Cathy Miller, owner of Tastries bakery in Bakersfield, refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in 2017. A subsequent legal challenge has reached the highest levels of the California court system. Photo contributed

Attorneys for a Bakersfield baker took her case to a federal appeals court in Fresno Tuesday to protect what they say is her ability to operate her business in alignment with her Christian faith.

Attorneys presented oral arguments at the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno on Tuesday morning in the case of Cathy Miller, owner of Tastries in Bakersfield, who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in 2017.

Miller was represented in court today by Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at religious legal advocacy group Becket Religious Liberty For All.

Carley Jean Munson, deputy attorney general with the Bureau of Children’s Justice in the Civil Rights Enforcement Section of the California Department of Justice, presented the Office of the Attorney General’s case in the California Department of Civil Rights v. Tastries.

In 2022, a California Superior Court judge ruled that Miller cannot be forced to personally design a wedding cake that violates her faith.

The California Civil Rights Department determined that Miller had discriminated against Eileen Rodriguez-Del Rio and Mireya Rodriguez-Del Rio in violation of the Unruh Act, a state law banning discrimination by businesses that deny “full and equal” services based on sexual orientation.

Following the ruling, the state appealed the decision to a state appeals court in 2018.

After trial, the Kern County Superior Court ruled in favor of Miller, finding that Miller met requirements of the Unruh Act by referring the couple to a different bakery and that compelling Miller to provide wedding cake service to the Rodriguez-Del Rio couple would infringe against her free speech rights.

“It takes a special kind of spite to spend almost a decade bullying a small-business owner because she wants to run her bakery without sacrificing her Christian faith,” said Rassbach in a statement. “Doesn’t California have enough problems without picking yet another culture war fight? It’s high time for the court to bring the State’s baseless campaign to a close and allow Cathy to bake in peace.”  

 

In court Tuesday, Munson said the Rodriguez-Del Rios were “shocked and humiliated” to be turned away because they were a lesbian couple.

“Tastries’ conduct was a clear violation of the Unruh Act, which requires businesses provide full and equal service in all aspects of their business to every customer without regard for that customer’s personal, protected characteristics,” Munson said.

She said her department recognizes and respects Miller’s opposition to same-sex marriage that is founded in her religious faith, and the Unruh Act does not compel her to alter that belief.

It does, however, require her to provide the same service to same-sex couples that would be provided to opposite-sex couples, Munson added.

Rassbach told the panel of three judges that free speech is the simplest and narrowest path to resolution.

“If you decide the cake in question is protected speech, then the case is over,” Rossbach said.

Rassbach said there is a disagreement as to what counts as an expression of speech, and what message Miller intends in her work.

“What makes it custom is that there is a design element and the record shows that the lower court found after hearing testimony that they are all design — they are all artistic expression,” he said.

Munson countered by noting that works such as writing, painting, music and other art forms are artistic expressions, but questioned whether a cake with generic imagery of flowers, which have “no inherent meaning,” qualifies as an expression.

A ruling will be issued at a later date.