A Colorado court has issued a ruling forcing controversial baker Jack Phillips to violate his religious belief to serve his transgender client, and has now prompted his legal counsel to appeal the decision.
WND reported that the Second Judicial District Court's Judge A. Bruce Jones has ruled on Tuesday that the state can force Phillips to submit to the demands of his transgender client, Autumn Scardina, irregardless if it is against his religious beliefs.
Scardina filed the case after being refused of his order of a pink and blue cake from Phillip's Masterpiece Cakeshop to celebrate his "transition" to a woman. Phillips, being a Christian, implements a policy for Masterpiece Cakeshop where messages against his religious beliefs are not accepted. The policy cites messages on racism, alcohol, Halloween, marijuana, and others as unacceptable.
Phillip's legal counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom, released a statement on Wednesday announcing that they will file an appeal against the court's decision. Alliance Defending Freedom said that the court's decision "punishes" Phillips for not designing the cake activist attorney Scardina has asked him to.
"We will appeal this decision and continue to defend the freedom of all Americans to peacefully live and work according to their deeply held beliefs without fear of punishment," ADF said in the statement.
The case, "Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop," was originally filed in 2017 at the Colorado Civil Rights Commission who closed the administrative case in 2019 after it has determined that "Scardina had exhausted her administrative remedies" before issuing a closure order that "dismissed with prejudice the administrative complaint." Scardina, however, did not file an appeal for the dismissal but did file the law suit in court in June 5, 2019 on the grounds of discrimination stated in the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.
According to the 28-page court resolution signed by Jones, Phillips violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to provide his product and services to Scardina and is then subject to the monetary penalty mentioned in the law.
"As set forth above, Defendants violated CADA's prohibition against discrimination in a place of public accommodation. In consideration of all of the facts of this case, the Court orders Defendants to pay Ms. Scardina $500.00 as a penalty for their violations of CADA," the resolution said.
Although the resolution cited Phillips' openness to serve transgender clients, it stressed that he could not use religious freedom as grounds for refusal of service to a transgender client since it is out of context. It also criticized Phillips' citing of the "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette" case where the state was prevented to impose its rulings against a person on the basis of it going against "their faith."
"That is quite different than preventing places of public accommodation from discriminating against transgender persons. The anti-discrimination laws are intended to ensure that members of our society who have historically been treated unfairly, who have been deprived of even the every-day right to access businesses to buy products, are no longer treated as 'others.' This case is about one such product-a pink and blue birthday cake-and not compelled speech," Jones explained.
Faithwire reported that Jones' ruling downplayed the significance of the cake's design, saying that it's but a "pink and blue birthday cake... not compelled speech." In reality, the cake communicates the message of gender transition, which Phillips does not support. Jones' ruling also gave little concern to the Christian beliefs held by Phillips, as well as, the obvious attempt of Scardina to manufacture a lawsuit just to test those religious convictions.
"Jack Phillips serves all people but shouldn't be forced to create custom cakes with messages that violate his conscience," Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner pointed out.
"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," she stressed.
"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."
