A California judge has ruled in favor of a bakery owner who refused to make wedding cakes for a same-gender couple because it violated her Christian beliefs.
The state Department of Fair Housing and Employment had sued Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, arguing owner Cathy Miller intentionally discriminated against the couple in violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.
Miller’s attorneys argued her right to free speech and free expression of religion trumped the argument that she violated the anti-discrimination law. Kern County Superior Court Judge Eric Bradshaw ruled Friday that Miller acted lawfully while upholding her beliefs about what the Bible teaches regarding marriage.
The decision was welcomed as a First Amendment victory by Miller and her pro-bono attorneys with the conservative Thomas More Society.
“I’m hoping that in our community we can grow together,” Miller told the Bakersfield Californian after the ruling. “And we should understand that we shouldn’t push any agenda against anyone else.”
A spokesperson said the fair housing department was aware of the ruling but had not determined what to do next. The couple, Eileen and Mireya Rodriguez-Del Rio, said they expect an appeal.
“Of course we’re disappointed, but not surprised,” Eileen told the newspaper. “We anticipate that our appeal will have a different result.”
An earlier decision in Kern County Superior Court also went Miller’s way, but it was later vacated by the 5th District Court of Appeal, which sent the lawsuit back to the county.
The decision comes as a Colorado baker is challenging a ruling he violated that state’s anti-discrimination law by refusing to make a cake celebrating a gender transition. That baker, Jack Phillips, separately won a partial U.S. Supreme Court victory after refusing on religious grounds to make a gay couple’s wedding cake a decade ago.
(AP)
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21 Responses
Double edged sword. She can just as well easily refuse a Chinese Buddhist couple or a Muslim one, or a Jewish one based on her “Christian beliefs”!
The wicked חייב סקילה couple can obtain their stupid [so called] wedding cake from other bakers, and need to stop wrecking the life & time of this righteous baker.
The perverted “couple” know good and well that they are wrong and therefore they are trying to push their agenda on others so they can feel better about their abhorrent behavior.
To Mr. 147 and Philosopher:
Thank you for your great and wise comments.
The “couple” knew beforehand that they could have gone to a Toeivah-sympathetic bakery for their cake. They just wanted to harass this woman, so that they could sue her. Freedom of religion has existed in this country much longer than Toeivah “rights.”
So now what are ya’ll gonna say when she refuses Jews? Oh that’s right, if they’re using this bakery the can’t be ‘real’ Jews.
All these disgusting idiots (same gender marriage) know very well that they are heading towards Geihinom.
What drives them crazy is the fact that they know very well that the normal people are going to Gan Eden.
This is the reason why they are trying so hard to drag other people down to Geihinom together with themselves.
Kach and Amil Zola, Jews should not be ordering cake from her bakery anyway…and if a Jew wants to order a cake and she refuses to do it for them why should I care? You think I’ll sue her for discrimination? I couldn’t care less.
Hopefully she does refuse Jews as her cakes aren’t kosher…
BTW – It’s called religious freedom, and she should be able to serve whoever she wishes and Jew or not.
For those saying that this is problematic because she can refuse to make a cake with Jewish themes, we should support her right not to do so, just like we should support the right of a baker not to make a Christmas cake.
Separately, those saying that this couple is חייב סקילה are also wrong. They are two women, and if they are not Jewish, as far as I know there is no issur.
“Amil Zola” – it’s common for non religious Jews to think that religious Jews do not consider them “real Jews,” but this is almost never the case, since Jews who keep Halacha are well aware that a Jew is a Jew regardless of whether he or she keeps kosher. The claim that observant Jews do not regard non observant Jews to be Jewish is bigoted against observant Jews.
Baruch HaShem! One step back, small as it may be, for impurity in this world.
Amil zola by your standards randi weingarten and barrack Husain Obama are by far the very paragons of Jewish values and piety especially when compared to the likes of those commenting here. I have news for you Judaism isn’t about pronouns or post birth homicide. It predates the nonsense cooked up over the last few years by several thousand years of tradition.
zaltzvasser, of course it’s an issur! What are you talking about?! Why are you dismissing sin as if there’s nothing wrong with it?! Furthermore, many of these “couples” want kids and the way they have it is absolutely disgusting and criminal; these poor children who grow up confused, without roots and they don’t value their lives.
It would seem that the only issue is decorating the cake with a single-gender marriage theme. If the baker refused to sell a generic wedding cake (without the cute little decoration representing the newlywed couple, or colors that make a political statement), it probably would be illegal under both civil rights law and common law. The issue is not whether the bakery will sell to “gays”, but whether the baker has to produce a special cake with a political or religious theme contrary to the baker’s views (meaning the issue isn’t “freedom of religion” but rather “freedom of expression”).
Reply to zalzvaser:
Even for a non-Jew, two ladies together is 100% forbidden (Assur). Any Rav can explain this to you. I don’t want to go into details. Please ask your Rav. It is definitely 100% Assur and it can invite the big Mabul all over again.
As a side note, imagine all the non-Jews the women were together, that means that there will be no more offspring by the non-Jews, in other words the entire world will have only Jews. Hashem wants in his world Jews and non-Jews. Same gender marriage, whether it is 2 men or 2 ladies, are both grave sins and Hashem does not want such a world and we don’t want Hashem to hit the “refresh” button on this world.
@avraham
It’s not pashut at all that two ladies is assur for non-Jews. Many hold that it’s only midrabbanon even for Jews.
@avraham “I don’t want to go into details” = you have no argument. If you want to say something is “100% assur,” you need a source. Furthermore, I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with your “imagine all the non Jews the women were together.” A. That’s not going to happen, B. A woman is entitled to decide not to marry a man or have kids, even if she is Jewish, al pi halacha, C. Lesbians somehow figure out how to have kids anyway
– For Yidden two lesbians that are together are not חייב מיתה but it is certainly at least an איסור דרבנן and they receive Malkus.
– For Goyim two lesbians that are together are not חייב מיתה unless it’s done so in an obviously public way, (promoting it or publicly legitimizing it) in which case they would be חייב מיתה but not necessarily סקילה, as many other methods may be used by the goyishe courts.
– For both Yidden and Goyim two gays that are together are חייב מיתה דאורייתא and must be promptly stoned to death.
zaltzvasser, they somehow figure out how to have kids?! So you would be ok to be a kid from such a “couple”?!
One of the many problems with such SINFULL behavior is that the life is taken for granted, you can just “make babies” and therefore it is easy to kill fetuses and humans, as we see today, health professionals are “helping” individuals kill themselves with medical “intervention”. Hashem did not want Adam to be able to have kids on his own so he created Chava. Today you can almost make a child on your own and look where this had led us, society is becoming more and more perverted and dangerous and they do not value human life.
It’s absolutely horrifying where we stand today that there are supposedly “frum” people who are ok and excuse such perverted behavior.
To Reb Philosopher:
Thank you for replying to that guy. I am extremely busy and I had no time to reply.
The real problem nowadays is that some Frum people need to interact a lot with the non-Jewish world for Parnassa reasons, therefore, they try very hard to minimize as much as possible the evil actions of those people.
@Avraham @philosopher , I understand that it’s not tzanuah for anyone to do that, but the question is if they’re doing anything Assur based on the halachot for them. The gemara speaks Abt “nashim hamesollelot” and the rambam basically codifies it as a derabanan, where it’s Assur to do based on the limud from “kemaaseh eretz mitzrayim”, but that oasuk was talking to Am yisrael. Rav Moshe also says it would be Assur, but that was for a Jew. For a non Jew it seems provocative, but not Assur.