Religious Exemptions

Lambda Legal has urged the Oregon Court of Appeals once again to affirm its 2017 opinion upholding a 2015 ruling by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) that the owners of a Portland-area bakery violated the state’s nondiscrimination statutes when they refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple because doing so violated the owners’ religious beliefs.

Northcott publicly stated that he does not file domestic assault charges if the violence occurred between same-sex spouses, does not recognize “homosexual marriage,” and would not prosecute Tennessee county clerks who deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the Oregon Court of Appeals must look again at how the Oregon court system processed the discrimination claim against an Oregon bakery, Sweetcakes by Melissa, and its conclusion that the bakery violated Oregon’s nondiscrimination statutes when they refused to bake a wedding cake for Lambda Legal clients Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, because they said doing so would violate the owners’ religious beliefs.

The Washington Supreme Court today unanimously reaffirmed its February 2017 ruling that a Richland, WA, florist had violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) when she refused to sell flowers to a same-sex couple for their wedding. The U.S. Supreme Court last year vacated that 2017 ruling and ordered the case sent back to the Washington court for reconsideration in light of its narrow ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Human Rights Commission finding in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. Jennifer C.