Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf
Page Number: 29

4 

MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD. v. COLORADO 
CIVIL RIGHTS COMM’N
 
GORSUCH, J., concurring
 

then, would simply mistake the undisputed factual record.
See post, at 4, n. 2 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting); ante, at 2–3, 
and  n.  (KAGAN,  J.,  concurring)).  Nonetheless,  the  Com-
mission held that Mr. Phillips’s conduct violated the Colo-
rado  public  accommodations  law.    App.  to  Pet.  for  Cert. 
56a–58a. 

The  facts  show  that  the  two  cases  share  all  legally  sa- 
lient features.  In both cases, the effect on the customer was 
the  same:  bakers  refused  service  to  persons  who  bore  a
statutorily  protected  trait  (religious  faith  or  sexual  orien-
tation).  But  in  both  cases  the  bakers  refused  service 
intending only to honor a personal conviction.  To be sure, 
the bakers knew their conduct promised the effect of leav-
ing a customer in a protected class unserved.  But there’s 
no  indication  the  bakers  actually  intended  to  refuse  ser-
vice  because  of  a  customer’s  protected  characteristic.    We 
know  this  because  all  of  the  bakers  explained  without 
contradiction that they would not sell the requested cakes
to anyone, while they would sell other cakes to members of 
the  protected  class  (as  well  as  to  anyone  else).    So,  for 
example, the bakers in the first case would have refused to 
sell  a  cake  denigrating  same-sex  marriage  to  an  atheist 
customer, just as the baker in the second case would have
refused  to  sell  a  cake  celebrating  same-sex  marriage  to  a
heterosexual  customer.  And  the  bakers  in  the  first  case 
were generally happy to sell to persons of faith, just as the 
baker in the second case was generally happy to sell to gay 
persons.  In  both  cases,  it  was  the  kind  of  cake,  not  the 
kind of customer, that mattered to the bakers. 

The distinction between intended and knowingly accepted 
effects  is  familiar  in  life  and  law.   Often  the  purposeful
pursuit  of  worthy  commitments  requires  us  to  accept
unwanted  but  entirely  foreseeable  side  effects:  so,  for 
example,  choosing  to  spend  time  with  family  means  the 
foreseeable loss of time for charitable work, just as opting
for more time in the office means knowingly forgoing time