‘It Seems I’m the Only Person in the State of Colorado Who Can’t Live Out My Beliefs,’ Anti-LGBT Baker Jack Phillips Declares
Jack Phillips, the Colorado Christian, anti-gay baker who won a very narrow Supreme Court ruling earlier this year is back to refusing service to LGBT people. A transgender woman filed a complaint against Phillips saying his bakery, Masterpiece Cakeshop, refused to make her a birthday cake that is blue on the outside and pink on the inside.
Phillips, responding to the complaint, says he’s never baked such a cake before, does not bake cakes celebrating gender transitions (the rejected, prospective customer, Autumn Scardina, says her birthday coincides with her coming out as transgender), and cannot, because of his belief in Jesus, “promote the idea that a person’s sex is anything other than an immutable God-given biological reality,” as ThinkProgress reports.
“I believe that other people who request birthday cakes get to select the color and theme of the cake,” Scardina, who happens to be an attorney, says in her complaint. “The woman on the phone did not object to my request for a birthday cake until I told her I was celebrating my transition from male to female.”
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC), which determined he had discriminated against a same-sex couple in the case that ultimately landed in the U.S. Supreme Court, again determined that Phillips discriminated against an LGBT person – Autumn Scardina.
Phillips, through his attorneys, the anti-gay hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, has now filed suit against the CCRC itself.
“A Gender-Transition Cake Is Not Something I’ve Ever Made, and It’s Not an Event I Could Celebrate”
ThinkProgress’ Zack Ford, with a bit of sarcasm, explains that “the suit claims, ‘Phillips has never created a cake like that before.’ This requires believing that in the 25 years he has operated his shop, he has never made a cake that is pink on the inside and blue on the outside. The Masterpiece Cakeshop website shows many cake designs with blue exteriors, but it’s unknown if any of them were cherry, contained raspberry filling, or were otherwise artificially colored.”
Phillips suggests he’s being persecuted by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
“It seems I’m the only person in the state of Colorado who can’t live out my beliefs,” he tells The Heritage Foundation. “A gender-transition cake is not something I’ve ever made, and it’s not an event I could celebrate.”