This past Monday, Colorado baker Jack Phillips won a religious liberty case when the Supreme Court supported his decision not to bake a cake for a gay couple. But instead of spiking the ball and doing a victory dance, he explained why he didn’t bake the cake and provided some examples of other types of cakes he wouldn’t do.
Given the prevailing assumption that Christians harbor some kind of hatred towards the LGBT community, Phillips’ surprised some when he said he wouldn’t bake anything that disparaged the LGBT community in any way, either. This flies in the face of the media narrative that Christians only seek to combat or persecute LGBT folks, and shows that while there is disagreement about their action, there is still empathy and concern for the person.
In 2012, a gay couple filed a lawsuit against Phillips when he refused to bake their wedding cake due to his Chrisitan beliefs. The case went through the court system, until it was brought to the Supreme Court level, and ruled on this past week.
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The TV Show “Fox & Friends” hosted Phillips this week, where he discussed how excited he is to finally be free of the case.
On the Tuesday morning show, Phillips called the Supreme Court decision a “big win” for his business, stating that he was excited to get back into it.
“It was a big win for us and now we’re just looking forward to hopefully getting back into the wedding business, and we’ll see how the court ruling affects that,” said Phillips.
Despite what the media has said, Phillips also added that he has a tolerant view of LGBT people, just that baking wedding cakes for them goes against his beliefs. Phillips also told the hosts that he can’t wait to get back to doing what he loves, as his cake-making business was previously shut down by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
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“The Colorado Civil Rights Commission took that away from me,” he said, “and now hopefully we can get back and do the baking that I love.”
Phillips stated that as a baker, he does not discriminate against people because of their race, religion, or creed, but draws a line with a few specific messages that go against his Christian beliefs. These include homosexual weddings, divorces, anti-American sentiment, and Halloween.
He also added that he would also never create something that went against or hurt LGBT people either.
“I don’t do cakes for Halloween; I wouldn’t make cakes that would be Anti-American, or disparage people in anyway, including people who identify as LGBT. If somebody asked me to do a cake like that, then I would tell them no,” explained Phillips, adding, “I told [the couple] when they came in that day, I’ll sell you birthday cakes, cookies, brownies, I’ll make you custom cakes. I just can’t do this cake because of the message it promotes.”
Kristen Waggoner, Phillips attorney from Alliance Defending Freedom, stated: “It said that the government cannot express religious hostility and that there’s no place for that kind of hostility in a pluralistic society,” she said.
The decision has been a long time coming.
Phillips, much like Oregon bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein and numerous other wedding venders across the U.S., has found himself in the crosshairs of the government as well as LGBTQ activists after declining in 2012 to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
Phillips has been locked in a tough legal battle with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for the past five years. The agency ruled that his cake refusal was in violation of anti-discrimination laws and punished him accordingly.
You can watch the full “Fox & Friends” episode with Jack Phillips below: