Attorney General and governor candidate Adam Laxalt applauded a U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving a baker’s refusal to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
“Today the Supreme Court reinforced that the Constitution is not a zero-sum game, and that we can respect diversity and protect against unlawful discrimination while also respecting and protecting deeply held religious beliefs and practices,” Laxalt said in a statement Monday on the Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Equal Rights Commission. “I applaud the Court’s decision for reinforcing that state hostility to religion or religious viewpoints cannot be squared with our Constitution.”
In 2012, Colorado baker Jack Phillips declined to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because of his religious opposition to same-sex marriage.
The couple then filed charges with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
The court decided 7-2 that Phillips did not get a fair hearing in front of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The question it didn’t resolve is whether or not religious beliefs give business owners grounds to discriminate.
“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,” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the ACLU in a statement.
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