Family Council Joins Coalition in Urging U.S. Supreme Court to Uphold Religious Liberty

On Monday, Family Council joined 31 other organizations in an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to let people of faith live and operate according to their religious convictions.

The case, Miller v. Civil Rights Department, centers on Catherine Miller. Ms. Miller is a Christian, and she owns a bakery in California.

The California Civil Rights Department filed a complaint against her in state court after she declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Although Ms. Miller won at the trial court level, the California appellate court ruled against her. Now she is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case.

Catherine Miller’s situation is very similar to Jack Phillips’ case in Colorado.

In 2012, Jack Phillips declined a request to bake a custom cake for a same-sex ceremony. Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission targeted Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop under the state’s anti-discrimination law. It took six years of litigation and court hearings for Jack to finally win his case in 2018. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled 7-2 that Jack could not be forced to violate his deeply held religious convictions.

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that artist Lorie Smith and her studio, 303 Creative, could not be forced to create artwork that violated her religious convictions about marriage.

Arkansas has enacted some of the best protections for religious freedom in the country, but it’s essential for our federal government to uphold and respect the free exercise of religion as well. That is why we hope the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Catherine Miller’s case and support every American’s right to live and operate according to their deeply held religious convictions.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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