Colorado cake baker Jack Phillips is appealing the ruling on a lawsuit with the State of Colorado that would force him and other businesses to make cakes celebrating transgenderism against his will. He is appealing after being sued because he refused to make a cake that would celebrate someone's transgender surgery.
Phillips has had multiple clients who were transgender and their gender identity was not a problem for him. However, being forced against his will to take part in celebrating transgenderism, even though this violates his religious beliefs, is what he took issue with. He is now fighting in a lengthy, costly lawsuit to preserve his right to practice his religion freely.
According to Alliance Defending Freedom, Philipps was approached by a transgender activist who threatened to sue him if he denied to make her pro-transgender cake. He denied, and she filed a lawsuit against him. Now he is appealing to have the right to practice his beliefs.
Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner explained what happened in a statement:
Jack Phillips serves all people but shouldn’t be forced to create custom cakes with messages that violate his conscience. In this case, an activist attorney demanded Jack create custom cakes in order to ‘test’ Jack and ‘correct the errors’ of his thinking, and the activist even threatened to sue Jack again if the case is dismissed for any reason. Radical activists and government officials are targeting artists like Jack because they won’t promote messages on marriage and sexuality that violate their core convictions.
The same attorney who unsuccessfully filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in 2017 filed a lawsuit in state court over the identical custom cake request. A custom-designed cake, pink on the interior and blue on the exterior, was requested to symbolize and honor a gender change. Phillips' bakery turned down the request because the buyer expressly requested that the cake communicate sentiments and commemorate an occasion that contradicted Phillips' religious views. Phillips would not bake a cake conveying the requested message regardless of who asked for it, thus the choice was not made because of the individual who requested it.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission took legal action against him in 2012 after he politely refused a request to bake a custom-designed cake celebrating a same-sex wedding.
Finally, on June 4, 2018, Jack was awarded the win he deserved in that lawsuit. The United States Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Jack, holding that the state had behaved with "clear and impermissible hostility" toward Jack's religious beliefs, therefore violating the First Amendment.
That's where it should have ended. But, just as Jack was about to exhale a sigh of relief, the same Colorado government agency chose to pursue him again—only weeks after the high court's ruling. This time, Colorado authorities went after Jack because he refused to make a custom cake celebrating a gender transition.
Colorado had unfairly targeted Jack. Fortunately, the state backed down after Jack launched a federal case against them.
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