The Christian wedding cake baker is now going after… the trans cake?
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The Colorado Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in another lawsuit over whether conservative bakery Masterpiece Cakeshop violated discrimination law by refusing to sell a pink and blue cake to a transgender woman.
Masterpiece Cakeshop is best known for a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of owner Jack Phillips, which found that Phillips was justified in denying a wedding cake to a gay couple because of his “sincerely held religious beliefs.” “. While this case was still pending, trans advocate Autumn Scardina attempted to order a birthday cake from Masterpiece Cakeshop in June 2017, requesting one with pink and blue frosting, but without text. As Scardina said Them in 2021, Masterpiece accepted her order and would have fulfilled it if she hadn’t mentioned that the cake would also celebrate her gender transition. Instead, she said, a manager suddenly became “very hostile,” told her the cake would violate the store’s religious beliefs and hung up.
Scardina won his case against Masterpiece and Phillips in 2021, as State District Judge A. Bruce Jones likened Masterpiece’s conduct to “a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy” and imposed a $500 fine (the maximum possible fine under Colorado law). anti-discrimination law). A state appeals court upheld that decision in 2023, which Phillips is now asking the state Supreme Court to overturn, arguing once again that the laws violate his freedom of religious expression.
During oral arguments Tuesday, the justices reportedly asked attorneys for both sides how a bakery could refuse to make a cake without writing and still comply with Colorado’s anti-discrimination law. Under this law, no “place of public accommodation” can “refuse, refuse or deny (…) the full and equal enjoyment” of its goods and services. Masterpiece couldn’t have known the meaning of Scardina’s white cake until she revealed it, the panel reportedly speculated, calling Phillips’ underlying motivations into question.
“It’s only when (the cakes) get to the consumer that they get the message,” Judge Melissa Hart told Phillips’ lawyer, Jake Warner, according to the Associated Press, questioning whether Masterpiece would have delivered an identical cake if it had been delivered. was intended to celebrate the birth of the twins. “It’s the same cake. It’s a pink cake with blue icing. Later, Judge Maria Berkenkotter reportedly asked Phillips directly whether he would have refused an order for a white cake with white frosting if a customer had said it also represented his transition; Phillips responded that Berkenkotter’s example “lacked symbolism” that was “not as clearly present in the cake” as Scardina’s pink and blue request.
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Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws have been put to the test several times in recent years, thanks in large part to the Masterpiece lawsuits and the Supreme Court’s recent decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, in which the Court held that a web designer could refuse to create a wedding site for a gay couple for religious reasons. In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan condemned the majority for offering public corporations “the constitutional right to refuse service to members of a protected class.” One of the men who allegedly commissioned the site, himself a web designer, has since told reporters that he was married to a woman and had never heard of 303 Creative. This revelation sparked speculation that the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represented 303 Creative and currently represents Masterpiece Cakeshop, had falsified the information in this lawsuit and invented entirely new companies to pursue other similar lawsuits. We still do not know to what extent 303 Creative This decision will influence the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision in this case.
“It’s not about Masterpiece Cakeshop, or Mr. Phillips, or his religious beliefs. As a Christian myself, I appreciate him for his beliefs and I pray for him,” Scardina said. Them in 2021. “But I don’t think the law can allow individuals to circumvent secular law based on their own internal religious beliefs. »
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Originally appeared on them.
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