To really test the court's approach to religious freedom we need to have an atheist restaurant owner turn away an evangelical Christian because their prayer over meals is contrary to atheist beliefs.
Seems absurd, no less so than this case. What's actually happening is the religious right is creating a test case to see how far "religious freedom" goes.
Maybe we need a black Jehovah Witness pro football player refuse to salute the flag and stand for the anthem and get fined by his team. Wouldn't that be religious discrimination?
1
Colorado is just enforcing its law. That people keep calling him for cakes he won't back is akin to Rosa Parks not moving on the bus or young African American men sitting at the Woolworth's counters. Yes the people ordering cakes are doing it on purpose, the purpose is to prevent discrimination.
If you are running a business you can't discriminate against who you will serve. You can say I only make birthday cakes and that would be fine, no one could force a wedding cake. But if you make birthday cakes then make the birthday cake.
Also, Eve was the first transgender woman, so I'm not sure how this guy's religious beliefs hold up.
1
I don't believe businesses should be able to discriminate against anyone, whether for color, gender, religion or anything. But its not a perfect world so its going to happen. And I don't like the decision by the Supreme Court in the wedding cake dispute cause they ducked the big issues. But come on, everyone already knows this particular baker in Colorado doesn't want business from anyone "different" so give your money to the businesses who do want it! And get everyone you can to boycott the prejudiced baker again.
2
Why is this business still in business? If all the people who find his behavior deplorable stopped shopping there would his business still be viable?
1
There are a ton of bakers in CO. Those who do not approve of the religious scruples of this baker may go elsewhere.
However, what the State of Colorado appears to be doing is enforcing thought control - all must agree on these social issues. The baker is NOT ALLOWED to have a different religious belief.
Thought control, forced speech - all of these are straight from 1984.
9
While I support gay marriage, I also support the freedom of an individual who struggles with it religiously to not participate. The issue is not whether the baker will sell a cake to a gay or trans customer. It's whether he will be forced to use his creativity to custom design and custom bake a cake for an event that for religious reasons he cannot participate in. The more personal the service, the more society must tolerate discrimination. If I refuse to serve a meal to a black customer, society should step in to ensure fair treatment. If I choose not to date a black partner (or a male partner), society must permit that discrimination, even if it comes with abhorrent rationale. This must hold true even if the transaction is in some way "commercial." An individual must be permitted to discriminate when choosing a roommate - not black, not Jewish, not male. A prostitute (perhaps the most personal of all services) must be let alone, other legalities aside, in her choice of clients. I suspect that the Supreme court will eventually identify as a guiding principal, the extent of "personal service" in determining whether society can step in with public accommodation laws or not.
10
Would that gun manufacturers had the same strong sense of responsibility for the ways their products are used.
If this Baker can convince a court of the strong tie between his cakes and (in his view) the social trouble they cause, why can't we get the same going around product liability for guns which are so frequently and factually used to effect mass murder?
1
Perhaps if the Court requires Mr. Phillips to widely advertise his refusal to serve anyone whose lifestyle disagrees with his interpretation of his religion - on every website, physical location, phone book listing, social media posting, etc - people who don't meet his requirements can avoid his business.
You know, those sinners who love their neighbors as themselves.
Those who render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
Those who hesitate to cast the first stone.
Those who humble themselves rather than putting themselves above others.
Those who remember "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me."
Those are the people who would not want to patronize Mr. Phillips, and who should be able to make an informed choice in the matter.
I wonder if Mr. Phillips would stoop to baking a cake for the Man who promulgated those pesky rules?
This is merely an attempt by the Alliance Defending Freedom to get another crack at the U.S. Supreme Court. Assuming the state treats Mr. Phillips without the hostility noted by Justice Kennedy in his opinion last June, then the case presents a clean question on religious exemptions to laws of general applicability. The Court will have a hard time ducking the question if it ultimately grants cert.
Companies are actually pushing back on people using their products for what they deem to be morally reprehensible acts. Just a few days ago this paper ran a series of articles on an execution in Nebraska and the problems getting the drugs to do it. Apparently, no pharmaceutical company wants its products associated with executing people in a highly public fashion and are refusing to sell drugs to the state governments that still carry out the death penalty. These states are responding by trying out new and untested combinations of drugs, partly to get around the pharmaceutical companies refusal to sell the older products, and partly by buying the drugs on a semi-sleezy grey market and refusing to reveal where they got them from. This is a very similar question: Should a company be allowed to refuse to sell their products to someone who is going to use them for a purpose the seller finds morally wrong, and, furthermore, if they were Catholics, something that their faith unequivically teaches is morally wrong? What is good for the goose must be good for the gander.
