Tastries trial: Attorneys warn about precedents during closing arguments
Jul. 30—Attorneys for both sides warned Kern County Superior Court Judge Eric Bradshaw that ruling against them could lead to fewer rights for citizens during closing arguments Friday in the Tastries Bakery civil trial.
Gregory Mann, a senior staff attorney with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, said allowing Tastries Bakery owner Cathy Miller to deny same-sex couples wedding cakes could lead to other businesses — such as DJs, florists and photographers — denying services if the bakery's defense prevails.
"It would take us back to a time when businesses could choose their customers and offer only some products to some customers," Mann said.
Attorneys from the conservative Thomas More Society argued the opposite: Where does the DFEH stop once they keep getting what they want, asked attorney Charles LiMandri. It doesn't stop at all, he answered, and many people's freedom of speech will die when forced to provide services, he said. He argued the First Amendment gives Miller the right to deny a lesbian couple a wedding cake because making a product is speech, and she harbors sincere religious beliefs.
"That's how tyranny works," LiMandri said. "That's completely against everything that the founders intended when they wrote the Constitution."
This five-year legal battle ignited after couple Mireya and Eileen Rodriguez-Del Rio sought a wedding cake from Tastries Bakery in 2017. They quietly got married the year before in an intimate ceremony, but wanted to celebrate with extended family and friends.
After looking into local bakeries, Eileen Rodriguez-Del Rio stumbled across Tastries Bakery on Rosedale Highway. Their first appointment was a pleasant experience, both women testified this week. But after returning for a cake-tasting on Aug. 26, 2017, problems arose.
Once Miller, the owner of Tastries Bakery, learned they were gay, she said she couldn't provide them a wedding cake because it violates her fundamental Christian beliefs — that marriage is between a man and a woman. The dispute gained national attention once the couple posted about their experience on Facebook.
Retired Kern County Judge David Lampe originally sided with Miller and said her First Amendment rights are protected by the state's need to create an accessible marketplace. The 5th District Court of Appeal vacated that decision and sent it back to Kern County courts to be adjudicated.
Bradshaw, presiding over the current case, has 90 days to issue a ruling, said Kristin Davis, the public information officer for Kern County Superior Court. A jury has not been convened in this case; Bradshaw will decide the outcome.
Mann, a lawyer with the DFEH, applied the facts to the case to prove several elements during his closing argument. A person does not need to harbor hatred and bigotry to violate the Unruh Civil Rights Act, he said in response to the defense claiming Miller does not hate homosexual people.
Miller's policy of referring gay people to another bakery for wedding cakes is not equal service, Mann said. Mann argued another business uses different recipes and employees at a separate location, and therefore is considered a separate service. He added that providing a cake is not indicative of the bakery's endorsement of that event — when a product is bought, the business is not held accountable for how it is used.
LiMandri said it's not just about the cake — the product does indeed send a message. If Miller is forced to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, he argued, then she's being asked to send a message, and that message goes against her freedom of speech, as well as her bakery's brand.
Miller is not refusing to serve gay couples, LiMandri said, she's refusing to make them wedding cakes. She cannot stop making cakes because it would be disruptive to their business. Therefore, she has to either lose her business or her faith, he added.
Her work is art — simply look at the number of flavors, fillings, frosting and designs involved in cake-making, her attorney argued. Each of those items requires a different skill to create, and frostings are applied differently to each to create unique products, LiMandri argued.
Miller testified Thursday she does not solely use boxed recipes. She uses a boxed cake mix with other ingredients when she has a multi-tiered cake and needs a steady base. However, her own recipes create the smaller-stacked cakes. She only buys frosting to meet special dietary needs.
The DFEH wrote in its complaint the department is seeking discrimination training for Miller, an act that LiMandri equated to the reeducation camp, equivalent to Soviet gulag or communist China.
Ishani Desai can be reached at 661-395-7417. Follow her on Twitter: @_ishanidesai.
