The Masterpiece Cakeshop case was a 2018 Supreme Court decision holding, 7-2, that Colorado violated the First Amendment when it penalized a Lakewood baker for refusing to design a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The Court sided with baker Jack Phillips, but on unusually narrow grounds: the majority faulted the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for showing open hostility to Phillips’s religious beliefs rather than resolving whether business owners providing creative services have a constitutional right to decline such work. That larger question was left for another day.
What Happened at the Bakery
In July 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins walked into Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, to order a custom cake for their upcoming wedding reception. They had married in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage was legal, and planned to celebrate back home in Colorado, which did not yet recognize same-sex marriage.
The shop’s owner, Jack Phillips, told them he would not design a custom wedding cake for a same-sex celebration because of his religious beliefs. He offered to sell them other items off the shelf, including birthday cakes and brownies. The whole exchange lasted only a few minutes. Craig, Mullins, and Craig’s mother, who had come with them, left without buying anything.
Phillips framed the refusal around the event, not the customers. He described custom cake design as an expressive art form and said creating a wedding cake carried a message of celebration he could not endorse for a same-sex ceremony. Craig and Mullins saw it differently: they had been turned away from a business open to the public because of who they were. That disagreement drove everything that followed.
The Colorado Law That Made It a Case
Craig and Mullins filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. The statute prohibits any place of public accommodation from denying a person the full and equal enjoyment of its goods and services because of sexual orientation, among other protected characteristics.1Justia Law. Colorado Code Title 24-34-601 – Discrimination in Places of Public Accommodation
The law covers any business that holds itself open to the public. A bakery selling wedding cakes to heterosexual couples cannot refuse to sell them to same-sex couples on the basis of sexual orientation. There is a narrow carve-out for religious organizations, but it does not extend to for-profit commercial businesses.2Colorado Civil Rights Division. Discrimination
An administrative law judge found for the couple. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission affirmed and ordered Phillips to stop refusing wedding cakes to same-sex couples, conduct staff training on the public accommodations provisions of state law, and file quarterly compliance reports for two years documenting any service refusals and the reasons behind them. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld the Commission’s ruling, concluding that the anti-discrimination law was a neutral rule of general applicability. Phillips petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in June 2017.3Oyez. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
The Supreme Court Ruling
On June 4, 2018, the Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Phillips. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer, Alito, Kagan, and Gorsuch. Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented.3Oyez. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
Kennedy’s opinion focused on how the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had handled Phillips’s case rather than on the larger constitutional clash. Commissioners had shown open hostility toward his religious beliefs during the proceedings. One commissioner described the use of religion to justify discrimination as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use” and compared religious objections to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. The Commission never disavowed those remarks. That hostility, the Court held, violated the First Amendment’s requirement that government treat religious beliefs with neutrality and respect.4Supreme Court of the United States. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
Kennedy also pointed to an inconsistency in the Commission’s approach. In at least three other cases, Colorado bakers had refused to create cakes with anti-gay messages, and the Commission found those refusals lawful because each baker remained willing to sell other products to the requesting customer. When Phillips made a similar argument about his willingness to sell other baked goods, the Commission dismissed it as irrelevant. The Court read that double standard as further evidence of bias against Phillips’s religious position.4Supreme Court of the United States. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
What the Decision Settled and What It Did Not
The ruling vacated the orders against Phillips. He did not have to pay fines, submit compliance reports, or change his policies based on those proceedings. But the Court deliberately avoided the question most observers were watching: whether a business owner providing creative services can invoke the First Amendment to decline work for a same-sex wedding.
Kennedy acknowledged legitimate interests on both sides. He affirmed that gay persons and same-sex couples could not be treated as “social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth” and that anti-discrimination laws served vital purposes. At the same time, he wrote that religious objections deserved a fair hearing rather than dismissal with contempt. Future cases would have to be resolved on their own facts, provided the government acted with genuine neutrality.
Ginsburg, joined by Sotomayor, dissented on the ground that the Commission’s proceedings were not so infected by hostility as to require reversal, and that the comparator cases involving anti-gay messages were meaningfully different from Phillips’s refusal.
How 303 Creative Changed the Picture
The question Masterpiece sidestepped returned five years later in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. Lorie Smith, a Colorado website designer, challenged the same anti-discrimination law before creating any wedding sites, seeking a ruling that the First Amendment protected her right to decline designing sites celebrating same-sex marriages.
In June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 for Smith. Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, held that the First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a designer to create expressive works communicating messages she disagrees with. The Court classified custom website design as “pure speech” and concluded that compelling its creation would let the government dictate the content of private expression. The majority stressed that the ruling applied specifically to expressive, customized products and did not grant businesses a blanket right to refuse service to members of a protected class. A designer could not refuse to sell a pre-existing template to a gay customer, but could decline to write custom content celebrating a same-sex wedding.5Supreme Court of the United States. 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis
The 2023 decision gave bakers, florists, photographers, and similar business owners far more legal cover than Masterpiece ever did. Where the 2018 ruling turned on procedural failings, the 2023 ruling created a substantive First Amendment shield for anyone whose work qualifies as expressive. The open question is how far that category stretches. A custom cake arguably qualifies. A hotel room almost certainly does not. Everything in between remains contested.
Why This Was a State Case
One reason the dispute played out under Colorado law is that federal public accommodation protections do not explicitly cover sexual orientation. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in hotels, restaurants, and places of entertainment based on race, color, religion, or national origin. It has never been amended to include sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Equality Act, which would add those categories to federal civil rights law, has been reintroduced in successive sessions of Congress. As of the 119th Congress covering 2025 and 2026, the bill remains in committee and has not been enacted.6Congress.gov. H.R.15 – 119th Congress (2025-2026) Equality Act
Protections therefore depend on where you live. Roughly half the states have laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in public accommodations. Colorado was among the first, and the strength of its statute is what gave Craig and Mullins a claim in the first place. In states without such protections, a refusal like Phillips’s would not violate any law at all.
The practical line the two rulings have drawn runs through the nature of the product rather than the identity of the customer. Businesses selling standardized goods and routine services still cannot refuse customers based on sexual orientation in states with public accommodation laws. Businesses that create custom, expressive works have a stronger First Amendment argument for declining commissions that conflict with their beliefs. Where “expressive” begins and ends is the fight courts will keep having.