Lesbian couple wins appeal after bakery refuses to sell them wedding cake

by Curated February 22, 2025 · Gay News / Gay Pride / Gay Rights / LGBTQ Nation

In 2017, the pair visited Tastries bakery in Bakersfield to buy a cake for their wedding, scheduled for August. They spoke with an employee and selected a pre-designed plain, white, three-tiered cake that the bakery sells for various celebrations, including birthdays and baby showers, according to court filings reported by Cal Matters.

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.

The couple returned with family and friends for a tasting the following week and were told by owner Catharine Miller that she refused to sell the cake after learning it would be served at a same-sex wedding.

The couple filed a complaint with California’s Civil Rights Department, which sued Miller in 2018. The owner argued her policy was based on her religious beliefs about marriage, not animus toward LGBTQ+ people. A Kern County judge ruled in her favor.

The new ruling overturns that decision and is likely to be appealed. Miller is represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a group closely associated with defendants seeking to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people based on a “religious freedom” to do so.

Miller says she is a devout Christian and believes “wedding cakes must not contradict God’s sacrament of marriage between a man and a woman.”

The local judge said Miller’s refusal to serve the couple did not violate the state’s Civil Rights Act because it applies to all customers and because Miller referred the couple to another bakery.

The 5th Appellate judges disagreed, stating the owner’s policy was not neutral because it could only apply to customers on the basis of their sexual orientation.

They also ruled that selling the plain cake the couple ordered, with no writing or decorations — and available to all customers — doesn’t force Miller to express support for same-sex weddings. 

“Drawing the contours of protected speech to include routinely produced, ordinary commercial products as the artistic self-expression of the designer is unworkably overbroad,” the judges wrote. 

Miller’s attorneys said they will continue to press her case.

“This case is not just about Cathy Miller — it’s about protecting the rights of all Americans to live and work according to their deeply held beliefs,” said Charles LiMandri, an attorney for Miller. “We will continue to fight in the courts on Cathy’s behalf to ensure that the freedom to live out her faith through her creative work is upheld and that justice is fully served.” 

In 2018, the Supreme Court overturned a Colorado ruling that a baker had violated the state’s nondiscrimination laws when he refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding. The decision was based in part on the court’s finding that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was prejudiced against the baker’s religious beliefs. 

The defendant in that case, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop, was represented by another anti-LGBTQ+ legal group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and continued to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people with mixed results.

In another landmark case circumscribing LGBTQ+ rights, the court found in favor of the defendant in 303 Creative LLC v. Eleni, in which a website designer who opposed same-sex marriage on religious grounds refused to design a wedding website for a gay couple. Forcing her to do so would violate the designer’s First Amendment rights to free expression, the high court said.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

Don’t forget to share:

Actual Story on LGBTQ Nation
Author: Greg Owen