6
As I understand it, the problemss arise when this baker knows your story. Gotta wonder if the baker would make cakes to the customer's specifications if there were no personal interface or story, if it were ordered online. If so, would the baker destroy the cake when he found out the rest of the story? Would he race into the reception hall and wheel the cake away? Sound silly and arbitrary yet?
Just go get a cake in other shop and give it one star online.
What about all progressive and decent people boycotting this intolerant man business. This person should be allowed to what he is doing in free, democratic and secular society.
1
Every time this baker uses a public service such as police/fire/EMS he is benefiting from taxes paid by ALL citizens. Every freshly paved road, every time his trash is picked up and every day his children/grandchildren attend a public school he is using programs supported by every taxpayer regardless of gender/sexual orientation. Disregard religion all together. He is refusing to sell to the same people that collectively fund the services he relies on and that is hubris, a trait I believe Christians have an issue with.
"The lawsuit sets up yet another public battle involving Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop over whether claims of religious freedoms can be used to refuse services to gay and transgender people."
But the baker has made it clear that he is NOT refusing services to gay or transgender people as long as they want the same services which he provides to everyone.
In the case of the two men who lost the suit against him, the baker APOLOGIZED to them and said that he would be most happy to sell them anything in his store and that he would also be happy to bake them a birthday cake.
He is actually similar to a Jewish butcher who will gladly sell you chicken or beef, but who refuses to sell you pork. When the butcher does that, he does not have anything against you. He has something against pork.
The media have distorted the baker's position by misrepresenting his views and his actions.
And this kind of misrepresentation is why I have lost much of my trust in the New York Times. I found out about the baker's position only when I saw a video on Facebook. But if the NYT reported fairly I would not need Facebook.
16
Perhaps what’s needed to fully define the central issue here would be a counter sit-in by people wearing stereotypical clothing suggestive of their sexual/gender choices and all demanding service. I grew up during segregation and there were plenty who cited religious beliefs as grounds for doing what they did. It’s a thoroughly mean spirited position, one that neither deserves religious sanction or the protection of free speech. His supporters are society’s guttersnipes even if they wear bespoke suits.
1
The baker's refusal under these circumstances is not discrimination. She was clearly trolling him, and has now enlisted the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in her crusade to silence and shame him. This is not why we enacted anti-discrimination laws. There are probably hundreds of bakers in Colorado who stand ready to bake this woman's ridiculous cake. We are not talking about public accommodations or restaurants in the Jim Crow south. Please leave this baker alone. Let the market decide whether he should be ostracized for his views. Let the twitter mob shame him. Government has no place here.
16
The best way to deal with him is to vote with our feet. Take your business elsewhere and starve him of the attention. Do not give him the satisfaction of the spotlight. He is not worth the time other than to tell your friends not to patronize the shop.
1
I read the baker's response in his opinion piece on USA Today, and it raised doubts on his so-called bigotry. It also raised questions about the motives of both the Colorado Board and the lawyer who "happened" to call up on the same day the Supreme Court made an announcement to hear the case. The bakery offered to sell any other goods or bake any other cake for the customer, except for the events that they said crossed their religious boundaries. They didn't take a look at them and throw them out, they didn't say sit in the back, they didn't say let me google you and then tell you if I'll serve you, they said they don't do work for some events because it's a violation of their own religious belief.
Someone asked if the baker would also refuse to bake a cake for a different religion's holiday celebration. Maybe. But is that wrong? Well, let me put it this way, the same Colorado Board ruled in favor of 3 other bakers who wouldn't make neo-nazi themed cakes because it offended them. The Commission rejected the argument that the art was attributable only to the customer, and not simply the artist commissioned to make it, at least in the case where the artist did not cite a religious objection. (It's why the Supreme Court said the Board was hostile to religion.) If the Colorado Board stated to the Supreme Court the work is attributable to the baker in 3 other cases, why would try to compel someone to make a work which violates their religion in this case?
6
If you don't want to make cakes, why not just get out of the business?? And on the other side...why would you tell a perfect stranger that you are transitioning? Just order the cake! Such drama from both sides...
3
I am dumbfounded daily by the contortion of Christianity in the hands of self-righteous extremists. If Mary Magdalene herself showed up at this bakery Lord knows if she'd manage the purchase of a donut!
