A court in California decided in favor of a Bakersfield bakery whose Christian owner refused to prepare a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.
In October 2017, Eileen and Mireya Rodriguez-Del Rio requested Cathy Miller, owner of Tastries Bakery and a schoolteacher for 30 years, to create a wedding cake. After Miller kindly advised they seek elsewhere, the lesbian couple located another bakery that would produce the cake for them and then filed a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
“The uncontroverted evidence showed that Miller’s sincere faith permeates her life and work, and is ‘founded on God’s words,’” Judge Eric Bradshaw of the Superior Court of California in Kern County wrote in his decision. “As the owner of Tastries, Miller considers herself a ‘steward’ of ‘the Lord’s business he put in (her) hands,’ and that she ‘cannot participate in something that would hurt him and not abide by his precepts in the Bible.’”
“We applaud the court for this decision,” Special Counsel Charles LiMandri of the Thomas More Society, which defended Miller, stated. “The freedom to practice one’s religion is enshrined in the First Amendment, and the United States Supreme Court has long upheld the freedom of artistic expression.”
To support their suit against Miller, the plaintiffs referenced California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by businesses based on race, ethnicity, or religion.
“There’s a certain irony there that a law intended to protect individuals from religious discrimination was used to discriminate against Cathy for her religious beliefs,” fellow Special Counsel Paul Jonna of the Thomas More Society pointed out.
Miller posted on Facebook after the judge found in her favor, “‘We appreciate your prayers and support as we joyously continue to do business with you in the future.” I’m hoping that in our community, we can all develop together and recognize that we should not push our agendas against anybody else.’
During the trial, Anthony Mann, an attorney with the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment, attempted to discredit Miller’s Christian beliefs by questioning her, “Do you try to follow everything the Bible says?”
“I do my best, but I’m a sinner, but I do my best,” Miller replied.
“Do you follow some of the eating practices from the Old Testament in terms of not eating pigs, not eating shellfish, et cetera?” Mann pressed.
“The state was actually questioning the sincerity of Cathy’s faith,” Jonna declared. “The fact that they called Miller’s open and sincerely held beliefs into question is almost as disturbing as quibbling over her status as an artist.”
Bradshaw recalled one occasion in which a guy asked Miller to build a seven-tiered cake for his wedding anniversary, on which he planned to inform his wife that he was divorcing her. “Miller declined to make the cake,” Bradshaw noted, “telling the man that she was ‘not going to be a part of something like that.’