Baker asks Supreme Court to settle great cake debate once and for all

When California bakery owner Cathy Miller politely turned away a same-sex couple who asked to buy a wedding cake from her, she never expected to be flooded with hate mail for months afterward.

In August 2017, Miller declined the order, citing her Biblical beliefs about marriage. She instead recommended the couple go to another nearby bakery.

Within hours, Miller said, Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, Calif., was barraged with critical social media posts, death threats, and harassing emails and phone calls. Many called Miller a bigot. News cameras swarmed around her shop. Miller said at one point, vandals broke into her store. The state civil rights department then sued Miller and accused her of discrimination under California’s public accommodation laws.

Eight years later, Miller is fighting to have her free speech and religious rights upheld in court. Last week, she petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the government from forcing her and anyone in a similar situation to violate their religious beliefs.

“I’m not trying to be hateful. We’re just trying to live out our faith in our ministry, in our life, in our livelihood,” Miller said. “I cannot hurt my Lord and Savior, and my relationship with Him, by actively pursuing an avenue that would go against those principles.”

Miller, who first learned to bake from her grandmother, has operated her bakery for more than 10 years and always ensured her designs were grounded in her faith.

She said she turned away other same-sex couples interested in wedding cakes prior to 2017 with no problems. Additionally, Miller created written design standards stating she won’t make cakes that depict gory or pornographic images, celebrate drug use, demean others, or uphold ideals that violate her Christian beliefs.

Miller said her cakes are a form of religious expression for her. When creating one, she sits down with a couple for an hourlong design meeting. She lets them sample 16 cake flavors, explains her Biblical understanding of marriage, and discusses the symbolic role cakes play in weddings.

After she refused the same-sex couple in 2017, the California Civil Rights Department launched an investigation and lawsuit against her. Following a five-day trial, the California Superior Court initially ruled in Miller’s favor in 2022. But in February, California’s 5th District Court of Appeals ruled against Miller, contending that she could have provided a “pre-designed, multipurpose white cake” for the couple.

Miller appealed to the California Supreme Court, but the court declined her request in May.

Her only option now is her petition the highest court in the nation. “I had no idea that making cakes and cheesecakes and cookies was going to lead to the United States Supreme Court, but that’s what God chose,” Miller said.

Miller’s petition asks the high court to resolve a growing split in lower courts over free speech rights. Some courts have ruled on cases like Miller’s using varying levels of scrutiny..

“If this court does not resolve this vexed category of cases in a definitive way, it can expect more of these cases to come before it from the state courts,” the petition says. “A litigant’s First Amendment rights will vary dramatically by location, even between state and federal courts within California.”

If the Supreme Court accepts Miller’s case, this should be an “easy winner,” said Brad Jacob, a constitutional law expert at Regent University School of Law.

The Supreme Court already dictated that states need to respect those who religiously object to same-sex marriage. When the high court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, many felt concerned that the government would force them to celebrate such unions despite religious objections, Jacob explained.

In its Obergefell ruling, the high court noted that those with “religious doctrines” can continue to advocate for Biblical marriage.

In the 2017 case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court ruled in favor of bakery owner Jack Phillips after Colorado sued him for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex couple. Phillips won his case on narrow grounds that dealt with the state’s hostility rather than his free speech rights. But the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis established that the government couldn’t force a Colorado web designer to violate her beliefs in a similar situation.

“This is an open-and-shut victory” for Cathy Miller, Jacob said. “There’s nothing new [in Miller’s case], it’s just exactly the same issue over and over again. … What she does so perfectly fits into that mold of artistic expression that gets First Amendment protection.”

California is ignoring the Supreme Court’s repeated protections of Miller’s rights, said Daniel Blomberg, the vice president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Miller.

“It is time to put this one to bed,” Blomberg said. It’s “absolutely crucial that we get this right so people can live their faith and speak what matters to them, without the government trying to control them.”