Coupled with the right to marry is now the right to discriminate against those with the legal right to marry, whether it be a county clerk issuing a license or a private business offering a service. The second part of this is more dicey.

Let them eat cake

DENVER — The case before the court on Tuesday grappled with issues of equal rights, religious objections to same-sex marriage and wedding cake.

At issue was whether Jack Phillips, a Colorado bakery owner, had broken state antidiscrimination laws when he refused to make a cake for a gay couple's wedding reception, citing his religious beliefs. With same-sex marriage now legal everywhere nationally in the wake of the United States Supreme Court ruling in June, his case is being closely watched as a test of the boundary between personal religious objections and legal discrimination.

A lawyer for Mr. Phillips, who is an evangelical Protestant, argued before the Colorado Court of Appeals that his refusal to make the cake was no different from a baker's rejecting a customer's request for a cake frosted with an image of the Confederate flag. But lawyers for the gay couple said the refusal was more akin to a bus company turning away a female passenger, or a hospital refusing to treat a gay couple's child.

"This case is simply not about cake," said Ria Mar, a staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins. "Businesses open to the public must be open to all, on the same terms."

Similar debates are echoing across the country as legal skirmishes over same-sex marriage shift to county clerks who refuse to perform same-sex vows and other instances of resistance. States are wrestling with whether they can or should grant legal protections to business owners, religious groups or others who object to same-sex weddings.

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