Christian baker Jack Phillips is back in court, again.
This man has been relentlessly persecuted by the state of Colorado for eleven years. I will try to summarize his plight as succinctly as I can.
In 2013, Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver, was accused by Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission (CCRD) of discriminating against a homosexual couple because he refused to bake them a cake for their “wedding.” An administrative law judge found in favor of the couple, and this was affirmed by the Commission. The decision was appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which again affirmed the Commission’s decision in 2015. A petition for a writ of certiorari was filed with the Supreme Court in 2016, and was granted in 2017. The Court, in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018), in a 7-2 vote, ruled in favor of Phillips because “the Commission’s actions here violated the Free Exercise Clause.”
On the same day that the Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ challenge to the CCRD, Autumn Scardina—or at least that is the name he goes by—requested that Phillips bake him a cake pink on the inside and blue on the outside to celebrate his birthday and seventh anniversary of his “gender transition” from male to female. After Phillips refused, Scardina filed a complaint with the CCRD. CCRD director Aubrey Elenis concluded that there was probable cause that Phillips had unlawfully denied Scardina “equal enjoyment of a place of public accommodation,” and ordered the two to enter mediation. Phillips sued the state of Colorado in U.S. District Court in Denver for renewing its “crusade” again him because he again refused to bake a cake that would have violated his religious beliefs. In March 2019, the state Attorney General’s office announced that it and Phillips’ attorneys had “mutually agreed to end their ongoing state and federal court litigation,” including the CCRD action against Phillips. So Scardina filed a civil suit of his own in state court. A Denver District Court judge ruled that Phillips violated Colorado anti-discrimination law by refusing to bake the special cake. Phillips appealed, but lost when a Colorado Court of Appeals upheld the lower court decision.
Now the fate of Jack Phillips is in the hands of the Colorado Supreme Court, which agreed last October to hear his appeal. Last month his attorney’s argued that Phillips should not be forced to make a cake that violates his deeply held religious beliefs. He is represented once again by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Senior counsel Jake Warner remarked prior to oral arguments: “This case is about free speech for everyone.”
Actually, it’s not.
The Jack Phillips saga has nothing to do with free speech. It has nothing to do with same-sex marriage. It has nothing to do with baking a cake. It has nothing to do with gender transitioning. It has nothing to do with protected speech. It has nothing to do with LGBT rights.
It has everything to do with freedom.
In a free country, if you own a bakery, and you own the floor, eggs, butter, baking powder, sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and frosting in the bakery, then it is up to you to decide what kind of cake you will make and to whom you will sell it.
But we don’t live in a free country. Not when you must forcibly give up your property or face harassment, persecution, fines, and/or imprisonment. Anti-discrimination laws are an attack on property rights, freedom of association, the free market, and freedom of thought.
Will someone bake this tranny a cake? Will 1,000 bakers bake 1,000 pink and blue cakes and deliver them to this tranny’s doorstep so that he can eat them to his heart’s content?
But, of course, we know that “Autumn” Scardina doesn’t want 1,000 cakes or even one cake. He just wants special privileges because he is a tranny.
The state of Colorado owes Jack Phillips a huge apology.
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