I went to Catholic elementary school, high school, college and graduate school. I was a full time student in Christian schools until I was 24. Untold instructional hours were spent studying scripture and immersing ourselves in the New Testament ethics revealed to us by Christ's own teachings.
Absolutely nothing justifies this baker's treatment of his LGBT customers. His actions inflict humiliation rather than Christlike kindness. We are to soothe the troubled, be generous to the outcasts, wash the leper, welcome the stranger, share our bounty with the poor, serve all God's children who come our way, judge not, and certainly understand that our actions must reflect the very example of Jesus who consorted with the poor, the sinners, the sick and the fallen rather than the big shots in town. Jesus, had he opened a bakery, would have welcomed and served everyone from Caesar to beggars. Cakes and love for everyone!
If this baker does not recognize the opportunity to reflect Christ and be kind and non-judgmental to a person wanting to order a cake, but chooses instead to judge and condemn, his "religious values" are wildly deviating from Christianity.
4
No one is denying that the baker has the right to discriminate against gays, or any one else, is his private capacity as a citizen. He cannot be compelled to welcome them in his home, for example. However, as a merchant he benefits from a number of governmental initiatives: his establishment is licensed by local officials; he is regularly monitored by public health authorities; his store is protected by the police and fire departments; and so on. Such services apply equally to all merchants. What he may not do is avoid these regulations on the grounds of his personal religious doctrines. He cannot claim that his product is only available to those whose religious views comport with his own, i.e. that he will only serve Christians. In effect, he claims that if a customer is not a Christian, he will not be served and he demands that the state enforce that presumptive right. Thus to accommodate him should the state require that a sign be prominently displayed warning unsuspecting patrons that he reserves the right to serve only Christians? Similarly, should Christian cab drivers be permitted to place signs on their vehicles informing potential riders that they will not transport females to abortion clinics? Why were the five ninnies of the SCOTUS so clueless as to where their decision will lead?
2
This issue has brought out the lawyer in all of the NYTimes' readers. Some of you seem to have missed your calling in life. It's been a hoot, and an education, reading the comments. Thanks to all.
2
I’m sorry, are there no other bakers in Colorado?! I mean, really?! How about a little solidarity? I wouldn’t use the services of an avowed anti-gay bigot and I would have thought members of the LBGT would feel even more strongly!
1
If you are going to do business and offer your products and services to the general public then you should be required to do so without discriminating against customers with whom you disagree based upon lifestyle, politics or otherwise.
On the other hand let's say someone comes to the guy and wants a cake adorned with a swastika. Can he refuse to make that cake?
What should be the standard which delineates what he can and cannot do?
1
A category five hurricane is on its way to Florida and citizens are fleeing with the belongings they can fit in and on their car. A family, out of gas and in need of water to make it through the sweltering heat and traffic, stops at a gas station to fuel up. The father, wearing his catholic crucifix around his neck goes to the register while his five kids parade to the restroom. The clerk, a 19 year old man, asks if the father is Catholic, which he responds he is. Having been molested by several priests as a child, the man refuses to sell them water or fuel, he feels very strongly that he not support people that support institutionalized sexual molestation of children.
The man and his family parish in the hurricane, having no means to escape the wrath. Posthumous, the Supreme Court rules the denial of services was justified. Who could disagree with them?
1
When the gay couple didn’t drop their case after Gorsich was confirmed, I was frustrated—they were obviously going to lose, the ruling would bind us for years, and the issue animated the right much more than the left—but at least they were totally sincere and not trying to start something. (...not to mention that they were already five years into the legal proceedings.)
This? This is pure garbage. It couldn’t be more obvious that Ms. Scardina is deliberately provoking legal action. Even when you’re right, that’s never a good look. Also, like it or not, the simple fact is the country is much more ambivalent about transgender people than homosexuality, and celebrating gender transition is not culturally analogous to a wedding. By yoking herself to the gay rights movement, a transgender activist, once again, is chipping away at what little political capital we have. And for what? So an even more conservative SCOTUS can rule against us DECISIVELY this time?
HRC, GLAAD, ACLU, Lambda Legal—any organization that claims to represent gay interests: Do your job. Convince her to drop this case. She is only going to do more damage.
7
I am sure many of his customers drink tea and coffee.
As a "good Mormon" should he refuse to serve them too?
He is devoutly religious, but a terrible businessman. Why would people still go to him?
Just put a review on yelp and go someplace else.
