After Enduring Harassment by His Government, Here’s What a Christian Baker Hopes Will Happen Now

Jack Phillips refuses to make custom cakes that celebrate Halloween or witchcraft. He also won’t use his artistic talents to design adult-themed cakes.

But the case that brought the baker to court involved two homosexuals who wanted a custom “wedding” cake.

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which doesn’t care about Phillips’s civil rights, ordered him to make the cake. Lower courts upheld this ruling, and the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court in 2018 ruled in Phillips’s favor, but it didn’t go far enough to protect all Christian business owners who want nothing to do with the profaning of marriage.

The commission went after Phillips again after a male lawyer pretending to be a woman asked him to make a custom “transitioning” cake. Naturally, he refused. Phillips filed suit against the commission for harassment. The commission recently dropped the complaint against him, and Phillips dropped his suit against the commission. But the lawyer could still sue him.

Phillips wrote an op-ed for his state’s major newspaper. An excerpt:

For decades, I was just a cake artist. I opened Masterpiece Cakeshop in 1993. And each day since then, I have focused my artistic talents on creating custom cakes — talents that I developed through countless art classes and years of practice. I have used my skills as a designer, sculptor, and painter to build Masterpiece Cakeshop into an “art gallery of cakes.”

But in 2012, I became more than an artist. I became a target of Colorado officials who were unabashedly hostile to my faith.
…
I hope this is the end of my legal battles, and that I can return to my quiet life as a cake artist. I love creating my cake art for all people. What I can’t do is create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events in conflict with my religious beliefs.

And that should be OK because a truly tolerant society tolerates different convictions. The First Amendment protects the peaceful exercise of my beliefs, and it protects my choice of what not to say and what not to celebrate. It protects you as well.

I lost the right to live out my freedom for nearly seven years. I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.

Why were this Christian’s beliefs intolerable? Would the government expect a black baker to make a custom KKK-themed wedding cake? It’s laughable. But why isn’t it equally ridiculous to expect a Christian to acknowledge and provide services for something the God he worships calls a sin?

Unfortunately, we must expect more of these cases involving Christians. Chances are, homosexuals won’t be suing Muslim business owners anytime soon. Or ever.