Both Sides Find Signs Of Victory In Gresham Bakery Supreme Court Decision

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday threw out an Oregon court ruling that fined the Christian owners of a Gresham bakery $135,000 for refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

But the court again chose to sidestep the issue of what protection the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom gives business owners charged with discrimination for refusing service to same-sex couples.

Instead, the highest court has placed another, narrower question front and center in the case: whether the state of Oregon was biased in its treatment of the bakers in the case, Aaron and Melissa Klein.

The Supreme Court has sent the Kleins’ case back to the Oregon Court of Appeals and asked the lower court to reconsider it, in light of a new Supreme Court decision last year in a similar case, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

Read more: https://www.opb.org/news/article/gresham-bakery-supreme-court-decision-both-sides/