15.    But 
recall  that,  while  Jack  requested  cakes  with  particular  text  inscribed,
Craig  and  Mullins  were  refused  the  sale  of  any  wedding  cake  at  all.
They  were  turned  away  before  any  specific  cake  design  could  be  dis-
cussed.  (It appears that Phillips rarely, if ever, produces wedding cakes
with  words  on  them—or  at  least  does  not  advertise  such  cakes.    See 
Masterpiece  Cakeshop,  Wedding,  http://www.masterpiececakes.com/
wedding-cakes  (as  last  visited  June  1,  2018)  (gallery  with  31  wedding
cake  images,  none  of  which  exhibits  words).)    The  Division  and  the 
Court  of  Appeals  could  rationally  and  lawfully  distinguish  between  a 
case  involving  disparaging  text  and  images  and  a  case  involving  a 
wedding  cake  of  unspecified  design.    The  distinction  is  not  between  a 
cake with text and one without, see ante, at 8–9 (GORSUCH, J., concur-
ring); it is between a cake with a particular design and one whose form
was never even discussed.