Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
Jack Phillips has been through it. The latest discrimination case against him has been dismissed, but is it really over?
Phillips, a Christian, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, and client of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), serves all kinds of customers. He sells on-the-shelf cakes and uses his artistic talents to make custom cakes for all kinds of occasions.
As a Christian, however, he does not make custom cakes for homosexual “weddings,” bachelor parties, Halloween, and other events that he says conflict with his faith. But any customer can choose any cake on the shelf for any reason.
First Lawsuit
Phillips’s trouble began in 2012, when a homosexual asked him to make a custom cake for his “wedding” to a man. As a Christian who believes marriage is the union between one man and one woman — and that homosexuality is a sin — he declined. The men filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which in turn filed a lawsuit against Phillips for discrimination.
The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Phillips’s favor. The court contended in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018) that the government violated the Free Exercise Clause and treated Phillips’s religious views with contempt.
Second Lawsuit
Before Masterpiece Cakeshop was finalized, a lawyer pretending to be a woman and calling himself Autumn Scardina asked Phillips to make a custom cake celebrating his “transition,” knowing the baker would decline and despite other bakeries in the area that would have baked the cake. The word for this is harassment.
Scardina filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which dismissed his complaint. He filed a lawsuit in district court, and the case ended up in the Colorado Supreme Court. That court on Tuesday dismissed Scardina’s lawsuit and vacated the lower courts’ rulings in his favor.
The state’s highest court said that Scardina wasn’t permitted under the law to file in district court after the agency dismissed his complaint. He should have filed in the appeals court instead.
Is It Over for Phillips?
Scardina may not be finished with Phillips. His aim is to harass people who oppose his lifestyle and refuse to indulge in his fantasies. The Colorado Supreme Court shut him down this time.
“Enough is enough,” said ADF senior counsel Jake Warner. “Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone. Free speech is for everyone.”
Warner cited 303 Creative v. Elenis (2023), in which the Supreme Court ruled that the same Colorado law that ensnared Phillips could not compel Christian web designer Lorie Smith to speak a message that violated her freedom to speak or remain silent. Like Phillips, Smith did not want to provide services for homosexual “weddings.”
Scardina’s custom “transition” cake would have expressed a message Phillips opposes.
“The First Amendment protects that decision,” Warner said.
Photo credit: Alliance Defending Freedom
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