Masterpiece Cakeshop owner and devout Christian Jack Phillips is facing another bout of legal persecution after the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that he violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws for refusing to bake a cake celebrating transgenderism.
A three-judge panel determined on Thursday that Phillips’s firmly held belief that “God designed people male and female” is moot when it comes to his family business’s decision to decline the sales of certain cakes.
The same day that the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in a similar case in 2018, Phillips’s shop was approached by transgender activist Autumn Scardina who deliberately stated intent to “correct the errors of [Phillips’] thinking.” Scardina wanted Phillips to make a custom pink cake with blue icing to celebrate a “gender transition.” Scardina also requested a cake with “an image of Satan smoking marijuana.”
When Phillips refused because creating something celebrating transgenderism and Satan “conflicts with [his] Bible’s teachings,” which Scardina knew, Scardina sued him under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) for allegedly denying the sale based on Scardina’s “gender status.”
“Phillips works with all people and always decides whether to take a project based on what message a cake will express, not who is requesting it,” a press release from Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization representing Phillips, states.
For his belief “that a person’s gender is biologically determined,” Phillips was fined $500 by a trial court in 2021. Phillips appealed under the premise that his rejection of the cake order hinged on “firm and sincere religious beliefs
