Wasn't the whole cake thing that they wanted custom writing on top? As in, a plain old cake would be fine, but a cake that said "Congratulations on your wedding!" would be speech, as far as I read it.
It's a good point regardless, though, and I don't envy the position of trying to draw the line between what's protected speech and what's not.
Edit: it seems the cake was not requesting custom writing -- custom writing was explicitly protected as free speech in another case. It seems in the analogy of the burger joint, that case was more akin to a burger joint which only sold "I endorse your decisions" buns. Which makes me as glad as ever that I'm not in charge of being the arbiter of what's speech and what's not.
Not for the cake shop in Colorado. The couple just came in and said "we want a wedding cake for our gay wedding" and the owner refused with no other details about the cake discussed. I do however see there have been lawsuits where the writing on cake was at issue (including one in the UK where the request was to write "Support gay marriage") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
Do you have a citation for that? I've also seen reporting that there wasn't an actual couple, and to be honest: I'm having trouble figuring out what's real here.
It's a good point regardless, though, and I don't envy the position of trying to draw the line between what's protected speech and what's not.
Edit: it seems the cake was not requesting custom writing -- custom writing was explicitly protected as free speech in another case. It seems in the analogy of the burger joint, that case was more akin to a burger joint which only sold "I endorse your decisions" buns. Which makes me as glad as ever that I'm not in charge of being the arbiter of what's speech and what's not.