12-02-2025
Tastries decision reversed on appeal
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — A state appeals court on Tuesday reversed a Kern County judge's ruling in the long-running Tastries case — finding the bakery's refusal to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple established 'intentional discrimination.'
It doesn't matter that Tastries' owner Cathy Miller referred the couple to another bakery, the appeals court said.
If that's all it took to satisfy the state's Unruh Civil Rights Act — which says all people, regardless of sexual orientation, must be given equal services at all businesses — 'business establishments would be free to refuse service to anyone on account of protected characteristics so long as they told those customers there was another comparable business in existence confirmed to have no objection to providing service,' court said.
The court also rejected the argument that the creation of the cake was protected free speech.
'A three-tiered, plain white cake with no writing, engravings, adornments, symbols or images is not pure speech,' the court said.
The case has been remanded to Kern County. It's unclear when the next hearing will take place — or if further appeals will follow.
In 2017, Miller, owner of Tastries Bakery, refused to bake a wedding cake for Eileen and Mireya Rodriguez-Del Rio after learning their sexual orientation.
She was sued.
State attorneys argued at trial she discriminated against the couple, while Miller's attorneys with the Thomas More Society said she's a devout Christian who believes baking a wedding cake for a same-sex couple would violate her religious beliefs.
Miller's attorneys also argued the creation of a wedding cake is a form of artistic expression, and as such is protected speech under the First Amendment. They said she can't be compelled to create a work of art against her will.
Judge Eric Bradshaw ruled in her favor, finding her 'pure and expressive speech is entitled to protection under the First Amendment' and the baking of a Tastries wedding cake is 'labor-intensive' and 'artistic.'
The state appealed. Arguments were heard in December, after which the court began preparing its decision.
Of Miller's refusal to make a cake for a same-sex couple due to religious beliefs, the court said the following:
'Despite that the underlying rationale for the policy is rooted in a sincerely held religious belief about marriage, held in good faith without ill will or malice, the policy nonetheless requires a distinction in service that is based solely on, and because of, the end users' sexual orientation. The relevant and undisputed facts about the policy and its application here necessarily establish intentional discrimination.'
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