Bedecked in fondant and flowers, modern wedding cakes are the centerpiece of the marriage feast — an edible form of art. But are they also an expression of free speech?

That is the question the Supreme Court will consider this fall when it hears the case of a Colorado baker who refused to make a custom wedding cake for a gay couple because he said it would violate his religious beliefs.
"You'd think cake would be apolitical, and yet here we are," muses baker Catherine George of Catherine George Cakes.
She was among the Washington, D.C.-area pastry chefs who crafted 18 elaborate tiered wedding cakes to show their support for marriage equality. Their creations were on display Tuesday night at the sixth annual Chefs for Equality in D.C., a fundraiser hosted by the Human Rights Campaign. Some 140 chefs, pastry chefs and mixologists participated in this year's event. The theme: "Who Can Resist?"
George said her cake — three-tiered and adorned with white fondant molding and columns meant to echo the neoclassical architecture of the Supreme Court building — was definitely intended as a political statement.

"I wanted to reference the Supreme Court case that's coming up," George says. "Which is funny, because the idea of cakes as art is part of that."