andity to refuse to speak includes the context where other people might be offended. we recognize on each side of the question, people are going to be offended. if being offended was enough to curtail someone else's religious freedom or friend most beach, this would no longer be the same country that was founded over 200 years ago because the essence of america has been for , i may disagree with everything you say but i will defend until your death the right to say it. in this case, it is worse. defending to be the death the right to refuse to engage in streets that violate a person's core religious and political conventions. chris wagner will come up here in just a second from our team. in a great job. she was peppered with a lot of questions. i think the court heard from four able lawyers. at the end of the day we had a good chance of prevailing. it will be close. the court paid a lot of attention to it and i expect to see the very vigorous discussion amongst the judges in relative opinions. >> good morning. it is my privilege to be here with jack and stanford. i have a flower shop in washington state, and we have been in business for a long time. i have asked the court to take our case. i have had my flower shop for many years, and it has been my privilege to be in our community for three generations for prompt students. i tried to work my business according to my faith, to all types of people. when of the gentlemen who is suing me has been my customer for over 10 years. i have custom created designs for him for many years. i came to view rob more as a friend and a customer. rob has been in my store and i thoroughly enjoy working with him. because of my faith, when rob came into my store to talk to me about his same-sex wedding, i referred him to three other florists, which i knew would do him a good job. i never turned down rob because of who he was. i decline to celebrate an event that goes against my faith. if i saw rob tomorrow, if you walked into my shop, i would hug him, ketchup, and wait on him for another -- catch up, and wait on him for another 10 years. we could lose everything we have that we have saved give our children to our grandchildren. simply because i believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. but to lose everything we have, our home, our retirement, our life savings, simply because i referred a longtime customer for one event -- jack and i are standing not just for us, but for all of you. [indiscernible] peacefully to work with her conference, and if the government can come in and tell you what to do or they will destroy you, then we do not live in a free america. thank you. mr. phillips: good morning. i am jack phillips, the owner of masterpiece cake shop. i serve all who walk through my doors, people from all walks of life. i've spent many years honing my craft as a cake artist, combining baking with my love of sculpting, painting, and sketching. and i love my craft because i get to turn a cake into a canvas, where i get to express ideas, celebrity events, and bring joy to my community. one of my favorite parts of my job has always been creating wedding cakes. designing them, creating them allows me to use my artistic vision to create works of art that are beautiful and distinctive and mark the beginning of something sacred. though i serve everyone who comes into my shop, like many other creative professionals, i do not create custom designs for events or messages that conflict with my conscience. i do not create cakes or halloween, for homosexual or anti-american things, or disparage people, including people who identify as lgbt. it is never about the person, never about the person making the request. it is always about the cake. it is always about the message the person wants the cake to communicate. i'm here at the supreme court today because i respectfully declined to create a custom cake that would celebrate a view of marriage in direct conflict with my faith's core teachings on marriage. i offer to sell the two gentleman who are suing me anything in my shop or create a design on a cake for any other occasion. for that decision, which was guided by an established set of religious beliefs, i have endured a five-year court battle. it has been very hard on me and my family. have been many tears -- there have been many tears -- many difficult -- many difficult days for us. i have had to stop creating the wedding art that i love. i have faced death threats and harassment. stopping the wedding art has cost us much of our business. so much so that now we are struggling just to make ends meet to keep the shop afloat. it is hard to believe that the government is forcing me to choose between providing for my family and my employees and violating a relationship with god. that is not freedom. that is not tolerance. i'm profoundly thankful to the united states supreme court for taking my case, and i hope and pray they will affirm the freedom of artists to peacefully express themselves in ways consistent with who they are. thank you. >> i can stand on my toes. i argued on behalf of jack phillips today. what a great privilege it was to stand on his behalf and on behalf of all creative professionals and their right to be able to speak and live consistent with their beliefs regardless of what those police are on this particular subject. jack phillips loves answers everyone -- laws and servers everyone, and -- colorado's position was so extreme today that it said that the state could actually compel all kinds of artists, filmmakers, photographers, graphic designers, who are paid to express messages that violate their identity. this court has never, never compelled artistic expression or political or ideological expression, and if it does so now, we will have less ability, pluralism, and diversity. as