The baker who refused to serve gay couple is now rejecting a transgender customer
Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty)
Jack Phillips, the baker whose refusal to make a gay wedding cake took him to the Supreme Court, is embroiled over more legal controversy after saying he wouldn’t make a gender transition cake.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled by a margin of 7-2 that Colorado had violated ‘religious freedom’ protections by ordering Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop to cease discriminating against same-sex couples.
The ruling was the result of Phillips’ legal challenge to the state’s anti-discrimination laws after refusing to serve gay couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig.
Jack Phillips appearing on The View in 2017 (The View)
The baker had claimed that Jesus Christ would discriminate against gay people, and continues to insist his religion requires him to do so.
It appears that this includes transgender people too.
When attorney Autumn Scardina rang Masterpiece Cakeshop to ask for a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside to celebrate her birthday and the first anniversary of her gender transition, her request was rejected.
The Supreme Court case drew protests from both sides (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
The reason given by the bakery was that it doesn’t make cakes which celebrate trans people.
Scardina complained to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC), alleging that she had been discriminated against on the basis of her gender identity, according to ThinkProgress.
“The woman on the phone,” she wrote in the filing, “did not object to my request for a birthday cake until I told her I was celebrating my transition from male to female.
“I believe that other people who request birthday cakes get to select the colour and theme of the cake.”
Scardina complained to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (Mark Makela/Getty)
Phillips has filed a countersuit, writing that he does not want to “promote the idea that a person’s sex is anything other than an immutable God-given biological reality.”
His claim was once again filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a US law firm which battles to keep anti-gay sodomy laws alive and was officially designated as a hate group last year.
In the suit, the ADF claims that the proposed cake, with blue on the outside and pink on the inside, is unprecedented, writing: “Phillips has never created a cake like that before.”
It adds that the baker cannot produce a cake which puts across the concept “that sex can be changed, that sex can be chosen, and that sex is determined by perceptions or feelings.”
Phillips is represented by a hate group (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty)
The ADF also explains that Phillips, who has now refused to serve a gay couple and a trans woman, “serves all people — individuals of all races, faiths, sexual orientations, and gender identities — and will design and create custom cakes for anyone.”
It adds the disclaimer that he will do so, as long as the cakes “don’t ‘express messages or celebrate events contrary to his religious beliefs.'”
The CCRC has issued a probable cause determination that Phillips did discriminate against Scardina, breaking the Colorado law which bans anti-trans discrimination.
The body also ruled against Phillips in the gay wedding cake case, before the Supreme Court overruled it.
