The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who is accused of discriminating against a gay couple when he declined to create their wedding cake in 2012. Phillips’ case could resolve the tension between an “exceedingly harsh view of so-called equity laws and an extremely limited view of free speech and the free exercise of religion” said Mike Farris, Alliance Defending Freedom president.

Small business owners who service the wedding industry are looking to Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission for relief from the threat of crushing lawsuits brought against them for violating state civil rights statutes that protect LGBT residents but offer no exception for religious liberty objections. One such case, Ingersoll v. Arlene’s Flowers, is next in the queue of cases making their way to the Supreme Court. ADF attorneys representing the Washington florist in that case will file her appeal July 14.

Speaking to reporters in a conference call Monday, Phillips said “the government has prevented me from being able to create and design cakes for any wedding ceremonies. Not only that, the government’s actions have forced me to lose 40 percent of my business, a crushing loss for us.”

He fears he will lose his business of 23 years.

Religious liberty attorneys are optimistic the addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the bench will strike an ideological balance on the court. Gorsuch’s concurring opinion in the Trinity Lutheran case, also released Monday, provided a spark of hope for ADF attorneys, including Dave Cortman. Gorsuch questioned the presumption of an underlying principle in the Free Exercise Clause that distinguishes between someone’s “religious status and religious use that they’re involved in,” Cortman said.

Gorsuch wrote, “After all, [the Free Exercise] Clause guarantees the free exercise [sic] of religion, not just the right to inward belief (or status).”

That has been a key argument in Masterpiece and similar cases. Attorneys argue state nondiscrimination laws that prioritize sexual autonomy over First Amendment Freedoms violate their clients’ freedom to act and speak according to their convictions.

“Americans disagree about sex and religion. That’s nothing new,” Luke Goodrich, deputy general counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told me. “But this case is about whether the government will allow people who disagree to live side-by-side in peace, or whether the government will instead pick one ‘correct’ moral view and force everyone to conform.”