This case concerns a baker named Jack Phillips, a “cake artist” as he calls himself, who believes that decorating wedding cakes is a form of expression, an artistic celebration of the couple’s relationship, and that because of his Christian beliefs about marriage he cannot in good conscience create wedding cakes for same-sex weddings. Phillips, by the way, is guided by his faith in all of his endeavors as a cake artist. In the past he has refused to bake cakes for divorce parties, for bachelor parties, and for Halloween. In the words of his lawyers, “he serves all people, but does not celebrate all events.”
According to the record in this case, when Phillips was asked by a same-sex couple to “design and create a cake to celebrate their same-sex wedding,” he declined based upon his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage. (370 P. 2d at 276.) Phillips told that couple that “he would be happy to make and sell them any other baked goods” but not a wedding cake. Id.
Although the same-sex couple was easily able to find another baker to create and bake a wedding cake with a rainbow design—in fact, the other baker did not even charge the gay couple for the cake--they filed a sexual orientation discrimination complaint against Phillips under Colorado’s public accommodation law. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled that Phillips was guilty of sexual orientation discrimination.
Enforcement of this law against Jack has crushed his business. The Commission ordered him either to create custom cakes that celebrate same-sex weddings or to stop designing wedding cakes for anyone. Wedding cakes were 40% of his business, so the Commission’s order has eliminated 40% of his family income, which caused him to lay off most of his employees.
Let's apply Smith's free exercise doctrine here. Assume the Colorado law forbids all discrimination in places of public accommodation on the basis of race, sex, religion, and sexual orientation.
As applied to Phillips, is this antidiscrimination law a neutral law of general applicability? If not, explain.
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