California Christian Baker Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Same-Sex Wedding Cake Case

by Emmitt Barry, with reporting from Washington D.C. Bureau Staff

WASHINGTON D.C. (Worthy News) – A Christian baker from Bakersfield, California, has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case challenging a state law that she says would force her to violate her faith by creating wedding cakes for same-sex couples.

Cathy Miller, owner of Tastries Bakery, is embarking on a years-long legal battle with California’s Civil Rights Department, which sued her in 2018 after she declined to create a custom wedding cake for the 2017 marriage of Mireya and Eileen Rodriguez-Del Rio. Instead, Miller referred the couple to another nearby bakery. The state contends her refusal violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits businesses from discriminating against customers.

In 2022, a Kern County judge ruled in Miller’s favor, finding she did not discriminate against LGBTQ individuals but could not create a product that conflicted with her religious convictions. However, a state appeals court reversed that ruling, and the California Supreme Court declined to review the case earlier this year.

In her petition, Miller’s attorneys argue that California’s eight-year pursuit of the case violates both the Free Speech Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. “Miller must bake the cakes or give up her livelihood,” the filing states.

Miller herself issued a heartfelt statement: “My love for Jesus Christ calls me to serve others with joy and compassion, and Tastries has been my way of answering that call for over a decade,” Miller said, according to Newsweek. “I’m asking the Court to end California’s harassment once and for all. All I want is to serve my neighbors as the Gospel of Jesus Christ calls me to without being forced to create messages that violate my beliefs.”

The case echoes the high-profile dispute of Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker whose refusal to make a cake for a same-sex wedding reached the Supreme Court in 2018. The justices ruled 7-2 that Phillips had been denied a fair hearing, though they stopped short of a broader ruling on the balance between LGBTQ rights and religious liberty. More recently, the Court ruled in favor of a Christian web designer in 303 Creative v. Elenis (2023), holding that she could not be compelled to create websites for same-sex weddings.

Miller, who opened her bakery in 2013 with the mission to “Honor God in all that we do,” says her design standards prevent her from making cakes celebrating same-sex weddings, divorces, pornographic imagery, violence, witchcraft, or drug use. She displays Bible verses on her business cards and developed her policies after pastoral counsel.

The case, Catherine Miller v. Civil Rights Department, will only move forward if at least four of the nine Supreme Court justices vote to hear it. If accepted, it would mark the second major wedding-cake case to reach the high court in less than a decade.

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