14 DAY TRIAL // A gay couple about to be married have filed a discrimination complaint after being refused a wedding cake order by a bakery.
Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig have recently married in Massachusetts in the summer of 2012 and have asked for a wedding cake upon returning to their home state of Colorado.
They placed an order with the Colorado Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver for the pastry but were denied the wedding cake.
One of the owners of the bakery acknowledged the fact that he was turning them away because of being gay. He has stressed that his religious beliefs do not allow him to support gay marriage.
The Colorado's Civil Rights Commission is hearing the couple's case in September of this year, the AP reports. The ACLU has provided the legal support to the pair after seeing Mullins' post on Facebook.
28-year-old Mullins never expected the issue to have such a major impact and the response from the LGBT community to be so strong.
According to Colorado's civil union law, business owners are not allowed to discriminate against customers based on their religious views.
A proposal for a law stating that religion is a proper criteria for customer selection has been put forward by the Republican party, but it was rejected by Democrat lawmakers.
ACLU reps have stated that the bakery has refused to cater cakes for gay weddings on several occasions, after the incident was posted to Facebook.
Jack Phillips, via his attorney Nicolle Martin, notes that the complains tramples on his Christian religious beliefs, which makes the case into a quarrel about whose rights and beliefs are more important.
This year, Island, Delaware and Minnesota have joined the other nine states to allow gay marriage. In Colorado, the situation is still a lot different, with a ban being enforced in 2006.