Colorado Cake Artist Still Being Harassed in Court

For more than 10 years now Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips has been facing court trials to defend his religious beliefs. Phillips, who in 2018 successfully defended his right not to make a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding at the Supreme Court, has been facing legal harassment from someone wanting to force him to make a cake celebrating a gender transition.

“Justice with Jessica: Jack Phillips taking his case to Colorado Supreme Court”

Earlier this month New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, found time from trying to fraudulently prosecute former President Donald Trump’s company to demand that Colorado baker Phillips make a cake. What James conveniently left out was the cake was to have a figure of Satan and a sex toy on it in her post on X.

“Masterpiece Cakeshop, a Colorado bakery, refused to make a customer a cake when they found out it was to celebrate her transition,” James posted to X. “This bakery has discriminated against LGBTQ+ people before, and I’m urging the Colorado Supreme Court to stop this transphobic discrimination. … It’s not complicated: denying services to someone simply because of who they are is discrimination, and it’s illegal. I will always fight to protect the rights of our LGBTQ+ community and any community that faces discrimination or hate or any kind.”

So because of this litigation Phillips is forced to endure by courts which, by all rights, should have dismissed this as a frivolous lawsuit for purposes of harassment, Phillips now has to spend more time away from his cake shop doing what he loves to do, designing high end cakes. Now, like so many other Christians who are asked to carry the proverbial cross, he must spend his time and resources standing up for the freedom to express what he believes are his religious and moral beliefs.

This is all the fault of two Colorado state courts which held an activist could misuse Colorado law to force Phillips to celebrate a gender transition. Fortunately Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) (https://adflegal.org/), a registered 501(C)(3) charity, has been there to defend him from this absurd abuse of discrimination law.

Alliance Defending Freedom has appealed this decision to the Colorado Supreme Court which is scheduled to hear Phillips case soon. If this State Supreme Court is not stupid a second time, the matter should be decided to Phillips favor there.

You may remember back at the beginning of his journey of more than 10 years ago Phillips was seemingly targeted because he would not create a custom cake celebrating a same-sex wedding. Phillips would not violate his religious conscience nor should he be forced to.

But, even after his two court wins, including one win at the U.S. Supreme Court, Phillips found himself back in court as a new attack was launched. This one was on gender transitioning so the attack on him continued. Jack Phillips may well be the first victim of lawfare in this country, when one thinks about it.

Phillips is being targeted by an activist attorney who said, under oath, the attorney wants to “correct the errors of [Phillips’] thinking.” This is the same local attorney named Autumn Scardina in a third attempt pursuing Phillips dating back to 2012.

Last June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in favor of free speech in the case of 303 Creative v. Elenis. The ADF took this case all the way to the high court on behalf of Lorie Smith, a Denver-area graphic artist and web designer. The Supreme Court ruled the government cannot force Americans to express things they don’t believe.

ADF Case timeline

• June 2019: Autumn Scardina filed a civil lawsuit against Jack.
• July 2019: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a motion to dismiss this lawsuit and asked the court to bring an end to this harassment of Jack.
• April 2020: A district court heard arguments on that motion. A few weeks later, the court entered an order allowing part of the lawsuit to move forward.
• March 2021: The case went to trial.
• June 2021: The court ruled that Jack can be punished for declining to create cakes that violate his beliefs.
• August 2021: ADF attorneys representing Jack filed a notice of appeal to the Colorado Court of Appeals.
• April 2023: After the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision, ADF attorneys appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court.
• July 2023: ADF attorneys filed a supplemental notice asking the Colorado Supreme Court to apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in 2023 Creative v. Elenis to similarly affirm Jack’s First Amendment rights.
• October 2023: The Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

CONCLUSION:

Christians are being wrongfully prosecuted by the insanity of the liberal left of this country. I remember when this began back in 2012 I told friends, “Let’s see them try this with an Islamic Muslim baker and see how that works out for them. The case would never make it to trial because the plaintiff would never make it to trial.”

The point I was making Islam rules by fear of consequences. Christians try to model their lives after Jesus Christ and by all accounts he was a pacifist.

Autumn Scardina, called Phillips’ suburban Denver cake shop in 2017 requesting a birthday cake. The cake was to have blue frosting on the outside and pink cake on the inside to celebrate her gender transition. Phillips, a Christian, testified at trial he did not think someone could change genders and he would not celebrate “somebody who thinks that they can.”

Copyright © 2024 by Mark S. Schwendau