Can a business open to the general public refuse service to a gay couple because of the owner’s religious belief that homosexuality, or same-sex marriage, is abhorrent before God?

It’s an issue debated across the country, including Hawaii. Recently, a lesbian couple won a legal challenge against a Hawaii Kai bed-and-breakfast owner who turned them away on religious grounds.

So when the question reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, there was much anticipation and concern on both sides of the argument.

The court’s narrow ruling did not settle the issue. But it advanced two important principles: First, that government agencies must handle questions of religious liberty in a respectful and neutral manner, neither favoring nor demeaning religious beliefs. Second, that businesses choosing to serve the general public have an obligation to respect the civil rights of all who seek their services.

The Masterpiece Cakeshop case — a dispute between a gay couple and the devoutly Christian baker who refused to create their wedding cake — had the markers of a monumental Constitutional reckoning.

The baker, Jack Phillips, argued that creating a cake for a same-sex wedding would force him to endorse a practice he opposed, a violation of both his First Amendment free-speech rights and his right to the free exercise of his religion.

Colorado’s public accommodation laws, similar to Hawaii’s, forbid businesses that provide services to the general public from denying equal access to goods and services because of a person’s sexual orientation. After considering the case, the Colorado commission referred the case to a judge, who rejected Phillips’ claims.

The Supreme Court, in Monday’s 7-2 ruling favoring Phillips, concluded that the commission demonstrated such hostility toward religion that Phillips was denied a fair hearing.

It cited comments by one commissioner who described religion as justifying “all kinds of discrimination throughout history” including slavery and the Holocaust, and as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use.” Those comments were not challenged by other commissioners or in subsequent legal proceedings.

Such comments and the bias they demonstrate are beyond the pale, especially for a commission charged with defending civil rights. After all, religious freedom itself is a civil right.

But where to draw the line? Can a person’s religious beliefs supersede anti-discrimination laws in all cases?

Well, no. The court noted that while the right to refuse service has its place — members of the clergy cannot be compelled to perform same-sex marriages — there are limits.

Otherwise, “a long list of persons who provide goods and services for marriages and weddings might refuse to do so for gay persons, thus resulting in a community-wide stigma inconsistent with the history and dynamics of civil rights laws that ensure equal access to goods, services, and public accommodations,” the court noted.

Hawaii’s public accommodations law requires equal treatment regardless of race, ancestry, religion, disability, color, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. It’s a good and necessary law, protecting those who have traditionally been denied full participation in society because of prejudice.

In February, the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals rightly upheld a lower court ruling that the owner of a Hawaii Kai bed-and-breakfast, who ran a business offering rooms to nearly anyone, is liable for discriminatory practices for refusing to rent to a vacationing couple just because they were lesbians.

It should be noted that at the time Phillips refused to bake the cake, in 2012, Colorado had not legalized gay marriage. That’s not the case now; the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) held that same-sex marriage, like traditional marriages, is a protected right under the 14th Amendment.