Jack Phillips was sued by a transgender attorney for refusing to fulfil her order.
Autumn Scardina ordered a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside.
She wanted the cake to celebrate her gender transition on her birthday, but Phillips declined to make it because of its statement, but the judge ruled last year that the matter was about a refusal to market a product, not compelled to speech.
The baker’s lawyers are now challenging the ruling which saw Phillips get a $500 fine. Phillips famously won a partial Supreme Court victory in 2018 after he refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.
The baker who won a partial Supreme Court victory after declining to make a wedding cake for a gay couple on religious grounds is now challenging another ruling that went against him over a refusal to make a gender transition cake.
The lawyer for Jack Phillips on Wednesday challenged Colorado’s appeals court to overturn a ruling made last year in connection with a lawsuit brought against him by a transgender attorney.
Autumn Scardina put an order in 2017 with Phillip’s cake shop in Denver for a blue birthday cake with pink filling to signify her gender transition, but Phillips, a Christian, refused to fulfil the request, swearing in court last year that he didn’t believe that someone could switch genders and would not celebrate somebody who believes that they can.
In a June 2021 ruling, Denver District Judge A Bruce Jones said Scardina was denied a cake in breach of the law and fined him $500, the highest fine under Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act, but while Phillips said he couldn’t make the cake because of its message, Jones said the case was about the refusal to sell a product, not compelled speech.
Jones wrote that the anti-discrimination laws were intended to ensure that members of our society who have historically been treated unfairly are no longer treated as ‘others’, but now Jake Warner, an attorney representing Phillips from the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), is pushing for the court to overturn the ruling on the grounds that forcing Phillips to bake a cake conveying a message in contradiction with his beliefs is equivalent to violating his right to free speech.
Phillips famously won a partial victory at the US Supreme Court in 2018 for declining to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
Back in the day, a businessman had the right to decide who they did business with, but it appears that privilege has been withdrawn.
Can you imagine if a gay doctor in a private practice chose not to deal with heterosexuals? We should quit being so prejudiced and start appreciating our lives, but then why didn’t this lady just go and choose another baker? And it’s not like she was attempting to push her beliefs onto him, but then I guess it’s his business, his right to refuse.
However, we don’t live in a civilised society, and where do you draw the line? What if somebody doesn’t want to sell to Christians, Muslims, people of colour or even white people? Common sense is that we should eliminate all this nonsense, and learn to be tolerant of other people.
For heaven’s sake, it’s just a cake. Phillips didn’t want to make the cake and that’s okay, although prejudiced, but still just move on and use another baker, there was no need to involve courts and lawyers.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 