WASHINGTON The Department of Justice told the Supreme Court on Thursday that a baker who is religiously opposed to gay marriage should not be forced to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples.

DOJ said that requiring Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, to create a wedding cake for a gay couple under public accommodations laws would violate his constitutional rights.

Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights, the Justice Department wrote in an amicus brief filed ahead of oral argument in the case. In the view of the United States, a ... First Amendment intrusion occurs where a public accommodations law compels someone to create expression for a particular person or entity and to participate, literally or figuratively, in a ceremony or other expressive event.

Businesses and other places that are considered public accommodations are barred by law from discriminating against people on the basis of factors like race and religion. The DOJ brief suggests that such laws should not be able to compel artists to create inherently communicative goods, like wedding cakes.

DOJs filing raises the possibility that if the Masterpiece Cakeshop cant refuse to bake a cake for the marriage of a same-sex couple, then a freelance graphic designer who designs flyers for Jewish affinity groups might also be forced to do so for a neo-Nazi group or the Westboro Baptist Church.