2
If I sell you my house and you decide to paint over my masterpiece mural, that's your business; it's your house now. If I make you a cake and you use it to celebrate the imminent apocalypse; the invasion of the body snatchers; or the anniversary of your porno debut; that's also your business because it's your cake! This is not complicated. This man's inability to recognize that cakes he makes for others belong to them to do with as they please is ridiculous.
If this bigot baker was seriously injured in a car accident, he would have no problem receiving life saving assistance from a LGBT first responder (police, medical, or firefighter).
This bigot baker has no problem using government services and infrastructure paid with money from LGBT taxpayers.
This bigot baker has not problem enjoying the freedom to practice his religion thanks to the sacrifices made by those that have server to include LGBT citizens.
I served with LGBT soldiers in the military and yet religious folks like Jehova's Witnesses don't believe in serving or paying respects to the flag but as hypocrites enjoy the freedom to practice their religion paid for by the sacrifices of others.
US Army Veteran
If this is not a "gotcha" campaign by homosexual activists in Colorado to force Philips to bend, I don't know what is. The very design of this cake has an ideological agenda: blue on the outside, pink on the outside, maybe even a rainbow transitional layer? Finally, people of conscience who will not cooperate with the ideological agenda being forced down their throats are reacting to big government and its "NGO" ideologues by recognizing they have rights, too, and will pursuet hem in the courts.
5
Why can't leftists leave this man alone? There are dozens if not hundreds of bake shops in Denver that will do any crazy type of cake for any crazy type of event out there. He makes it clear from the get-go that he's a Christian baker.
1
Seems like Colorado needs more bakers.
1
Once you hang out your shingle and declare yourself “open for business “ you shouldn’t be able to discriminate based on your disagreeing with a customer’s choice of lifestyle.
If I order a cake, all you need to do is bake it and have it ready for pickup. End of story.
I'm sick of faux Christians hiding behind the cross to practice discrimination and bigotry.
His business license is given by the State. What the State giveth, let the State rake away.
Here endeth the Lesson.
I believe we should treat everyone as we'd like to be treated, but clearly not everyone else believes and/or lives like this. I don't understand why anyone would want to give business to someone that's a clear bigot though. I'd rather see his business get shut down, hurt his livelihood vs helping him stay open and force him to bake a cake he'd probably spit in. Why did this woman go to him for a cake in the first place, are there no other cake shops in Colorado and/or he is really that good?! If there are no other places to go, why not just order your cake and leave out all the personal details, especially since everyone knows about this creep? You could just say I want a cake, here's the kind I want and leave it at that. I can't imagine ever giving someone that doesn't know me such intimate details about my life in the first place. Our country has a problem with oversharing, I don't need to know if you're transgender or not, I don't care if you're gay or straight. Not everyone needs to know everything about you. Watch some Queer Eye and take a few cues from those sassy men as they know how to win people over. I think Phillips is despicable, but I think trying to shut his business down would say a lot more than keeping him in business and the news.
This is a recipe for disaster. Why did he go off half baked? He and this story have become stale
When will the people of Lakewood, CO stop patronizing this vile baker's business?
The man makes cake. In the words of Mario Batali "the next day his best work is poop". Stop giving this bigot a platform.
Colorado should handle this the old fashion bureaucratic way; weekly health inspections with fines and license suspenions for even the most insignificant health violation. Then when he is late with a few celebration cakes his business will fold.
Why on earth would anyone buy a cake from this bigoted, ignorant man? He deserves to lose all his business.
If you're LGBT or Q and want a cake, why not go to a LGBT or Q baker?
Adolf Hitler walks into a Jewish Bakery and wants...
Ted Nugent walks into a Vegan Restaurant and wants...
Richard Spencer walks into a Soul Food Restaurant and wants..
Ms. Scardina walks into Mr. Phillips bakery and wants...
Still feel the same way? Let the Free Market determine the Free Market. Keep the Government out.
4
I'll make a deal with this guy.
I will support him if he supports me in my right not to serve a bigot like him in my store. My religion forbids me to serve bigots.
Deal Jack?
1
What i would like to know... why would you want to take your business to a known bigot? Why would you try to force him into accepting your money? Why not rally people to boycott this guy? Take his lifeline away... i doubt he will be able to keep the doors open if he is only able to cater to skinheads and nazis
If I ran a business in which I had to create some tangible thing such as a portrait or a song or a decorated cake, I would expect that I'd dislike the beliefs -- and likely the tastes -- of just about every potential customer. I'm an antitheist, so whatever you're celebrating, I'm not going to go along with it.
