Supreme Court rules for Colorado baker
Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, emphasized the narrowness of the opinion.
"The court reversed the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision based on concerns unique to the case but reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the marketplace, including against LGBT people," Melling said in a statement.
Kennedy wrote that there is room for religious tolerance, pointing specifically to how the Colorado commission treated Phillips by downplaying his religious liberty concerns.
"At the same time the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression," Kennedy wrote, adding that the "neutral consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised here."
"The commission's hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment's guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion," Kennedy said, adding to say that the case was narrow.
"The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market," the opinion states.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent which was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, argued that "when a couple contacts a bakery for a wedding cake, the product they are seeking is a cake celebrating their wedding -- not a cake celebrating heterosexual weddings or same-sex weddings -- and that is the service (the couple) were denied."
