Prominent chefs oppose baker in high-profile 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 same-sex 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, the owners of a popular Washington, D.C., cupcake shop and a small-town baker from Mississippi are among those who are signing onto a legal brief being written by the Human Rights Campaign.

Cake artists who want the justices to recognize the artistic expression in cake-baking filed a separate brief last month that does not take sides in the case.

The case pits the rights of a gay couple against baker Jack Phillips’ religious objections to same-sex marriage. The case will be argued on 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.