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Page Number: 53.0

2 

MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD. v. COLORADO 

CIVIL RIGHTS COMM’N
 
GINSBURG, J., dissenting
 

strongly  disagree,  however,  with  the  Court’s  conclusion 
that  Craig  and  Mullins  should  lose  this  case.    All  of  the 
above-quoted statements point in the opposite direction. 

The  Court  concludes  that  “Phillips’  religious  objection 
was  not  considered  with  the  neutrality  that  the  Free
Exercise  Clause  requires.”  Ante,  at  17.  This  conclusion 
rests  on  evidence  said  to  show  the  Colorado  Civil  Rights 
Commission’s (Commission) hostility to religion.  Hostility
is  discernible,  the  Court  maintains,  from  the  asserted 
“disparate  consideration  of  Phillips’  case  compared  to  the
cases  of ”  three  other  bakers  who  refused  to  make  cakes 
requested  by  William  Jack,  an  amicus  here.  Ante,  at  18. 
The  Court  also  finds  hostility  in  statements  made  at  two 
public  hearings  on  Phillips’  appeal  to  the  Commission. 
Ante, at 12–14.  The different outcomes the Court features 

—————— 

Non-Violence,  468  U. S.  288,  294  (1984)).    The  record  in  this  case  is 
replete  with  Jack  Phillips’  own  views  on  the  messages  he  believes  his
cakes  convey.    See  ante,  at  5–6  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring  in  part  and 
concurring in judgment) (describing how Phillips “considers” and “sees”
his  work).  But  Phillips  submitted  no  evidence  showing  that  an  objec-
tive  observer  understands  a  wedding  cake  to  convey  a  message,  much
less  that  the  observer  understands  the  message  to  be  the  baker’s,
rather  than  the  marrying  couple’s.    Indeed,  some  in  the  wedding 
industry  could  not  explain  what  message,  or  whose,  a  wedding  cake 
conveys.    See  Charsley,  Interpretation  and  Custom:  The  Case  of  the
Wedding Cake, 22 Man 93, 100–101 (1987) (no explanation of wedding
cakes’  symbolism  was  forthcoming  “even  amongst  those  who  might  be
expected to be the experts”); id., at 104–105 (the cake cutting tradition
might signify “the bride and groom . . . as appropriating the cake” from 
the bride’s parents).  And Phillips points to no case in which this Court
has  suggested  the  provision  of  a  baked  good  might  be  expressive  con-
duct.  Cf. ante, at 7, n. 2 (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and concurring 
in  judgment);  Hurley  v.  Irish-American  Gay,  Lesbian,  and  Bisexual 
Group  of  Boston,  Inc.,  515  U. S.  557,  568–579  (1995)  (citing  previous
cases  recognizing  parades  to  be  expressive);  Barnes  v.  Glen  Theatre, 
Inc.,  501  U. S.  560,  565  (1991)  (noting  precedents  suggesting  nude 
dancing  is  expressive  conduct);  Spence  v.  Washington,  418  U. S.  405, 
410  (1974)  (observing  the  Court’s  decades-long  recognition  of  the 
symbolism of flags).