9 articles
Mary L. Bonauto is the Civil Rights Project Director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. This case is not really about a cake. It is about equal citizenship of gay people, and whether we may engage in the kinds of ordinary transactions others take for granted in the commercial marketplace and beyond.
Richard W. Garnett is the Paul J. Schierl / Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. He joined an amicus brief with 33 other legal scholars in support of the cakeshop in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
Tobias Barrington Wolff is Professor of Law at Penn Law. He served as lead appellate counsel for Vanessa Willock in Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock, in which the Supreme Court declined to review a ruling by the New Mexico Supreme Court that a photography studio violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws when it refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony.
Eric Rassbach and Hannah Smith are deputy general counsel and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
Helen Alvare is a professor of law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Many advocates have written about why a wedding cake is itself constitutionally protected expression.
Eric Segall is the Kathy and Lawrence Ashe Professor of Law at Georgia State University College of Law. Jack Phillips, the co-owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple because supporting their wedding violated his religious beliefs.
Mithun Mansinghani serves as solicitor general for the state of Oklahoma. Michael K. Velchik and Zach West, assistant solicitors general, also contributed to this article.
Vanita Gupta is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. More than five decades ago, our country wrestled with the issue of whether businesses open to the public should be open to everyone on the same terms, regardless of their race.
Colorado’s anti-discrimination law bars places of public accommodation – that is, businesses that sell to the public – from discriminating based on (among other things) sexual orientation.