Amicus Brief: Miller v. Civil Rights Department

Another cake-baking case! Cathy Miller, owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California, has created custom wedding cakes and baked goods for over a decade. In 2017, a same-sex couple asked Cathy to design a custom cake for their wedding, something she could not do because of her Christian beliefs about marriage. After Cathy referred the couple to another baker, the couple filed a civil rights complaint. In the backlash that followed, Tastries was flooded with angry social media posts, harassing emails and phone calls, and a state investigation.  

The California Department of Civil Rights then filed a lawsuit, with state lawyers repeatedly comparing Cathy’s beliefs to racism and asserted that Cathy’s beliefs harm “the dignity of all Californians.” Six years after California started its prosecution, and after a five-day trial, a judge ruled that Cathy cannot be forced to design a wedding cake that violates her sincere religious beliefs. But in February 2025, the state appeals court ruled against Cathy and her bakery, and the state supreme court declined to take her case. Cathy then filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, which the Manhattan Institute is supporting with an amicus brief. We argue that forcing Tastries Bakery to create a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding would compel speech in violation of the First Amendment and that the high court should grant the petition to definitively resolve this over-egged category of cases.

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.

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