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Page Number: 23

2 

MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD. v. COLORADO 

CIVIL RIGHTS COMM’N
 
KAGAN, J., concurring
 

religious reasons to baking a wedding cake for a same-sex
couple—did not.  The Court finds that the legal reasoning
of  the  state  agencies  differed  in  significant  ways  as  be-
tween  the  Jack  cases  and  the  Phillips  case.   See  ante,  at 
15.  And  the  Court  takes  especial  note  of  the  suggestion 
made  by  the  Colorado  Court  of  Appeals,  in  comparing
those  cases,  that  the  state  agencies  found  the  message 
Jack requested “offensive [in] nature.”  Ante, at 16 (inter-
nal  quotation  marks  omitted).    As  the  Court  states,  a 
“principled  rationale  for  the  difference  in  treatment”  can-
not  be  “based  on  the  government’s  own  assessment  of
offensiveness.”  Ibid. 

What  makes  the  state  agencies’  consideration  yet  more
disquieting  is  that  a  proper  basis  for  distinguishing  the 
cases  was  available—in  fact,  was  obvious.  The  Colorado 
Anti-Discrimination  Act  (CADA)  makes  it  unlawful  for  a 
place of public accommodation to deny “the full and equal
enjoyment”  of  goods  and  services  to  individuals  based  on
certain  characteristics,  including  sexual  orientation  and 
creed.  Colo. Rev. Stat. §24–34–601(2)(a) (2017).  The three 
bakers  in  the  Jack  cases  did  not  violate  that  law.    Jack 
requested them to make a cake (one denigrating gay peo-
ple  and  same-sex  marriage)  that  they  would  not  have
made  for  any  customer. 
In  refusing  that  request,  the 
bakers did not single out Jack because of his religion, but 
instead  treated  him  in  the  same  way  they  would  have 
treated anyone else—just as CADA requires.  By contrast,
the same-sex couple in this case requested a wedding cake
that Phillips would have made for an opposite-sex couple.
In  refusing  that  request,  Phillips  contravened  CADA’s 
demand  that  customers  receive  “the  full  and  equal  enjoy-
ment”  of  public  accommodations  irrespective  of  their 
sexual  orientation.  Ibid.   The  different  outcomes  in  the 
Jack  cases  and  the  Phillips  case  could  thus  have  been 
justified  by  a  plain  reading  and  neutral  application  of
Colorado  law—untainted  by  any  bias  against  a  religious