The Christian baker from Denver who was a Cancel Culture target long before it became fashionable to ruin people’s lives over their beliefs will be back in court this week.
On Monday, the Alliance Defending Freedom noted in a press release that Jack Phillips must once again defend his religious faith from LGBT activists who crave nothing less than his utter destruction – all in the name of “tolerance.”
To recap, Phillips opened his Masterpiece Cakeshop in 1993. And while he offers all sorts of baked goods, his specialty is cakes for events like weddings and graduations. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit civil liberties group that has been defending Phillips, refers to him as a “cake artist.”
Phillips odyssey through the various levels of the legal system began in 2012 when he refused to create a specialized cake for a gay wedding.
Phillips declined, saying lending his skill to customize such a dessert would subvert his religious faith, which did not endorse same-sex marriages, which were still illegal at the time.
The baker, according to ADF, had a history of refusing to make cakes he considered offensive to her personal faith. Besides same-sex weddings and gender transition events, Phillips turned down requests for cakes that celebrate Halloween, the use of marijuana or illegal drugs, or disparaging others, including members of the LGBT community.
The customers, instead of seeking another baker and punishing Phillips with lost business, declared Phillips a bigot and appealed to state human rights commissioners.
The state declared that Phillips should have baked the cake. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, ripped the state for going after him with “clear and impermissible hostility.”
“The state persisted in punishing Jack when he declined requests for cakes expressing messages in conflict with his religious beliefs,” the ADF noted.
Yet the legal respite didn’t last.
According to ADF, a local lawyer filed another complaint against Phillips. This time, it was over his refusal to “create a custom pink and blue cake to celebrate Scardina’s gender transition.”
The state was prepared to drag Phillipsint court again. ADF is defending him. In its lawsuit countering the state’s action, the ADF noted, “the commissioners who launched the second case against Jack harbored the same hostility toward Jack that the Supreme Court had rebuked. So the state dismissed the case.”
Scardina opted for a lawsuit instead of simply appealing the commission’s decision.
That case will be heard in a Denver court this week.
“Some people in Colorado who want to see Jack suffer for staying true to his beliefs,” the ADF stated, have “spent the past eight years on a crusade to crush Jack because of their hostility toward his faith. And for those eight years — and through three different court cases — Jack has been standing up to protect his freedom to live and work consistently with his beliefs.”
“Eight years is a long time to live under the weight of constant litigation that threatens the business you built and the people you love. During his first case, Jack lost a big part of his business and more than half of his employees. Over the years, he and his family have also endured hate mail, nasty phone calls, and even death threats.”
And this lawsuit, the group argued, is another “blatant attempt to punish Jack, banish him from the marketplace, and intimidate him out of business just for living according to his beliefs.”
“But that is the type of environment that Colorado has created for people of faith like Jack. The state’s hostility toward Jack’s religious beliefs has helped shape an atmosphere of intolerance” – again, ironically, all in the name of tolerance.
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