Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

Now, this relates, and you kind of alluded to this, to the other Colorado cases that we've heard about in the news for years now.

For example, the Masterpiece Cake Shop case also in Colorado, you helped litigate that.

Are there overlap arguments between that case and this one and some precedents that could come into play?

Definitely.

And then you add Helen Norton, I don't know if I'm pronouncing her name right, was actually from Colorado defending the state's position.

And unlike Chiles B. Salazar or 303 Creative or Masterpiece Cakeshop where the justices seem to like, we're ready, like we got our questions, like we're excited to sink our teeth into this one.

My at least first read after listening to all nearly two hours of it today is the justices seem confused why anyone had brought them there.

And I don't blame them.

Colorado cannot win these cases.

Going all the way back to Masterpiece Cake Shop, the animus that they have shown religion in the state, they just can't stop doing it.

And so they keep losing these cases.

303, Creative, I mean, the list goes on.

And so if those are the facts, if the Supreme Court says, okay, I'm convinced that what's actually happening here is that Colorado has on paper an all-comers policy, but in reality engages in sort of, like you said, the analogy would be viewpoint discrimination and allowing people to discriminate when they like the discrimination.

This case might be 8-1, 7-2.

I mean, that's Masterpiece Cake Shop.

Masterpiece Cake Shop was...

And I think that's especially because in addition to the line of cases that we just walked through, Colorado specifically has lost a series of cases involving anti-LGBT discrimination in contexts other than school funding.

So there was the Masterpiece Cake Shop case regarding a baker who didn't want to bake a wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding.

303 Creative, which involved an aspiring website designer who didn't want to design websites for same-sex weddings.

And in both of those cases, the court made crystal clear that applicable anti-discrimination laws are no match for religious objections.

And it involves our favorite whipping state, Colorado.

Colorado being the home of the Masterpiece Cake Shop case.

Yes.

created files last term.

that I think is very interesting.

I do wonder, for example, in Masterpiece Cake Shop, because if you remember Masterpiece Cake Shop, that case was decided on very narrow grounds related to the distinctly different ways in which a conservative Christian was treated versus somebody who was, again, this is one of those Colorado cases where Colorado botched this at every level.

But Colorado is quite clear from the record that if you were a conservative Christian, your conscientious objections were going to be maybe even compared to Nazi Germany.

And if you were liberal and you had a conscientious objection, that was going to be fine.

And that was going to be totally cool.

And so you didn't get to the bigger free speech issue in Masterpiece Cake Shop.

But just as Kagan joined with the more conservative majority, along with Breyer, to make it 7-2, I think that's an example where you had the gettable justice that resulted in perhaps the narrower opinion, right? that may have then otherwise may have existed.

So I don't know.

Trinity Lutheran, Carson versus Makin- 303 Creative ...

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Fulton- I mean- ...

Tannen versus Newsom This term, I mean, we might just, like, blow these.

St. Mary's- I know ...

Mm-hmm.

Uh, remember you had the, uh, Masterpiece Cakeshop case.

Right.

You had, uh, the website designer case.