Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips won in the U.S. Supreme Court after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission took action against him because he declined to design and create a custom wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage. That lawsuit was filed in 2012 and not resolved until 2018, when the Supreme Court ruled that the state had acted with “clear and impermissible hostility” toward Phillips’ religious beliefs, violating his rights under the First Amendment.
That same Colorado agency went after Phillips again, right after the Supreme Court decision, because he had declined to design a cake celebrating someone’s gender transition. Phillips filed a federal lawsuit against the agency in that case and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission withdrew its complaint.
Now, the person who requested the gender-transition cake is suing Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop in state court for discriminating against him/her.
Phillips doesn’t make cakes that advocate certain things that are in conflict with his deeply held Christian beliefs. Those include Halloween cakes, cakes that disparage people or degrade others. No, he won’t bake you a cake that celebrates Satan, demons, or blasphemy.
The attorney, formerly a man but now presenting as a woman, is Autumn Scardina, who called Masterpiece Cakeshop in June of 2017 and requested a custom cake designed with blue frosting on the outside and pink cake on the inside to celebrate and reflect a transition from male to female. The call came on the same day that the Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ original case about the same-sex wedding cake.
“The shop declined the request [for a gender transition cake] because the message of the cake contradicts Jack’s religious belief that God creates us either male or female,” said Alliance for Defending Freedom.
“And a few months later, Scardina made another request of Masterpiece Cakeshop. This request was for a custom cake featuring Satan smoking marijuana,” ADF wrote.
Scardina first filed a charge against Phillips with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which got involved but eventually dropped that case.
Scardina wasn’t done. He/she has taken the matter to a state court to litigate against Masterpiece Cakeshop.
Read more about this case at Alliance for Defending Freedom, which is defending Jack Phillips.
“For some, it won’t be enough until Masterpiece Cakeshop closes its doors. They want Jack, an average American business owner, to pay a hefty price—all because he wants to live according to his faith,” ADF wrote.