But I can laugh while working on whatever goofy thing I'm asked to make -- no one hears. I can take pride in doing a good job. I will love your "Thank you; honestly say, "You're welcome." And feel I'm doing my part to keep peace in the world.
1
When I don’t like how I am treated by a business, I go elsewhere. Surely there are other bakers in Colorado. Perhaps even bakers who are better and less interested in my personal life.
Please remember that he is refusing to make a “custom cake based on the design of the patron” and that everyone will know that he made it. He is not refusing and openly offered to sell them anything that is available on his menu or his shelves. In my opinion, that is the deciding factor that protects everyone.
3
Why buy a cake from a bigoted baker? It’s bound to be bitter.
I was disappointed with the SCOTUS decision. That said, my hope is that decent people in Colorado will find another bakery and let Masterpiece cake wither on the vine, neglected. No cake can be delicious enough to overcome the prejudice of the creator.
It’s why I’ve never eaten Chik Fil A or set foot in Hobby Lobby. So many other establishments share my values and deserve my patronage. Cakes taste better when they are baked with love. Find a bakery that will honor you and your celebration.
3
The christian religion is the largest, wealthiest, most respected religion in America. The founder of the religion and the founding documents advocated welcoming the stranger, and treating the other with respect and dignity. How, then, does this cakemaker arrive at shunning an entire class of people?
1
The new arch-conservative Supreme Court will almost certainly rule that the First Amendment protects the right of business owners to NOT speak to or serve someone whose beliefs or lifestyle or color or heritage they find offensive. It won't be just the right not to serve. It will become the business equivalent of Stand Your Ground. If a business owner can legally refuse service to someone, they will put a sign in the window that says, "No ______ served. Do not enter." The fundamental question here is whether a business that opens its door to the public can choose which members of the public can come in, and which members will be served.
3
If you don't agree with his position (& I most definitely do not) boycott his bakery. I do not understand why anyone would want bring their business to someone who so thoroughly disapproves of you. All these law suits do is give him free publicity and set him up as a martyr for all those persecuted "Christians" out there.
1
Is it ok to deny services to a Christian if I am atheist? Would it be allowable to deny a Merry Christmas cake because so many right wing Christians espouse bigotry? If my religion is against capital punishment can I refuse to make a cake with a cross on it, knowing that the cross is a symbol of execution? Christians be careful of what you wish for, progressives be careful of becoming like them.
2
The Supreme Court did not rule in Phillips’s favor any more than an appeals court throwing out a conviction due to judicial error ruled a criminal innocent of the crime he committed.
Could those clergy in PA defend their abuse of 1,000 children as their expression of religious freedom? How is this different?
There are many states that permit discrimination against LGBT people in public accommodations, this bigot should move his business there.
The person claiming discrimination has tried repeatedly to order a cake which the baker will refuse as to bring changes. This is basically weaponizing the Colorado Civil Rights
Commission to enforce a political agenda. It is disingenuous and will only lead to backlashes against the LGBTQ community. And it seems pretty clear that the Supreme Court will not look favorably on it given their previous ruling.
5
I see several cakes with what look like real flowers. Has this baker checked to make sure that none of those flowers are toxic to humans and that they were raised without pesticides. He could be selling potentially hazardous products.
1
My mom, not in CO, actually specializes in making flowers out of sugar that look like the real thing. The Cake Craft Shoppe in Sugar Land, TX. She's always taking pictures of new flowers and fashioning them out of gum paste and wire. They aren't really edible, due to the wire, and the fact that gum paste does not really taste good, but its made from edible, non-toxic ingredients. But given the availability of classes, it's possible he makes them himself. more likely he orders them from a company, or, they are real flowers, in which they make little stakes to put in the cake to protect the flowers from leeching into the cake.
Give me a tootsie roll and I can make you a rose. A less accurate, but far more delicious rose.
So, as the daughter of a cake person, whose been to several many conventions on the subject... How does he survive in the cake world being a hater on the gays? Some of the best in the business are gay men, some of the best teachers. And they are fabulous and I love them. Why can't he just say he's too busy that weekend and recommend someone else? Contract the labor out if he's against it himself? There are so many ways to handle a situation like this without being offensive. Or better yet, be a better Christian and just show some love to someone you may not agree with, but know that you are not the one to judge. Throwing stones, man...
If the baker says he can't make cake, call it what it is - a disability.
When you go into business, you go into business with everyone. That's capitalism.
2
There is a larger point here. As a small business owner who develops creative materials for individuals and organizations, I reserve the right to refuse to contract with a client I do not wish to work with. However I support the Colorado Baker, a businessman in a creative field, in selecting his clients for whatever reason he chooses. Would those who are trying to force the baker to do this work agree with him if he refused to cater an event for the NRA? How about the KuKluxKlan?
When I provide creative materials, I am participating in and contributing to the client's event, meeting, cause or business. As a professional I want my services to be the best I can make them and to advance their cause. If it is a cause I cannot support, I do not wish to advance it or participate. There are plenty of other vendors. Examples of organizations (all legal as far as I know) I would not wish to help could include: the NRA, tobacco companies, gun companies, engineering firms that design bump stocks for guns, witches' covens, liquor companies, facebook and other social media, which I think are destroying this country, gay or other non-traditional weddings, extremist political groups, etc. I have found plenty of legitimate clients whom I can serve and help with satisfaction on all sides.
How I run my business and the choice of market and clients I serve is my right and part of my right to freedom of speech and expression.
6
@Eastsider You mention non-traditional weddings. For most of the 20th century, a black person marrying a white person was considered non-traditional. In fact, it was against the law in most states.
Do you think you should reserve the right to refuse service to interracial couples?
Isn't there some kind of dinstinction made between basic services that can reasonably be said to be part of sustaining a decent standard of living. like basic food, clothing, shelter, security, education, and health care, and cakes and wedding/birthday celebrations?
This "religion" nonsense needs to stop. Baking a cake is not a religious act. Secular activity is subject to equal protection and due process. The first amendment is not involved.
19
“Jack shouldn’t have to fear government hostility when he opens his shop for business each day....”
You have to wonder how much he fears public hostility when he opens his business every morning, because public hostility toward his bizarre means of running his business could quickly put him out of business.
1
Judge and you will be judged
Let the one without sin cast the first stone
This Baker thinks that sinners can't buy his cake, and we as sinners should also not buy from his holiness.
8
this is an easy case to resolve. At the court hearing, call God as a witness and ask him/her what his/her position is on gays and transgenders. That would settle the matter. If, however, he/she does not show up, the court could safely observe that God is a fantasy, Imaginary Friend and can be anything that a person might make up to fit their view of the world, cake making zealots included.
16
The baker should have the right to refuse service to anyone.
Stay out of it US government!
7
You must have missed the time when people were refused service at lunch counters and forced to sit in the back of the bus. And you no doubt still resent the role of the US government in remedying these ills. Discrimination is discrimination and your chosen superstition does not allow you to use it as a cudgel when running a public business.
2
This getting ridiculous. Tying up our courts with this kind of nonsense burdens our justice system. Dismiss this transparent attempt by both parties to get publicity. Buy your cake elsewhere.
10
@R. Anderson: "Dismiss this transparent attempt by both parties to get publicity. Make your cake for everyone."
There, I fixed it for you.
1
“Jack shouldn’t have to fear government hostility when he opens his shop for business each day” ...
I'm sorry, but this is just so funny.
Do any of these people have any shred of a heart, or a conscience, or is all that space taken up by by their huge, ungodly egos?
10
The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from what is happening now in the public and private sectors and in our once secular Supreme Court, but to no avail under the current evangelical-supported administration.
“In your face” and “in your bedroom” religion will be the ruin of this country.
13
What happened to Separation of Church and State?
Cake baked with hate? Who would chose that? What must that taste like?
Ugh. ( and without gloves or a hairnet , either)
I am taking my business to a baker who loves human beings in all shapes, sizes and beliefs; as well as baking !
15
The supreme court was careful to indicate that the previous case with the cake did not decide, one way or the other, that Phillips can refuse to make said cakes. Another case, as I suspect this one will be, is needed to get to the determination. Now, we have to see the case go to a very conservative court for a decision. I am guessing the decision will be very clear this time!
3
I believe there were religious reasons for "proving" African Americans were unequal. Arguments that they were the children of the son of Noah who laughed at his father when he was drunk and then his lineage was doomed to slavery. Religion was used to prove the right of the first instituted hereditary slave system in the world. Just because religion justifies an act of discrimination does not mean the discrimination should be protected by the U.S. government. The first amendment was designed to protect people from discrimination, not the other way around.
20
Besides all the ways this person can be shown to be despicable…the baker, not the buyer…what goes overlooked is why this self-proclaimed "artist" can command such an avid clientele for his work.
The pictures portray a BLAND workplace where the prevailing color is white…icings that resemble clumsy application of plaster with virtually no texture, layers of cake fodder stacked one upon the other in the bel canto scream of more-is-better.
Would an analyst propose that the baker suffers from living in a world that is monochromatic? Doth he not suffer from a lack of tempera in his retinae? It is doleful that we cannot swear out a warrant for this person…is he indeed a man? we do not know…to
be examined as necessary to relieve him(?) of his(?) burdensome existence, engendered like as not by some rigid doctrine super-imposed on his fragile and still developing psyche? He should be pitied were he not so loathsome.
9
Lord knows what most people are celebrating when people buy cakes or most anything else. I guess the next step for companies will be to make customers sign affidavits stating they will not use their products for anything the owners deem morally unacceptable. Someone from every alternative lifestyle group should buy a cake from this company without stating the reason and then hold large press events for the celebration loudly proclaiming their cake was made by Masterpiece Cake Shop.
This seems disingenuous:
‘“The woman on the phone did not object to my request for a birthday cake until I told her I was celebrating my transition,” Ms. Scardina wrote in a complaint to the state, explaining her interaction with one of Mr. Phillips’s employees. “I was stunned.”’
Give me a break: you weren’t stunned at all—you got the response you were trying to provoke. It’s trolling, plain and simple, and acting in bad faith.
Yes, the man’s religious beliefs are ignorant, stunted and something Jesus would probably be ashamed of; he might even turn over the tables in that shop. But baiting like this seems like a bad idea.
I love my gay and lesbian friends, and especially my trans nephew. I just think provoking Masterpiece Cakeshop might not be the best way to serve them.
33
But the plaintiff entirely shifted the legal question in the baker's favor. In the first Masterpiece case, the Court punted on whether baking an otherwise nondescript cake for a wedding, gay or otherwise, is an expressive or religiously imbued act, which should be protected. RGB suggested it would not be expressive: "[for] conduct to constitute protected expression, the conduct must be reasonably understood by an observer to be communicative . . . . But Phillips submitted no evidence showing that an objective observer understands a wedding cake to convey a message. . . ." 138 S. Ct. at 1749 n.1(Ginsburg, J., dissenting).
RBG again: "As the Court recognizes, a refusal 'to design a special cake with words or images ... might be different from a refusal to sell any cake at all' . . . . The Division and the Court of Appeals could rationally and lawfully distinguish between a case involving disparaging text and images and a case involving a wedding cake of unspecified design." Id. at 1751 n.5.
Well, now this plaintiff *is* (and likely had been - sordid details the Times left out that you can find elsewhere) attempting to "convey a message" on a position/social issue through a "specified design", intends the message to be understood, and, (as amply proven by the comments here), it is understood. Thus, under SCOTUS precedent, the requested cake is expressive and the expression may not be forced. That should make it quite easy for the baker to win, perhaps even for RBG.
9
How does baking a cake threaten his ability to practice religion without interference from the state, or to hold particular beliefs?
13
What is the fascination with this baker? Is he the only one in the jurisdiction? I totally get nondiscrimination laws, but I certainly wouldn’t want services of any kind from a provider with a hate-filled heart. Who knows what unrequested item(s) might be added? Bad energy. Bad karma. I’d avoid this guy at all costs. Why not patronize establishments that welcome everyone?
24
Religion is a choice. While some people maintain their relious beliefs over their life, it is not because they can't physically change, it's a their choice to follow that path. Many people change religion affiliation. Sexual orientation is not a choice. We should not let something that is a choice be an excuse to subjugate that which is immutable.
12
Why do we continue to allow religion as the “get out of jail free card” for discrimination?
21
Jesus does not seem to be in this baker's heart or mind.
15
I think that it might be interesting to reframe the issues.
Suppose that I believe that Blacks or African-Americans are not truly equal (or human, or what have you) based on my "sincerely held religious beliefs. May I then refuse to serve them? Or require them to go to the back of the bus, or use a separate door?
Since this is not "state action", may I discriminate?
Or, to reframe the issue once again, since the president has advised us that Mexicans, or Mexican-Americans, are rapists may I refuse to rent to them?
What about Republicans? The president has made a convincing case that they are sociopaths if not for supporting him, but remaining silent.
