Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf
Page Number: 55.0

4 

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

told Jack he “had done open Bibles and books many times 
and  that  they  look  amazing,”  but  declined  to  make  the 
specific  cakes  Jack  described  because  the  baker  regarded 
the messages as “hateful.”  Id., at 310a (internal quotation 
marks omitted).  The third bakery, according to Jack, said
it  would  bake  the  cakes,  but  would  not  include  the  re-
quested message.  Id., at 319a.2 

Jack  filed  charges  against  each  bakery  with  the  Colo- 
rado Civil Rights Division (Division).  The Division found no 
probable  cause  to  support  Jack’s  claims  of  unequal  treat-
ment  and  denial  of  goods  or  services  based  on  his  Chris-
tian  religious  beliefs.  Id.,  at  297a,  307a,  316a.    In  this 
regard,  the  Division  observed  that  the  bakeries  regularly
produced  cakes  and  other  baked  goods  with  Christian 
symbols  and  had  denied  other  customer  requests  for  de-
signs  demeaning  people  whose  dignity  the  Colorado  Anti-
discrimination  Act  (CADA)  protects.    See  id.,  at  305a, 
314a,  324a.  The  Commission  summarily  affirmed  the 
Division’s  no-probable-cause  finding.  See  id.,  at  326a– 
331a. 

The  Court  concludes  that  “the  Commission’s  considera-
tion  of  Phillips’  religious  objection  did  not  accord  with  its
treatment  of  [the  other  bakers’]  objections.”    Ante,  at  15. 
See  also  ante,  at  5–7  (GORSUCH, J.,  concurring).    But  the 
cases the Court aligns are hardly comparable.  The bakers 
would have refused to make a cake with Jack’s requested 
message  for  any  customer,  regardless  of  his  or  her  reli-
gion.  And the bakers visited by Jack would have sold him
any  baked  goods  they  would  have  sold  anyone  else.    The 
bakeries’ refusal to make Jack cakes of a kind they would 
not  make  for  any  customer  scarcely  resembles  Phillips’ 
refusal to serve Craig and Mullins: Phillips would not sell 

—————— 

2 The  record  provides  no  ideological  explanation  for  the  bakeries’  re-
fusals.    Cf.  ante,  at  1–2,  9,  11  (GORSUCH,  J.,  concurring)  (describing
Jack’s requests as offensive to the bakers’ “secular” convictions).