The vengeful bullies of the LGBT lobby will not leave Jack Phillips alone. The owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop had the audacity to beat them at the Supreme Court after he refused to make a customized cake for a gay wedding, and they have not let the victory go unpunished.
So, Phillips is back in court this week —this time for declining to bake a cake celebrating a man’s ” gender transition.” A federal judge is “inclined” to let the absurd case go forward. Again. Perhaps Masterpiece Cakeshop: The Sequel will soon be debuting at the Supreme Court. If you recall, the justices smacked down the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for its despicable treatment of Phillips last time around. It doesn’t seem that the commission has taken the lesson to heart.
Some background on the latest case: In June of 2017, on the same day that the Supreme Court announced it would be taking Phillips’ case, a lawyer named Autumn Scardina called Masterpiece asking for a cake to celebrate the anniversary of his so-called “transition” into a woman. Phillips politely declined. Scardina immediately contacted the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and the petty despots of the commission quickly decreed that a human rights violation had occurred.
The whole thing was an utterly transparent set up. Scardina, who had previously harassed the bakery with requests for cakes with satanic themes and sex toys, called on that particular day for the express purpose of being denied a cake. There obviously is no reason to tell a baker that the pink and blue cake is meant to celebrate a gender transition, which is a bizarre and arbitrary occasion for a cake anyway. And if for some reason a person really does want a cake for that purpose, and genuinely feels the need to announce it to the person behind the counter at the bakery, there is no legitimate or honest reason to choose the one bakery in the whole country that is famous for its qualms about these kinds of things.
Scardina is a bully and a harasser. No rational person believes that his request was made in good faith. Even if it was (which, I emphasize again, it most certainly wasn’t), a business owner has the right to decline to lend his labor and skill to the celebration of genital mutilation. Phillips’ lawyers argue that his belief in the biological nature of sex is a “religious conviction.” It may well be. And perhaps that is the best legal framing. But it is also a rational and scientific and intellectual conviction. A man should no more be forced to violate his reason than his religion. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission wants Phillips to violate both in this case. And they are going along with an obvious set up, concocted by a man who previously asked for a cake featuring an “actual working model” of a dildo, in order to make their point.
This is straightforward persecution. This is a government agency seeking to destroy a private citizen for his personal beliefs. The bureaucrats behind this campaign have now officially forfeited the claim that they are really seeking equality or tolerance or whatever. They know, like we all do, that Phillips was railroaded here. There aren’t even any hurt feelings for them to worry about. Scardina’s feelings weren’t hurt. He got exactly what he wanted, which was to not get what he asked for. He’s a conniving, scheming fraud. And so are the despots in the commission. No matter your ideological leanings, you should be outraged about this.