kennedy suggested today during the argument, tolerance requires respect for those with whom we disagree. and colorado has neither been tolerant respectful of mr. phillips. for that reason, we ask the court to reverse the lower's decision. thank you. [indiscernible] >> i think it is hard to know where justice kennedy is at. i do not want to speculate on that. i was pleased to know the court is considering both sides of this issue and that dignity cuts both ways. mr. phillips has a great amount at stake, and the forcing people to violate the provisions is something the constitution does not permit. >> whether or not cake baking is speech? >> anytime anybody sketches, skulls, or hand paints, that is speech -- sculpts, or hand paints, that is speech. >> [indiscernible] >> the supreme court has set a low bar on what qualifies as speech, and has asked him is the artist communicating something, and is it analogous to other protected forms of speech? hairdressing is not, but sketching, sculpting, and hand painting is. thank you very much. [indiscernible] we are heartened that what justice kennedy recognized that what the bakery wants to do would be an affront to the gate -- the gay community. that is something that has been rejected time and time again. we are hopeful that he will do the same again in this case. there is only one thing i regret about this morning, and that is that the court not get to hear from david and charlie directed. -- directly. it is my privilege to stand here today with them. i cannot tell you how proud i am of dave and charlie telling their story. it is not easy to tell the country how it felt to be embarrassed and shaped in a public place simply because of who you are. that is exactly what dave and charlie have done so no one has to go through what they did. before you hear from dave and charlie, i would like to introduce you to charlie's mom, who was -- [cheers] debbie was with david and charlie when they visit the cake shop, and she will tell you what it felt like as a mother to stand by and watch her son and the love of his life be humiliated sickly because of who they are. in america, no one should be turned away because of who they are or who they love. let's hear it for debbie munn. ms. munn: you know, nobody wants to go to court with their child in front of one judge. but today it was different being in front of the justices because i know my son and his husband did nothing wrong. basically went into a business and thought they had a right to order a wedding cake. businesses that base their customer base on who you are and who you love have hurt a lot of people. that day at the cake shop, when i was with my son, i sat there after the baker told us that he would not sell them a same-sex commitment cake. i do not know what to do. we eventually got up, walked out to the car, and as i am sitting in the car, i see that my son, who is a grown man, is starting to shake. and as i put my arms around him, i realized he is broke down. as a parent, you want to protect your children. you do not want people to be judging who they are when they do not know who they are. a complete stranger decided in a public accommodation to turn him away and to turn away the love of his life. in that time, i have seen so much more acceptance among the community for loving people, not based on their orientation, but simply loving people because there is no orientation. i mean, you know what i mean? they love you for who you are. and today, i want to give a heartfelt thanks to the aclu, because -- because we would not be here without their support, and i will be honest, going through the grueling job that they go through almost on a daily basis, they would not be here if it was not for the support of you all. the countless hours of volunteers have given. so from us to you, i want to say thank you, and it is about open to all. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, debbie. and you will now hear directly from david and charlie. charlie? [cheers and applause] mr. craig: i want to make sure you guys can hear me very loudly. thank you. ha-ha. let's start. man, you guys look good today. what a group of beautiful people to come out supporting us, and david and i are truly humbled by each and every one of you coming out today. thank you, thank you, thank you, and let's give a round of applause for -- today. [cheers] this entire time dave and i have been asking to be treated equally in public, and that is our platform. over the past 5 1/2 years, we have heard stories from countless people from basically birth to death and everywhere in between. so much discrimination is happening, and somehow dave and i were able to get this platform. today we stand up for ourselves, but we stand up for you, too, and we can tell you guys are standing up for us, and we are all in this together, right? let's see. just a little bit about me and dave. i feel like we are two regular guys that were just wrong, and we decided to stand up for ourselves. you know, i feel like dave and i do not have an agenda. we do have hopes and dreams. we want our friends and families to be able to live meaningful lives. we want to grow old together. we really like ragdoll kitties. the most important we want everybody to be treated equally, you know? we all deserve fair and equal treatment. and that is why we are here today. i'm going to do a little chance, and hopefully we will be louder than the other side, because in the end, i say love always wins. i say love, you say wins. love. >> wins. mr. craig: love. >> wins. mr. craig: thank you. mr. mullins: hi. i'm dave mullins. thank you. this is not about the cake. this has never been about the cake. and this is not about weddings. it has never been about weddings. no. this is about freedom, freedom for lgbt people to live full