During its new session, the Supreme Court will have a chance to reassess the Colorado law that has entangled Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips in a decade-long legal battle for his First Amendment rights.
Lorie Smith, owner of the small graphic design business 303 Creative, is challenging the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), which prohibits public accommodations from restricting services based on sexual orientation. It’s the same law that brought Phillips before the Supreme Court in 2018 for declining to make a cake for a same-sex wedding and continues to cause him legal trouble.
Though Phillips won his 2018 case, the ruling never addressed the core question: Can the government compel artists to speak against their convictions? Instead, it narrowly found that the Colorado Commission of Civil rights demonstrated “clear and impermissible hostility” against Phillips’ beliefs and did not give his claims “neutral and respectful consideration.”
So Phillips is still in
