Colorado Cake Baker Jack Phillips Is Again at the Center of a Court Battle Over Religious Liberty
The new case, involving a request to make a cake to celebrate a gender transition, is built on ludicrous contortions of logic and law.

Iâve been writing about Denver-area baker Jack Phillips for more than a decade now. Itâs clear to me heâs going to be badgered into the grave by authoritarians intent on punishing him for thought crimes. From the first time his name appeared in the news until this day, the press have misled the public about him, about the case, and about the law.
The latest chapter in Mr. Phillipsâs Kafkaesque saga involves a transgender lawyer named Autumn Scardina, who demanded Phillips create a pink cake with blue frosting to help celebrate a gender transition. As expected, Mr. Phillips, whoâd already spent years fighting government coercion, refused to participate.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission agreed that Ms. Scardina had been discriminated against as a transgender person. Then, A. Bruce Jones of the 2nd Judicial District upheld the commissionâs flagrant attack on free expression. Now, the Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to take up the case.
The entire case is built on ludicrous contortions of logic and law. The Colorado Court of Appeals, for instance, ruled in favor of Ms. Scardina, contending that the colors pink and blue arenât really speech because, in and of themselves, they arenât expressive of anything. The message, says the court, is âgenerated by the observer.â
Yes. Because Mr. Phillips isnât a complete idiot, he understands that context matters. The color white has no inherent meaning, either. If a known Klansman asks a tailor to fit him for some white sheets, it definitely does.
Then again, if you believe Ms. Scardina just happened to approach the most famous Christian baker in the country to create a âtransitionâ cake the same day the Supreme Court announced it would hear the Masterpiece case in 2017, youâre certainly an idiot. The entire episode with Ms. Scardina, including the configuration of the cake â using colors but no words â was calibrated to set Mr. Phillips up.
In the initial complaint to the Civil Rights Commission, Ms. Scardina claimed to be âstunnedâ by Mr. Phillipsâs rejection. It should be noted, because it isnât in any press coverage, that Phillipsâs lawyers had very good reason to suspect Ms. Scardina, whose name appeared on a caller ID, first requested âan image of Satan smoking marijuana.â
Later, an email was sent to the shop requesting âa three-tiered white cakeâ with a âlarge figure of Satan, licking a (nine-inch) black Dildo ⊠that can be turned on before we unveil the cake.â
Then again, Ms. Scardina admitted it was a setup. As the Associated Press reported last year, according to the activistâs lawyer, âShe called Phillipsâ Masterpiece Cakeshop to place the order after hearing about the courtâs announcement because she wanted to find out if he really meant it ⊠It was more of calling someoneâs bluff.â
There was no bluff to call. Mr. Phillips isnât going to create cakes to celebrate gay weddings or gender transitions or the grand openings of strip clubs or bawdy bachelor parties or for a âhappy divorce!â or any other event that undermines his faith. And even if he was the biggest hypocrite in all of Christendom â which he most certainly isnât â it wouldnât change anything. Americans donât have to justify their free expression to anyone.
Ms. Scardina claims the lawsuit was intended to âchallenge the veracityâ of Mr. Phillipsâs claim that he would serve LGBTQ customers. This is the central lie of the case. Mr. Phillips never once refused to sell a gay couple or a transgender person or anyone else anything in his store. Yet Mr. Phillips isnât Ms. Scardinaâs servant, and the government has no right to compel him to endorse or participate in any lifestyle.
Speaking of which, the press keeps contending that Mr. Phillips is looking for a religious âcarve outâ in anti-discrimination law â or something along those lines. No such thing exists. It is unclear if the people who write those words are unfamiliar with the First Amendment or just instinctively dismiss it, but religious liberty and free expression are explicitly protected by law.
Anything that infringes on those rights is the âcarve out,â not the other way around. If âanti-discriminationâ laws dictate that the government can compel Americans to express ideas they disagree with, as Colorado does, then anti-discrimination laws need to be overturned, tout de suite.
At this point, the best-case scenario is for Mr. Phillipsâs case to reach the Supreme Court, so the court can either repair the Masterpiece decision â which basically provided the state and activists with a guidebook on bullying people of faith, basically, donât show public animosity while doing it â or shelve the First Amendment.
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