A federal court judge has allowed the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop to sue the state of Colorado for being hostile towards him and his religious beliefs.
Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips, who won a Supreme Court case over his refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, sued the state after it launched another case against him for declining to create a cake for a transgender woman.
This “disparate treatment ... is sufficient to establish they are pursuing the discrimination charges against Phillips in bad faith,” the documents said.
“We look forward to moving forward with this lawsuit to ensure Jack is not forced to create custom cakes that express messages in conflict with his faith,” he said.
Phillips Faces Further Complaints
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission—the same state agency that lost its case against Phillips at the highest court—filed a formal complaint against the Christian baker when he refused to make a cake with a blue exterior and pink interior to “celebrate [the seventh anniversary of her] transition from male to female” for Denver attorney, Autumn Scardina. Scardina had ordered the cake on the same day the Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’ case in June 2017.The commission subsequently ruled in favor for Scardina, saying that Phillips had discriminated against her.
“The evidence thus demonstrates that the refusal to provide service to [Scardina] was based on [her] transgender status,” the director of the state’s Civil Rights Division, Aubrey Elenis, wrote in a probable cause determination.
Elenis’ finding ordered both sides to resolve the issue through “compulsory mediation,” the document said.
According to ADF, Scardina later asked Phillips to design a cake with satanic themes and images—something Phillips also refused due to what the cake would communicate.
Campbell said that Phillips is happy to serve all customers, as well as the attorney who lodged the complaint against him but does not create cakes that express messages against or celebrate events in conflict with his religious beliefs.
“He can’t get a fair shake before the state commission. A commissioner set to decide the state’s new case against Jack has publicly referred to him as a ‘hater’ on Twitter, one of several indications of the commission’s ongoing bad faith toward him and his beliefs,” Campbell said.
Phillips’s attorney argues the state is violating his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion by continuing to treat him differently than other cake artists, as well as infringing Phillips’ free speech and due process rights. He added the commission’s adjudicative process is flawed because the same commissioners are acting as both accusers and adjudicators in the same case.
Supreme Court Win
In a 2018 Supreme Court case, the court ruled Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission was influenced by anti-religious bias in reaching its decision against Phillips. The court said this violated Phillips’ rights under the First Amendment.“The commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the majority opinion on the case.
Kennedy claimed the commission was required under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause to “proceed in a manner neutral toward and tolerant of Phillips’ religious beliefs.”
The Supreme Court did not rule on whether Phillips’ actions actually violated Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws.
