Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, has been fighting to defend his First Amendment rights for more than 12 years now. The left, which cannot handle the fact that he refuses to bake cakes with messages that violate his sincerely held religious beliefs, simply won’t leave him alone, despite his win at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018.
Now, the latest legal challenge he’s been fighting has been put to rest, though on a technicality. The Colorado Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought against Phillips by a transgender attorney who wanted him to bake a cake celebrating his transition.
"We granted review to determine, among other issues, whether [the attorney] properly filed [this] case," the court wrote in its opinion. "We conclude that [the attorney] did not."
"The underlying constitutional question this case raises has become the focus of intense public debate: How should governments balance the rights of transgender individuals to be free from discrimination in places of public accommodation with the rights of religious business owners when they are operating in the public market?" wrote Justice Melissa Hart in the majority opinion. "We cannot answer that question."
Phillips won his first case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, when the court found that Colorado officials who punished Phillips acted with hostility toward his faith. That ruling did not address Phillips’s free-speech rights to decline to create custom cakes expressing messages that violate his faith. Now, the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling has ended the most recent lawsuit against Phillips, dismissing the case because the attorney who filed it did not follow the right process. Like the prior win, this ruling does not address Phillips’ free-speech rights.
Just last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, which upheld free speech for creative professionals like Phillips. ADF attorneys asked the Colorado high court to apply that ruling and similarly affirm Phillips’ free-speech rights in this case. Though the Colorado Supreme Court did not decide that issue in this case, 303 Creative provides enduring free-speech protection for Phillips. [...]
On the same day the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’ first case—in which he prevailed in 2018 after Colorado tried to force him to create a custom cake celebrating a same-sex wedding—an attorney called Masterpiece Cakeshop requesting that Phillips create a custom cake that would symbolize and celebrate a gender transition. The attorney then called again to request another custom cake, one depicting Satan smoking marijuana, to “correct the errors of [Phillips’] thinking.”
Phillips politely declined both requests because the cakes express messages that violate his core beliefs. The attorney then filed the most recent lawsuit, threatening to continue harassing Phillips until he is punished. Phillips serves people from all backgrounds. Like many artists, he decides to create custom cakes based on what they will express, not who requests them. (Alliance Defending Freedom)
“Enough is enough. Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jake Warner. “Free speech is for everyone. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in 303 Creative, the government cannot force artists to express messages they don’t believe. In this case, an attorney demanded that Jack create a custom cake that would celebrate and symbolize a transition from male to female. Because that cake admittedly expresses a message, and because Jack cannot express that message for anyone, the government cannot punish Jack for declining to express it. The First Amendment protects that decision.”
