Colorado baker Jack Phillips is speaking up about the most recent case that has once again put him at the center of controversy. The same baker rose to fame years ago during the Supreme Court case that he won after refusing to bake a cake for a wedding for a same-sex couple. This time, he is being targeted for refusing to create a cake celebrating gender transition because he says that it violates his religious beliefs.
The Daily Wire reports, “In the Masterpiece Cakeshop case of 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission evinced anti-religious bias for targeting Phillips for refusing to make a same-sex wedding cake. The Court did not rule whether a business could claim religious objections permitted them to refuse service to gays or lesbians.”
On the same day that the Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ case regarding the 2018 dispute, Phillips’ wife received a call from a transgender attorney asking Phillips to make a birthday cake in celebration of the person’s “gender transition.”
When the state of Colorado went after Phillips again, that “prompted Phillips to file a lawsuit against the state, saying it had violated his First Amendment right to practice his faith and his right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment.”
Phillips recently discussed the ordeal with Fox News. “My experience this week has been trying, at best,” Phillips told the outlet. “We’ve closed down our bakery just so we could be in this trial. My wife had to testify, my daughter had to, I had to.”
“This case started the day the Supreme Court decided they were going to hear our case. It was a very busy, very crazy day at the shop,” Phillips explained. “In the middle of all of this chaos, we got a phone call from an attorney in Denver asking us to create a cake pink on the inside with blue icing on the outside.”
Phillips told Fox News that he was told “it was two colors, a color scheme, a combination, designed to celebrate a gender transition.”
“We told the customer, this caller, that this cake was a cake we couldn’t create because of the message; the caller turned around and sued us,” Phillips told Fox News. “This customer came to us intentionally to get us to create a cake or deny creating a cake that went against our religious beliefs.”
He added, “This customer had been tracking our case for multiple years. This case was just a request to get us to fall into a trap.”
Phillips told Fox News that in November 2020, he had a conversation with Autumn Scardina, the transgender person who requested the cake. Scardina said “if the case were rejected or dismissed, that they would be back the next day to request another cake order and then sue me and charge me again.”
At the trial this week, Scardina was asked if the move was “some sort of test” or a “setup.”
“I don’t like that phrase. I think it’s got a negative connotation. Nor do I associate it was a test, it wasn’t a test,” Scardina said at the trial. “More of a challenge of the veracity. It was more a calling of somebody’s bluff.”
Scardina added, “I wanted Mr. Phillips to be telling the truth. I think he’s a good man. I think he is a good Christian; and I think his beliefs are noble, valid, are entitled to protection. I believe that he is being genuine in what he feels is his truth.”
Phillips described the negative effect the case has had on his personal and professional life, adding that he hopes “this case is so clear that I am being forced to create against my beliefs, clear enough, that this initial ruling would be in our favor, and it stops right here.”