It has been seven years since Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, politely declined to make a cake for a gay wedding. Even though Phillips essentially secured a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court (his religious liberties were not explicitly affirmed, but the Court did admonish the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for its anti-Christian bias), the LGBT lobby has not let the matter go away. As the nearly decade-long backlash against Chick-fil-A has shown us, left-wing gay activists are perhaps the pettiest and most vengeful people in America. They will pursue their enemies for as long as it takes, using whatever tactics are necessary, gleefully destroying lives in the process. And Jack Phillips has now surpassed the chicken chain as their public enemy number one.
The Daily Wire reports that Phillips now faces his third “discrimination” lawsuit. This one is filed by Autumn Scardina, a man who identifies as a woman. Scardina is also responsible for the second lawsuit against Phillips. It appears that the new one stems from the same incident in 2017, wherein Phillips opted not to make a cake in celebration of Scardina’s “gender transition.”
It is obvious already that Scardina was trying to entrap Phillips and manufacture grounds for a lawsuit. I doubt that most people who get “gender transitions” feel the need to mark the occasion with a cake. And even if they do, there is no reason why you need to call the one baker in the country who is prominent and famous for his conservative Christian religious convictions. And even if you did want to make a cake, and you did innocently happen to call Jack Phillips of all people, there is no reason why you need to tell him that the cake is for a “gender transition.” Scardina says that he simply wanted a cake with pink icing on the outside and blue on the inside. There probably wouldn’t have been any problem had he not taken the time to unnecessarily explain the bizarre symbolism behind the color arrangement.
But we don’t need to make assumptions based on any of that. We can make assumptions based on the fact that Scardina spent months harassing Phillips with orders for bizarre and offensive cake designs. Newsweek describes one of the more objectionable requests:
“I’m thinking a three-tiered white cake. Cheesecake frosting,” the customer wrote in the June 4 email, according to Phillips’ lawsuit filed in Denver’s federal court on Tuesday. “And the topper should be a large figure of Satan, licking a 9′ black dildo. I would like the dildo to be an actual working model, that can be turned on before we unveil the cake.”
One can’t help but feel a certain amount of pity for Scardina, who is clearly a pathetic and disturbed person. But he is also a bully and a harasser, and the only thing that should be filed in court with his name on it is a restraining order.
Seven years ago, Jack Phillips was just a baker, running his business, making his cakes, and not harming anyone. He did not go out looking for national attention. He did not want to be the face of the religious liberty movement in America. A series of coordinated and targeted harassment campaigns by LGBT activists changed all of that. His life has been upended, his business nearly ruined, and his formerly peaceful and normal existence ripped apart. The only reason for any of this — the only reason — is his Christian faith.
You hear a lot of phony persecution claims these days. It seems everyone is angling to be oppressed. Jack Phillips wasn’t angling for it, but he found it. What’s happening to Phillips is real, live persecution. And all decent, freedom-loving Americans should stand in opposition to it.