For twelve years, Christian cake baker Jack Phillips has been the victim of relentless lawfare from antagonistic, radical leftists who wanted to force him to abandon his religious values. But on Tuesday, the state Supreme Court dismissed the third lawfare challenge against him.
Citing procedural errors, the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina. The heart of the case was whether Phillips should be forced — against his sincerely held religious convictions — to design a cake for a mentally ill man, Autumn Scardina, who believes he is a woman. The requested cake would have been pink on the inside and blue on the outside, expressing a message that Phillips says violates his religious beliefs.
The case was “calibrated to set Phillips up,” as David Harsanyi wrote in these pages. On the same day the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up a different case involving Phillips in 2017 (SCOTUS later ruled in Phillips’ favor), Scardina requested a cake “to celebrate and symbolize a gender transition,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom. Phillips declined, and “a few months later, Scardina also asked for a cake with Satan smoking a joint, which [Phillips] declined as well,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom. Scardina would later admit he made these requests to “test” Phillips, according to Alliance Defending Freedom.
Ultimately the state court dismissed the case Tuesday.
“The underlying constitutional question this case raises has become the focus of intense public debate: How should government balance the rights of transgender individuals to
