SPEAKING on the steps of the Supreme Court after a hearing that pit gay rights against freedom of expression, David Mullins, who was denied a wedding cake in 2012 by Jack Phillips, a conservative Christian baker, said LGBT people “deserve the right to live their lives in public without having that love turned into a weapon to harm us”. He said that he and his partner, Charlie Craig, had brought the case so that other couples could be protected from “the pain and humiliation” they experienced when Mr Phillips told them he does not “make cakes for same-sex weddings”. Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission is “not about cake”, Mr Mullins said. “It’s about freedom.”
Mr Phillips would agree with this characterisation of the case—but with an emphasis on his freedom not to participate in the celebration of a marriage he considers a “sacrilege”. In the oral argument, Kristen Waggoner, Mr Phillips’s lawyer, told the justices that asking her client to supply a “temporary...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2insN14
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