Colorado baker Jack Phillips is again embroiled in a years-long court battle after declining to make a cake celebrating a gender transition, but he has no plans of giving up his religious freedom fight.
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Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, won a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court victory in a separate case after he was punished by Colorado for refusing to make a same-sex wedding cake.
But in the latest legal round of his newfound transgender cake battle, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled against Phillips, arguing he was wrong to refuse making the cake.
The court found Phillips violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act when he refused to bake a cake with pink and blue coloring from a man who identifies as a female; the individual purportedly made it clear the cake would commemorate this transition.
The baker spoke with CBN’s Faithwire recently, explaining why he rejects critics’ claims he should push his Christian views aside and “just bake the cake.”
“This case is just too important to just bake the cake because … it’s not just butter and eggs; it’s a message,” he said. “The wedding cake … is symbolic in and of itself. If you walked into a conference room at a hotel and you saw a cake in the corner, nobody would have to tell you that it was a wedding reception [or] that a marriage was to be celebrated.”
Watch Phillips tell his story:
Phillips said this reality is implicit in the imagery of the cake.
“You would know that because of the message that cake inherently carries,” he said. “And same thing with this new cake. … We were told what the colors were symbolic of and that it was a message.”
In the end, Phillips said his legal battle is about far more than his own plight. The baker sees this case as emblematic of broader pushes to force Americans to convey messages with which they disagree.
“No American should be forced to create and express a message that they disagree with,” he said.
Phillips made it clear Masterpiece Cakeshop serves everyone regardless of beliefs or lifestyle but doesn’t convey every message on its custom cakes.
As for the latest ruling against him — which he plans to appeal — the baker said it wasn’t unexpected, though he admitted it’s disappointing.
“It was disappointing because I think the court got it wrong,” he said. “They should be able to grant me the right to freely express and say messages that I want to and not be compelled to express messages that I don’t. And this cake was a message.”
Phillips burst on the media scene in 2012, after declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple, a battle that ended up making its way to the Supreme Court. He was victorious, but the conclusion to the case didn’t settle the overarching issues between the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Despite the newfound legal battle that could also make its way to the Supreme Court, Phillips said his faith keeps him moving forward and fighting on.
“My faith is the main thing that keeps me going, but this is also such an important case for all Americans, because no Americans should be forced to speak messages that they don’t want to,” he said.
Watch the full interview for more from Phillips and his Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jake Warner.
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