Many in the LGBT community and among its allies are saddened and angered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling issued earlier today (Monday, June 4), saying that despite Colorado’s state laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people, a baker in that state did have the right — under the First Amendment — to refuse to bake a wedding cake for an LGBT couple because doing so would go against his religious beliefs.
But, some activists and legal scholars are saying, the ruling is not as devastating for the LGBT community as it might seem at first.
Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller in a statement regarding the decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, said:
“Let’s be clear that this very narrow ruling does not say the Constitution gives businesses a right to use religion as a license to discriminate or an excuse to refuse to obey laws that apply to everyone else. Politicians who keep pushing for laws that would grant such a right betray the real meaning of religious freedom and turn it into a weapon to hurt people. Americans believe we are all equal under the law and that no one should be refused service simply because of who they are or whom they love.”
Watch the June 15 issue of Dallas Voice for an in-depth analysis of the ruling.
— Tammye Nash
