Christian Baker Persecuted By California For 8 Years Urges Supreme Court: Protect People Of Faith

A devout Christian baker in California — harassed by the state for eight years over her refusal to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple — is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to put an end to lower courts defying rulings that protect people of faith from being forced to violate their religious beliefs.

Cathy Miller, a devout Christian baker, asked the Supreme Court to protect her right to create custom-designed wedding cakes aligned with her faith. After nearly a decade of California punishing Cathy’s religious beliefs about marriage, it’s time for the Supreme Court to let… pic.twitter.com/HRrpNu7Gl8

— BECKET (@becketfund) August 27, 2025

Catherine Miller was sued by the California Civil Rights Department in 2017 for alleged violations of the state’s public accommodation laws after she refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. In the aftermath of her decision, her bakery, Tastries, was flooded with angry social media posts, death threats, and harassing emails and phone calls.

End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships

After a week-long bench trial, the state trial court ruled in favor of Miller under the Free Speech Clause, but the state appeals court reversed the decision. The state’s Supreme Court then declined to review the case. Miller is represented by the Becket law firm.

The petition explains:

After Miller opened her bakery in 2013, she began receiving requests for custom projects that “were not in line with” her faith. These requests included “gory” cakes, “marijuana” cakes, “adult” cakes and cookies featuring genitalia, and a cake announcing a divorce that a husband was going to surprise his (then) wife with. Miller turned these requests down. She then consulted with her pastor to create Tastries’ Design Standards, which she uses to communicate her policies to both employees and customers.

The Design Standards refer to Miller’s mission to create “custom designs that are Creative, Uplifting, Inspirational and Affirming,” and that are “lovely, praiseworthy, or of good report.” Miller’s mission is rooted in the Bible. The Design Standards state that Tastries “do[es] not accept requests” for baked goods “portraying explicit sexual content,” “promoting marijuana or casual drug use,” “featuring alcohol products or drunkenness,” “depicting gore, witches, spirits, and satanic or demonic content,” or “that violate fundamental Christian princip[les].”    

“California still wants to put Cathy Miller to the test,” the petition to the Supreme Court states. “If she does not agree to design and create cakes for same-sex wedding ceremonies despite her undisputedly sincere religious objections, California says she must give up her cake-design business altogether.”

The petition refers to “two well-established splits of authority among the lower courts. The first is a 3-3 split over whether compelled speech must be viewed as an endorsement by a reasonable observer in order to qualify for First Amendment protection, or whether all compelled speech triggers strict scrutiny. … The second split divides the lower courts 7-4 over whether, when determining general applicability under the Free Exercise Clause, courts must consider all secular exemptions to the relevant law.”

“Without this Court’s intervention, these splits will continue to vex lower courts and litigants alike,” the petition warns. “A litigant’s First Amendment rights will vary dramatically by location, even between state and federal courts within California. Failing to resolve the splits will not just needlessly prolong the national battle over accommodations for religious believers when it comes to same-sex wedding ceremonies—it will make those conflicts worse, because it will reward government officials for continuing rather than resolving these conflicts.”