From AU's Wall of Separation blog:
Unwilling to accept the advances in LGBTQ rights, religious extremists are asking state legislatures, Congress, and the courts for a trump card to undermine this progress. They want to use their religious beliefs as an excuse to deny healthcare, refuse to provide services, and ignore laws protecting Americans from discrimination and abuse.
One example of this is the US Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In this case, a Colorado bakery wants businesses to be able to use religion as a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people. We are fighting back because public businesses should be open to all regardless of religion, sexual orientation, race, and gender identity.
Before reaching the Supreme Court, a Colorado state court said that a suburban Denver bakery, Masterpiece Cakeshop, violated Colorado’s nondiscrimination law—which bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation—when it refused to provide a wedding cake for Charlie Craig and David Mullins, a same-sex couple, for their wedding reception. The court ruled that neither the bakery nor its owner had a religious-freedom right to violate the law. Americans United filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, arguing that religious freedom is not an excuse to discriminate against others.
The owner of the shop asked the Colorado Supreme Court to hear the case, but it declined. His attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, a Religious Right legal group that often defends people who want to discriminate in the name of religion, then appealed to the US Supreme Court.
This is an important case that will have significant implications on nondiscrimination laws that protect everyone, especially LGBTQ people, women and minorities. Masterpiece Cakeshop wants to use religious beliefs to treat LGBTQ folks like second-class citizens, but religious freedom is not a license to discriminate.
That’s why we need your help to ensure all Americans understand how a wrong decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop would bring harm to real people. Today, we’re launching a storytelling project. Have you or a loved one ever been discriminated against because of someone else’s religion? Share your story with us, and we may post it on social media and through blogs and articles leading up to and after the Supreme Court decision.
We hope the Supreme Court will reach the same conclusion in Masterpiece as the lower courts: A business cannot use religion as an excuse to discriminate.
Americans United fights for religious freedom and equality. But right now, all of these values are under attack, and we want to hear from you.