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On the day the US Supreme Court announced they would hear the Christian Colorado baker Jack Phillips' religious freedom case---June 26, 2017---a lawyer called Phillips and ordered a cake to celebrate a "gender transition" ceremony.
For the same reason---his biblical faith---he politely declined.
Although the Supreme Court ruled in favor of his religious freedom, the State of Colorado is trying once again to destroy him.
The Left, particularly the homosexual activists, are relentless.
Phillips told CBN News, "It's surprising. It all started the day the United States Supreme Court announced that it was taking up our case back in June of 2017."
He says, "That very day an attorney here in Colorado called me up and asked if we could create a cake to celebrate gender transition---a pink and blue cake."
"It's a cake we couldn't do---couldn't create because of its message---but we tried to make clear that we'd sell this individual anything else in our shop or other custom work, but we couldn't create that one because of my belief," he said.
He said, "The Bible teaches that God made male and female, and I believe that we don't get to choose that, and we don't get to change that, and the government shouldn't be able to compel me to celebrate somebody who is doing that---celebrate that by creating a cake for this occasion."
When the Supreme Court announced their ruling on the case, conservative and Christian media rejoiced, as we did in this column. While the secular Left media, such as The New York Times, published this large headline: "In Narrow Decision, Supreme Court Sides With Baker Who Turned Away Gay Couple."
The Times and many others went to great lengths to inform their readers that the ruling was very narrow, and conservatives [and Christians} shouldn't read too much into the ruling.
The NYT concluded their lengthy article by quoting Rachel B. Tiven, the chief executive of Lambda Legal---the organization that, among other things, supports legal homosexual man-boy relations.
She said, "The Court today has offered dangerous encouragement to those who would deny civil rights to L.G.B.T. people. We will fiercely resist the coming effort that will seek to turn this ruling into broad license to discriminate."
Last week Alliance Defending Freedom filed another complaint on Jack Phillips' behalf.
The ordeal is not over. Here's what happened.
The very day the Supreme Court granted Jack's request to be heard on the "wedding" cake issue, an attorney named Autumn Scardina called Masterpiece Cakeshop and asked asked Jack Phillips to create the pink and blue cake to "celebrate a 'transition' ceremony for a man that was transitioning from male to female."
Before you ask---what if this request was made in good faith?---Look at what's been happening since the first case and the Court ruling.
National Review Institute writer David French describes it like this:
In September 2017, a caller asked Phillips to design a birthday cake for Satan that would feature an image of Satan smoking marijuana. The name “Scardina” appeared on the caller identification. A few days earlier, a person had emailed Jack asking for a cake with a similar theme — except featuring “an upside-down cross, under the head of Lucifer.” This same emailer reminded Phillips that “religion is a protected class.”
On the very day that Phillips won his case at the Supreme Court, a person emailed with yet another deliberately offensive design request:
I’m thinking a three-tiered white cake. Cheesecake frosting. And the topper should be a large figure of Satan, licking a *****we will not publish this part of the request***** to be an actual working model, that can be turned on before we unveil the cake. I can provide it for you if you don’t have the means to procure one yourself.
And finally, two days later, a person identifying as “Autumn Marie” visited Phillips’s shop and requested a cake featuring a pentagram. According to ADF, “Phillips believes that person was Autumn Scardina.”
Rather than recognizing Scardina’s conduct as nothing more than a bad-faith campaign of harassment, Aubrey Elenis, the director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division, found on June 28 “probable cause” to believe that Phillips violated Scardina’s civil rights when he refused Scardina’s bad-faith request to design a cake celebrating Scardina’s “transition.”
This decision is as foolish as it is malicious. The one weakness of Jack’s Supreme Court case was that he denied the gay couple’s request to custom-design their cake before he knew the design they wanted. That left him open to the charge that he could have designed a cake that contained no obvious expressive message. Phillips countered that compelling him to use his artistic ability to help celebrate an immoral act was a violation of his First Amendment rights no matter the appearance of the cake.
ADF confirms that Jack Phillips won't back down. Phillips affirms it as well.
He says, "The Bible tells us God created us male and female, and I believe that. A gender-transition cake is not something I've ever made, and it's not an event I could celebrate."
He also said, "There are plenty of messages I won't convey on a cake."
It's not about homosexuals---it's about his personal faith and belief in what the Bible teaches.
He has also assured the press, "I will continue to stand firm in my beliefs and convictions."
French writes,
"In recent months, we’ve seen that trolling and shaming work all too well when the relevant power is a private corporation. CEOs and editors aren’t subject to the First Amendment, and they can censor at will — even if they’re degrading the American culture of free speech with every website wrongly blocked and every dissenter shamefully fired. But until the law changes, government officials can’t empower the outrage mob. They can’t engage in viewpoint discrimination, and if they act with actual animus, they can and should be held personally liable for violating a citizen’s core constitutional rights."
"In other words, if plaintiffs have the will and the resources, they can defeat government censors. While I don’t claim to know Jack Phillips well, I know that he won’t back down. I also know that ADF has the resources to fight the long battles. Trolls can’t harass Christians out of their fundamental freedoms. The battle is joined. It may rage for years, but expect Jack to prevail once again."
Be Informed. Be Faithful. Be Vigilant. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.