lives in public and not in constant fear that they will be denied basic services, fired from their jobs, or lose their homes because of who they are. when people live in a world when they can legally be turned away, they feel rejected, unsafe, they feel they do not belong in our society simply for being born different. and unless society chooses to embrace their rights, some of them will simply choose to remain hidden. cut off from the world and who they really are. to this day, charlie and my experience in masterpiece cake shop is a persistent memory, the memory of the mortification and humiliation does not go away. it is always there the next time we walk into a business, wondering whether the same thing will happen, and maybe we should just pretend we are not a and are not married just to be safe. in the next time someone harasses you on the street, a little bit of you wonders maybe you deserve it. but you do not. we do not. nobody does. and that is why we are here today, to stand up and show everyone and ourselves that our freedom is worth fighting for. [cheers and applause] mr. mullins: that only when we stand up and say, no, i will not be pushed into the shadows, can we fully claimed the promise of equality that is our promised birthright as a records. i love charlie more than i could ever put into words, and i cannot stand by and do nothing while someone tries to make our love into something shameful and wrong. make it into something worthy of contempt. our love is just as real and true as anyone else's, and we deserve the right to live full lives in public without having that love turned into a weapon, a weapon used to deny us the basics of freedom. what happened to us was wrong, and we do not want another couple to go to the pain and humiliation the experience. nobody deserves that. we did not, and neither do any of you. thank you all for coming out today and standing up for us, standing up for yourselves, and standing for freedom. applause]d tolerance in its most meaningful and mitchell and suggested that colorado was making things unfair to mr. phillips. which do you think this continues pointing? >> i think it is very hard to read the justices and hard to read justice kennedy in this case. i think the law is on our side. tolerance is a good. tolerance on both sides is a good. rule in-standing virtually in every state and u.s. law is that, if you are a business and you open yourself up to the public, you can't be intolerant. you can't single out people are refused to provide them services because they are catholic, because they are jewish, because they are gay, because they are black or because they are white. >> hi, everybody. >> i'm not going to say anything. >> we wanted to take this opportunity come in case there were still people at home who don't really know our story, cap and. five and a half years ago, charlie and i were getting married. like any married couple, we were excited. we had a million details to finalize. this particular day was a special one because charlie's mom was in town. she was there to help us take a cake. this was her one opportunity to help be involved in the wedding planning. our reception planner suggested to us that we use masterpiece cake shop because she had use them in the past. we looked online and thought their cakes looks good. we made an appointment and went in. we had a binder full of ideas and concepts. but we never even got a chance to open that binder. as soon as we sat down with the owner, he asked to the cake was for. we told him it was for us. us immediately, he informed he would not make a cake for a same-sex wedding. what followed was a horrible, pregnant pause. what was happening really sunk in. and we were mortified and humiliated. as quickly as we could, we gathered ourselves and left. lot,we got to the parking it's embarrassing to admit, but i cried. charlie cried. rejectedurt and felt and we felt like second-class citizens in our society. and we want people to know that this story is in an abstract. this is about real pain felt by and things that aren't suffered every day by lgbt people across this country -- that are suffered every day by lgbt people across this country. tears -- ing away see you wiping away tears. >> just know that this journey has been long. let me just share that. i witnessed the rejection that my son and his fiancee felt. as a parent, it was heartbreaking to know that i could not protect my child at that moment from the pain he felt from the rejection. but to stand today in the supreme court, knowing that all the love and support across the united states and the world for civil rights, it was very exciting. so i felt good today. >> and why are you crying? moved,ink i'm just again, by the love and support that the community has provided. i'm thankful that this day is now over. and i don't want any other parents to ever go through what i did. and i don't want their children to ever face that rejection of being made to feel they are not good enough. anybody else? >> [indiscernible] >> will you repeat the question? following this case, going to rallies, what do you want to say to them? >> i would want to tell those people thank you for your support. your support has been so important to us, not just to keep us going, but the help us understand how important what it is following this through. what happened to us was painful. but we also learned how many different ways it affects people and in how many different stages of life. thank you for keeping us going. >> because same-sex couples are not allowed. and then, at the end of our funeral homes, like the funeral home who turned away our client [indiscernible]

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Colorado , United States , America , Jack Phillips , Chris Wagner , Charlie , Dave Mullins ,