Remember the Christian baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding and the Supreme Court ruled that his religious convictions should be respected?
Well, he’s back on his bullshit.
Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, returned to federal court on Tuesday, this time for refusing to create a cake for a transgender woman’s birthday. However, he is the one who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court: He’s suing state civil rights officials and the governor, saying he cannot make cakes that “celebrate events” contradictory to his religious beliefs that sex is “biologically determined.” The document cites other requests he has declined, including cakes that “demean LGBT people” or ones celebrating Halloween.
The transgender woman, Denver lawyer Autumn Scardina, called in her order to the shop on the same day the Supreme Court agreed to hear the wedding cake case, June 26, 2017. She said that she was turned away after she asked for the cake to have a blue exterior and a pink interior to celebrate her transition, according to a charge of discrimination statement she filed with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act forbids places of public accommodation from discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation. The commission found probable cause that Phillips broke the law by refusing service to Scardina.
Phillips and the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which defends many anti-LGTBQ cases across the country, argued that the state’s protections for transgender people is “blatantly and brazenly hostile toward religion” and filed the lawsuit first. He asked the court to block Colorado from enforcing its nondiscrimination law in this case because it infringes on his First Amendment right to religious freedom. Phillips also contended that being forced to make a “transgender” cake violated his free speech, and thus abstention of free speech, rights.
Phillips is hoping the SCOTUS ruling will help his new lawsuit land in his favor, though that decision was over the civil rights commission showing hostility toward him, which the commission has not done in this case.
H/T BuzzFeed News
