Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who now infamously refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, will finally take his battle to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.
As Faithwire previously reported, Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, was punished after refusing to make a wedding cake back in 2012 for a same-sex ceremony. He fought back and now the baker’s controversial case has made its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where oral arguments will unfold this week.
Phillips released an op-ed in USA Today on Monday explaining why he refused to make the gay wedding cake.
“What I didn’t say was that I wouldn’t sell them a cake,” he said of the gay couple he refused. “I’m happy to sell a cake to anyone, whatever his or her sexual identity. People should be free to make their own moral choices. I don’t have to agree with them.”
In the end, though, Phillips said he is responsible for his own choices, which is why he declined to bake the cake.
“It was that responsibility that led me to decline when two gentlemen came into my shop and invited me to create a wedding cake for their same-sex ceremony,” he continued. “Designing a wedding cake is a very different thing from, say, baking a brownie. When people commission such a cake, they’re requesting something that’s designed to express something about the event and about the couple.”
When it comes to wedding cakes, Phillips said that these products are really messages of celebration and that, in the case of a same-sex wedding, he felt that making the cake would contradict his own religious convictions — something he simply couldn’t do.
In the end, he said it wasn’t merely a business choice and that it was a reflection of his commitment to his faith; the Bible, he said, shows that marriage is a commitment of one man and one woman. Phillips believes his views simply weren’t respected.
“The two men who came into my shop that day were living out their beliefs. All I did was attempt to live out mine. I respect their right to choose and hoped they would respect mine,” he continued. “They did not. And, considering all of the hate mail, obscene calls and death threats my family has received since I was sued, a lot of other people don’t see tolerance as a two-way street, either.”
Phillips appealed to readers to recognize what he said is his First Amendment right to avoid creating cakes that celebrate things that do not mesh with his faith. Read his op-ed in its entirety here.