Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

Image via YouTube

JACK PHILLIPS, above, gained international notoriety more than a decade ago when he refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

What followed was a series of court hearings that went all the way up to the US Supreme court where the devout owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver won a partial victory in 2018.

Mullins, left, and Craig. Image via YouTube.

The widely reported series of hearings began after he refused to make a wedding cake for David Mullins and Charlie Craig.

The bigot then found himself embroiled in a second case in 2017 when he was sued for refusing a a pink and blue cake to lawyer Autumn Scardina, who wanted it to celebrate her gender transition.

Autumn Scardina with her colleagues. Image courtesy of Scardina Law.

According to this report, the court ruled that the state law that makes it illegal to refuse to provide services to people based on protected characteristics like race, religion or sexual orientation does not violate business owners’ right to practice or express their religion.

Relying on the findings of a Denver judge in a 2021 trial in the dispute, the appeals court said Phillips’ shop initially agreed to make the cake but then refused after Scardina explained that she was going to use it to celebrate her transition from male to female.

We conclude that creating a pink cake with blue frosting is not inherently expressive and any message or symbolism it provides to an observer would not be attributed to the baker.

Colorado Court of Appeals

Phillips, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, maintains that the cakes he creates are a form of speech and plans to appeal.

ADF senior counsel Jake Warner said in a statement:

One need not agree with Jack’s views to agree that all Americans should be free to say what they believe, even if the government disagrees with those beliefs.

John McHugh, one of the lawyers who represent Scardina, said the court looked carefully at all the arguments and evidence from the trial. He said of Phillips and his shop:

They just object to the idea of Ms. Scardina wanting a birthday cake that reflects her status as a transgender woman because they object to the existence of transgender people.

In 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had acted with anti-religious bias in enforcing the anti-discrimination law against Phillips.

The justices called the commission unfairly dismissive of Phillips’ religious beliefs.

Before filing her lawsuit, Scardina first filed a complaint against Phillips with the state and the civil rights commission, which found probable cause that he had discriminated against her.

Phillips then filed a federal lawsuit against Colorado, accusing it of a “crusade to crush” him by pursuing the complaint.

Image via Facebook

Stephen Harvie, above, Chair of UK LGBT+ charity The Pink Triangle Trust, told me today:

These so-called Christians would do well to look in their holy book occasionally. Matthew 7:16 states ‘By their deeds so shall ye know them’ but when it comes to the majority of Christians they are revealed to be just bigots, racists, transphobes, and homophobes.

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