Top chefs back couple against baker
Andres, Falkner, Hall join in gay rights case
WASHINGTON — Prominent chefs, bakers and restaurant owners want the Supreme Court to rule against a Colorado baker who wouldn’t make a cake for a samesex couple’s wedding.
The food makers say that once they open their doors for business, they don’t get to choose their customers. They say that abiding by laws that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation does not strip them of creative control of a dish or a pastry.
Celebrity chefs Jose Andres, Elizabeth Falkner and Carla Hall, Washington, D.C., cupcake shop owners and a small-town baker from Mississippi are among those who are signing onto a legal brief being written by the Human Rights Campaign.
The case pits the rights of a gay couple against baker Jack Phillips’ religious objections to same-sex marriage. The case will be argued Dec. 5.
Phillips owns the Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver. In 2012, he told Charlie Craig and David Mullins that he would not make a cake for a same-sex wedding.
The couple complained to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission that Phillips violated the state’s anti-discrimination law. Phillips lost at every step in the legal process before the Supreme Court agreed in June to hear his case.
While Phillips’ religious beliefs underlie the case, the main argument he is making at the Supreme Court is that, as an artist, he cannot be compelled to create a cake at odds with his views.
“It’s not about your art. When you’re open to service to people, you can’t decide who to serve and not serve,” said Falkner, who has owned restaurants in New York and San Francisco.
Mary Jennifer Russell, owner of Sugaree’s Bakery in New Albany, Mississippi, said, “I can decide what to create and what to serve, but not to say I won’t serve it to a gay person, or a transgender person or a woman or a person of color.”