Masterpiece Cakeshop Celebrates With Fans After Supreme Court Decision

Following a momentous Supreme Court decision on Monday, the scene at a Lakewood, Colorado bakery was mostly celebratory. A handful of camera crews and reporters camped out front of Masterpiece Cakeshop where, inside, customers shook hands with baker Jack Phillips and congratulated him. The Supreme Court’s ruling came Monday morning, a 7-2 majority decision in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop. Citing religious freedom, Phillips had declined to make couple Dave Mullin and Charlie Craig their wedding cake.

Inside the bakery, the telephone rang off the hook. Phillips declined to comment on the ruling, smiling to his customers, but otherwise remaining deadpan. “To stand up for what you believe in is very hard to do,” one customer, Ruth Doke, said. She and her husband Randy were vacationing from California when they heard the news and decided to detour to the Denver suburb. “He seems to have a peace inside of him,” she said of Phillips. Inside the store, a sign read: “When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christ like it resolves a great deal of Anxiety.”

The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday overturned a previous Colorado court’s ruling based on its “clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated [Phillip’s] objection.” By the afternoon, a Cakeshop customer walked out with a custom birthday cake for a 99-year-old veteran, and Phillips was closing his store early to fly east for interviews. Meanwhile, some 120 reviewers took time to comment on the business’ Yelp page on Monday. Their reviews ranged from submitted photos of sadomasochist teddy bear-topped cakes to more straightforward criticism: “Cakes are dry and taste of bigotry and intolerance.”

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