The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a challenge from a Colorado cake baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. Jack Phillips, a born-again Christian and owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, cites religious beliefs as the reason he shouldn't be obligated to create the cake.
The couple, David Mullins and Charlie Craig, then filed a civil rights complaint in Colorado.
Southwest Florida LGBT activist Stephanie Burns said she will be watching the Supreme Court case closely.
"It could extend to other types of discrimination as well, if we start using the standard that someone has a personal religious objection to providing services to a whole class of people," Burns said.
In a Supreme Court brief, Phillips' attorneys wrote that his faith requires him "to use his artistic talents to promote only messages that align with his religious beliefs."
The brief also states that Mullins and Craig could have bought a cake from another baker, and that they in fact "easily obtained a free wedding cake with a rainbow design from another bakery."
In a statement from the Diocese of Venice to Fox 4, Director of Communications Susan Laielli wrote that "Religious Freedom is clearly defined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and further supported in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) signed in to law in 1993."
"The Diocese of Venice will be closely monitoring Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, as it moves through the U.S. Supreme Court next term," Laielli wrote.
