But now another “claimant” — this time a “transgender woman” — has persuaded the state to launch another war against Phillips because he refused to bake a “transgender transition” cake.
So here we go again.
A Man Named Autumn Complains
The trouble began when attorney Autumn Scardina called Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop and asked for cake with a pink interior and blue exterior. It would mark the day, he said, he became a woman.
The trouble began when attorney Autumn Scardina called Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop and asked for cake with a pink interior and blue exterior. It would mark the day, he said, he became a woman.
While a pink and blue cake might sound revolting to some, that isn’t why Phillips refused to bake it. Phillips would not, he said, support Scardina’s “transgender” ideology. Claiming discrimination, Scardina complained to Colorado’s civil rights enforcers, who gave him what he wanted.
While admitting that Phillips won’t “promote the idea that a person's sex is anything other than an immutable God-given biological reality,” a sincerely-held belief, the Colorado Civil Rights Division notified Phillips June 28 that he cannot so discriminate, citing the decision in Phillips’ victory at the U.S. Supreme Court:
The refusal to provide service to the Complainant was based on the Complainant’s transgender status. A claim of discriminatory denial of full and equal enjoyment of a place of public accommodation has been established. As asserted by the Supreme Court, “It is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons, just as it can protect other classes of individuals, in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions are offered to other members of the public.”...
The Respondents denied [Scardina] equal enjoyment of a place of public accommodation.... Parties hereby are ordered ... to proceed to attempt amicable resolution of these charges by compulsory mediation.
Phillips’ Lawsuit Phillips’ attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed suit against the Colorado officials Tuesday, noting something curious about Scardina’s complaint. He called Masterpiece the very same day the Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ case about the homosexual wedding cake: June 26, 2017. Scardina’s call was no accident, the lawsuit says:
Some Colorado citizens, emboldened by the state’s prosecution of Phillips [in the first case] have targeted him. On the same day that the Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’s case, a Colorado lawyer called his shop and requested a cake designed with a blue exterior and pink interior, which the caller said would visually depict and celebrate a gender transition. Throughout the next year, Phillips received other requests for cakes celebrating Satan, featuring Satanic symbols, depicting sexually explicit materials, and promoting marijuana use. Phillips believes that some of those requests came from the same Colorado lawyer.