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Page Number: 19

16 

MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD. v. COLORADO 
CIVIL RIGHTS COMM’N
 
Opinion of the Court 

only in passing and relegated its complete analysis of the
issue  to  a  footnote.    There,  the  court  stated  that  “[t]his 
case  is  distinguishable  from  the  Colorado  Civil  Rights 
Division’s  recent  findings  that  [the  other  bakeries]  in
Denver did not discriminate against a Christian patron on 
the  basis  of  his  creed”  when  they  refused  to  create  the
requested  cakes.  370  P. 3d,  at  282,  n. 8.    In  those  cases, 
the court continued, there was no impermissible discrimi-
nation  because  “the  Division  found  that  the  bakeries  . . . 
refuse[d] the patron’s request . . . because of the offensive 
nature of the requested message.”  Ibid. 

A principled rationale for the difference in treatment of
these  two  instances  cannot  be  based  on  the  government’s
own assessment of offensiveness.  Just as “no official, high
or  petty,  can  prescribe  what  shall  be  orthodox  in  politics,
nationalism,  religion,  or  other  matters  of  opinion,”  West 
Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943), 
it is not, as the Court has repeatedly held, the role of the 
State  or  its  officials  to  prescribe  what  shall  be  offensive.
See Matal v. Tam, 582 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2017) (opinion of 
ALITO,  J.)  (slip  op.,  at  22–23).  The  Colorado  court’s  at-
tempt  to  account  for  the  difference  in  treatment  elevates 
one view of what is offensive over another and itself sends 
a signal of official disapproval of Phillips’ religious beliefs. 
The  court’s  footnote  does  not,  therefore,  answer  the 
baker’s  concern  that  the  State’s  practice  was  to  disfavor 
the religious basis of his objection. 

C 
For  the  reasons  just  described,  the  Commission’s  treat-
ment  of  Phillips’  case  violated  the  State’s  duty  under  the
First  Amendment  not  to  base  laws  or  regulations  on  hos-
tility to a religion or religious viewpoint. 

In  Church  of  Lukumi  Babalu  Aye,  supra,  the  Court 
made  clear  that  the  government,  if  it  is  to  respect  the 
Constitution’s  guarantee  of  free  exercise,  cannot  impose