The Anti-Defamation League filed an amicus curiae brief in the Colorado Court of Appeals last week in a high-profile case involving Masterpiece Cakeshop, Inc. and its owner, Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who refused service to a same-sex couple.

 

The complainants in this case, a gay couple, were denied the opportunity to order a cake for their wedding reception by a Denver-area bakery with a policy and history of refusing to sell baked goods for occasions celebrating same-sex relationships.  The Colorado Civil Rights Division held that this constituted discrimination based on sexual orientation in violation of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.  The Colorado Civil Rights Commission upheld this finding and ordered the bakery to change its policy and take various steps to communicate the change.

 

The bakery and its owner have appealed the Commission’s ruling to the Colorado Court of Appeals. In their opening brief, they argue that enforcing the nondiscrimination law against them is unconstitutional under the Free Exercise Clause and the compelled speech doctrine.

 

ADL and its 19 secular and religiously diverse coalition partners submitted a brief urging the court to affirm the Commission’s decision and reject arguments that religious or moral disapproval is a legitimate basis for discrimination against minority groups.

 

In the brief, ADL argues,

“Those who discriminate against disadvantaged groups have long relied on arguments grounded in religion to justify their discrimination. Time and again, however, society has come to see such discrimination as a stain on the Nation’s history and to view the religious justifications offered for it as wrong, both spiritually and philosophically.”

 

ADL’s brief was drafted by the law firm of Hogan Lovells US LLP, Denver and Washington, D.C. offices. ADL’s coalition partners on the brief were:  Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice; Central Conference of American Rabbis; Global Justice Institute; Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America; Japanese American Citizens League; Keshet; Metropolitan Community Churches; More Light Presbyterians; Nehirim; People For the American Way Foundation; ReconcilingWorks: Lutherans For Full Participation; Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Jewish Reconstructionist Communities; Religious Institute, Inc.; Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund; The National Council of Jewish Women; T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights; Union for Reform Judaism; Women of Reform Judaism; and Women’s League for Conservative Judaism.