Bakery sent religious discrimination complaint for refusing to ice cake with anti-gay slogans

A man asked the shop to make a Bible-shaped cake with anti-gay messages

A bakery refused to ice anti-gay slogans on a cake (LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ/AFP/Getty Images)

An anti-gay activist filed a religious discrimination complaint, after a bakery refused to bake a Bible-shaped cake emblazoned with a message describing homosexuals as “detestable”.

The customer asked bakers at the Azucar Bakery in Denver to bake a cake last March. The company agreed – but staff became uncomfortable when the man demanded anti-gay messages to be written across it.

Owner Marjorie Silva told Out Front that her firm makes Christian-themed cakes all of the time, “no problem at all.”

“He wanted us to write God hates… just really radical stuff against gays. He wouldn’t allow me to make a copy of the message, but it was really hateful.

“I remember the words detestable, disgrace, homosexuality, and sinners. I told him that I would bake the cake in the shape of a Bible.”

When she suggested she could sell him a decorating bag and a tip to right the message himself, he warned Silva that she’d need to talk to her attorney.

The bakery later received a letter from the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) to alert staff that a man had filed a religious discrimination complaint against the shop.

Silva is now waiting to file a response to the complaint.

She says: “I would like to make it clear that we never refused service. We only refused to write and draw what we felt was discriminatory against gays.

“In the same manner we would not make a discriminatory cake against Christians, we will not make one that discriminates against gays.”