Tastries Bakery is owned by a California cake designer and artist, Cathy Miller. She is a creative professional who is fighting to uphold her right to creative expression consistent with her faith and conscience without fear of government punishment. Cathy is a devout Christian. And Cathy’s relationship with Jesus Christ impacts every area of her life, including her work as owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California. She has been the target of multiple lawsuits after a lesbian couple asked her to bake a wedding cake and she referred them to another baker, citing her sincere religious belief that marriage is intended to be between one man and one woman.
Cathy’s husband, Mike Miller, tenderly describes his wife, “Cathy has been the person that has stood on her principles and her faith as long as I’ve known her and I guess for her entire life.”
And their longtime pastor, Roger Spradlin, paints an image of this Christian couple: “Cathy and Mike Miller are a wonderful couple that have been a part of our church for many, many years. But more importantly, they’re people who love the Lord. They’re people that are committed to Christ. They’re committed not only in their belief, but more importantly, perhaps, in their behavior, to live Christian principles in a way that influences people around them to want to be Christians themselves.”
“Cathy Miller is just an amazing, honest joyful, saintly lady who loves and cares about all her customers, and she's a devout Christian," Paul Jonna, Thomas More Society Special Counsel and Cathy's attorney. "She is just a truly generous and phenomenal human being.”
Cathy tells us how the case started: “On August 26, 2017, a couple of girls and a couple of boys and an older woman came into the bakery for a cake tasting and I visited with them and it became apparent right off that I was dealing with a situation that I was uncomfortable with based on my religious beliefs. That two girls were wanting to get married. They were lesbians. I told them I said you know I'm really sorry I can’t do your cake. But have a good baker who can do your wedding cake and within an hour we were bombarded by the news media and hate mail and it was just terrible. So I locked the doors and prayed and it was a really, really, really hard day.”
Attorney Paul Jonna explains the legal issues, “Right after this couple attempted to purchase this wedding cake for the same sex wedding, after Cathy very politely and respectfully declined the orders, she referred them to another baker. Immediately, I think within within an hour, social media went viral. She was getting lots of hateful threatening phone calls. Her email was bombarded with pornographic images. People were calling and threatening to do all kinds of really vile and disgusting things to her and to her staff. She was the subject of and her employees were the subject of a lot of harassment for a long period of time. Cathy didn’t intend to cause any harm, she was just trying to follow her faith and her conscience and stand up for what she believes in but do it in a respectful and polite and loving way.”
Cathy describes the backlash of this attack, “I had seven employees in two weeks quit because they couldn’t handle it. I can’t even go into how bad it has been, horrible to the point where I can only allow certain people to open our emails. My daughter refused to let me see our social media which was so hateful.”