An appeals court in Colorado ruled on Thursday that a bakery whose owner is Christian violated the state's anti-discrimination law by refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

The ruling announced was a loss for Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips and a victory for Charlie Craig and David Mullins. When the bakery turned Craig and Mullins away in 2012, the couple had plans to get married in Massachusetts and later celebrate with friends back in Colorado.

The unanimous decision by the Colorado Court of Appeals relied in part on the Supreme Court's June decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

That decision, the appellate court said in its ruling, "equated laws precluding same-sex marriage to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

"But for their sexual orientation, Craig and Mullins would not have sought to enter into a same-sex marriage, and but for their intent to do so, Masterpiece would not have denied them its services," the three-judge panel wrote.

The ruling was premised chiefly on the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of a number of protected categories, including sexual orientation.

The court noted that the purpose of CADA was to avoid "the economic and social balkanization prevalent when businesses decide to serve only their own 'kind,'" and to ensure "that the goods and services provided by public accommodations are available to all of the states citizens."