The US Supreme Court declined Monday to hear the case of a Gresham bakery that was fined for refusing to sell a cake to same-sex couple Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer in 2013. But this isn’t the end for the highly publicized Sweet Cakes by Melissa case. That’s because the Supreme Court also asked the Oregon Court of Appeals to reconsider the case, this time in the context of a new precedent set by another legal battle involving a gay couple and a bakery.
The Bowman-Cryers are being represented by Jennifer Pizer, the senior counsel at LGBTQ+ civil rights organization Lambda Legal. Pizer told the Mercury that the Supreme Court’s decision to send the case back to the Oregon Court of Appeals is “frustrating, because this means more delay” before the Bowman-Cryers can find closure. However, she believes the Oregon court system will again side with her clients.
“We think the law is clear, and has been clear for a long time, that religious beliefs do not excuse discrimination by a business,” Pizer said.
The roots of this case stretch back to 2013, when now-married couple Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer tried to buy a wedding cake from Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a bakery owned by Melissa and Aaron Klein. The Kleins refused to sell the Bowman-Cryers a wedding cake, arguing that same-sex marriage went against their Christian beliefs. The Bowman-Cryers reported the case to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), and two years later, BOLI imposed a $135,000 fine on the Kleins for violating Oregon’s anti-discrimination law.
The Kleins then launched a series of legal appeals that eventually brought their case before the US Supreme Court for consideration.
At the same time the Sweet Cakes case was winding its way through Oregon’s courts, two other high-profile cases related to wedding vendors and gay couples were also playing out in their respected states’ legal system. In State of Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers, the Washington Supreme Court ruled against a florist who had refused to sell flowers for a gay wedding. And in Craig v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, a Colorado baker was ordered by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to change its company policies after declining to bake a cake for a gay wedding.
Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips appealed that decision, dropping his case before the US Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission in 2018.
The high court ruled 7-2 in Phillips’ favor. But that decision was narrow: The court decided that because it found evidence of anti-religious bias in how the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s officials handled the case, Phillips had not received fair consideration from the commission.
Pizer said she suspects the US Supreme Court wants to place a “second check” on both the Washington florist’s case and the Sweet Cakes case, because both were decided around the time of the Masterpiece decision.
In January, the US Supreme Court sent State of Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers back to the Washington court system. The Washington Supreme Court upheld its original ruling against the florist earlier this month.
Pizer is confident that her clients’ case will play out the same way.
“We think the Oregon court will conclude, as the Washington court did, that the courts handled this appropriately and their previous analysis is correct, and they’ll reissue it,” Pizer said. “And then if the lawyers for the baker in this case are dissatisfied, they would have the legal right to appeal yet again.”
In other words, the US Supreme Court just turned back the clock and are giving the Kleins another chance to run their case through the state legal system. And as Bloomberg reported earlier today, there is one possible argument to be made that BOLI acted with bias when it fined the Kleins: After the Bowman-Cryers filed their complaint, then-BOLI Commissioner Brad Avakian posted an article about it on his Facebook page.
“Everyone has a right to their religious beliefs, but that doesn’t mean they can disobey laws already in place,” Avakian wrote on Facebook. “Having one set of rules for everybody ensures that people are treated fairly as they go about their daily lives.”
In a statement shared with the Mercury, Basic Rights Oregon Director Nancy Haque echoed Pizer’s prediction that the courts will again side with the Bowman-Cryers, and called the recent news from the Supreme Court, “a good thing—not just for LGBTQ people in Oregon, but for the entire nation.”
“Considering that the Oregon Equality Act remains one of the strongest, most comprehensive non-discrimination laws in the country for LGBTQ individuals, we’re confident that the courts will again uphold freedom from discrimination for all,” Haque added.
It’s unknown when the Oregon Court of Appeals will re-hear the case. But in the meantime, Pizer said the Bowman-Cryers remain easy targets for people looking for an excuse to express anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment.
“They have been so targeted and harassed by people who hold strong anti-gay views, religious and otherwise,” Pizer said. “We recognize that this is stressful and frustrating for a couple who simply wanted to be able to go to a business and purchase the same kind of cake everyone else would have been able to purchase.”
Please never omit to mention that Sweet Cakes’ owners doxxed the Bowman-Cryers and their foster kids, the orphaned daughters of a friend who died of cancer – published to facebook their names, home address and email on the unredacted BOLI complaint. As far as I have ever heard, there were no legal repercussions for that action.