On June 4, 2018, the United States Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, ultimately siding with the baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. Voting 7-2, the majority found that the lower court had inappropriately dismissed the baker’s religious beliefs and in doing so violated his First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. However, the majority opinion was narrow and focused largely on the Commission’s failure to consider the baker’s claims in a “neutral and respectful” manner. As a result, the decision avoided several important issues such as how to resolve the tension between constitutional protections for LGBT rights and the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion leaving the door open for similar cases to be resolved on the merits in the future.
Catch me up
In 2012, a gay couple asked Colorado baker Jack Phillips to make their wedding cake. He refused, claiming that doing so would go against his religious beliefs. The couple filed a complaint with Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission, which found that Phillips had violated the state’s anti-discrimination law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in places of business engaged in sales or offering services to the public. The Colorado Court of Appeals agreed with the Commission, so Phillips appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that forcing him to bake cakes for gay couples would violate his First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise of religion. Focusing on the way in which the Commission reached its decision, the Supreme Court held that the Commission had inappropriately considered the case with anti-religious bias towards the baker instead of proceeding in a “manner neutral toward and tolerant of [his] religious beliefs.”
What does this have to do with employment law?
The decision was not only narrow, but also left business owners and employers, many of whom were eagerly awaiting further guidance on how to lawfully proceed when civil rights protections conflict with religious freedoms in the workplace, disappointed. Specifically, employers will have to wait to find out, not only how far they must go to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs in the workplace, but also whether they can lawfully claim exceptions from laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation based on sincerely held religious beliefs. In the meantime, while employers need not alter the status quo, they should expect increased scrutiny from state and local government agencies in evaluating claims based on sexual orientation and failure to accommodate religious beliefs and accordingly, ensure they are implementing best practices to minimize these claims. For example, employers should ensure that they are complying with applicable state laws and that their anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies and training courses include sexual orientation as a protected category. Employers should also be mindful to fully and thoroughly engage in the interactive process in evaluating requests for accommodation based on an employee’s religious beliefs.
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