Americans United's President and CEO Rachel Laser Speaks To Allies After The Supreme Court Masterpiece Ruling

“Discrimination is not simply dollars and cents, hamburgers and movies; it is the humiliation, frustration, and embarrassment that a person must surely feel when he is told that he is unacceptable as a member of the public.”

Those words, written by Justice Goldberg in 1964, are as necessary to say today as they were more than 50 years ago.

The good news is that today’s decision is very limited in its scope. It reverses the lower court’s opinion based on a narrow finding that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was biased in its decision making. The Court does not say that bakeries are businesses are entitled to distort religious freedom to deny services to couples like Charlie and David.

This fight is far from over.

As we have long said, religious freedom should act as a shield to protect religious exercise, not as a sword to harm and discriminate against others.

The Court itself recognized today that disputes such as this one in Masterpiece must be resolved  “without subjecting [LGBTQ] persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.”

Our country is strongest when we are all free to practice our religion, or no religion, as we choose--without hurting others.