Historically, under the Common Law of England in 1776 and 1789, one who held himself out as serving the public (typically, common carriers but not exclusively) had to serve all of the public. It should not have been necessary to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But the United States has too many followers of peculiar religious views that deviate significantly from what most followers of their religion believe.
Indeed, a basic teaching of Judaism famously expressed by Rabbi Hillel is "do unto others as you would have them do to you." Jesus is said to have expressed it in the negative ("do not do . . "). And Muslims accept both Judaic and Christian teachings.
So how do followers justify bald faced discrimination?
14
@Eugene
Better to follow Shaw's maxim: "Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."
It seems implausible that any gay or transgender person would actually want to support this man's business. Are there no other bakeries in Denver? Having a lawyer call and ask for him to make a cake clearly designed to make him uncomfortable seems deliberately cruel. This is going to play right into the hands of the right wing media.
19
Here is the bottom line. He doesn't OWE her a cake! His business, his decision.
Whether or not his religious beliefs are popular to someone doesn't give them the right to tell him how to run his business.
Don't give him your money if his policies are so offensive.
The irony is that the transgender person is using intolerance and descrimination trying to force him to do something he is not comfortable with. He isn't forcing anything on her, he simply chooses not to participate in a lifestyle contrary to his convictions.
16
@Mike
And we're back to red-lining, whites only, colored people bathrooms, and buses for the pale of skin.
All market decisions. And you're good with that...
He is not a put-upon baker. He chose to participate in the public market-place (if he doesn't want to, he could advertise in the Wedding for Whites, the Man-Boy-Love Association, or any other medium he chooses).
He advertises his business openly to the public. I have no doubt he claims public benefits for himself and his cake store.
He runs a business as a public accommodation, and regardless of his morality, he cannot discriminate. Or could not, until recently.
7
What you say might be true, but it also presents a question. Hear me out. The decision on the supreme court case basically allows the baker to refuse service to a group of people, to basically put up a sign, "no gays allowed."
Previous the civil rights movement, the state and federal governments validated the right of businesses to refuse service to African Americans because of a racism. To protest this, members of the civil rights movement would go into those shops, request service, and refuse to leave until actually arrested. They wanted to point out how unjust it is for people to discriminate against a whole group of people. (As for religion, Christianity was used to prove the inferiority of African Americans, as evident in any book on the civil rights movement worth it's salt would prove).
Both the protests against "whites only" businesses and any protest against the baker involved businesses who refused a group of people because it differed from their chosen lifestyle.
What is the difference between the above case and this baker? If the answer is that it is not widespread, note where it says in the article that there are lawsuits all over America at this moment. Also, should discrimination be allowed only when it is in isolation? It takes a single case to become precedent.
I'm not saying you or anyone who feels that this case is not worth the time are wrong, I just want to point out the parallels that constantly come to mind when I hear these two baker's cases.
4
@Mike it's a cake, not a lifestyle!
1
At the end of the day, the question comes down to who gets to be who they are. Does a gay or trans person get to be who they are or does the Christian get to be who he is? Well, let’s examine the merits of both parties. What the gay/trans person wants: a cake. What the Christian wants: to deny the reality that gay or trans people exist by refusing to serve them. What the gay/trans person feels: a desire for a beautiful cake. What the Christian feels: that he’s being forced to acknowledge that gay/trans people exist through his work, and should therefore be able to discriminate.
Alright, you decide. Who’s just here for cake? Who’s here because he wants to discriminate?
10
This move is simply being done to cause a stir, and I actually feel bad for the Baker...
People know where he stands, which I disagree with completely, but this is basically a bully tactic.
22
Nobody in these comments is making the “compelled speech” argument. Can or should the government be able to force an individual to speak or act in such a way as to imply personal assent or dissent with the desired speech which contradicts the conscience of the individual? How deep does the state have a right to go, for whatever reason?
6
This reminds me of the story about a nice man who enters a hardware store one day - walks up to the counter - and asks for apples, oranges, bananas, lettuce and tomatoes --
The guy behind the counter explains that "This is a hardware store. We don't sell produce here - we sell hardware." --
The nice man smiles - says thanks you - and leaves --
The next day, the same man walks back into the same hardware store - goes up to the same salesperson at the counter - and asks for apples, oranges, bananas, etc --
The guy behind the counter says - "Don't you remember - you were in here yesterday and I told you we don't sell fruit - this is a hardware store" --
The nice man smiles, says thanks, and walks out --
This scenario is repeated for days - weeks - and months - until finally one day, the guy behind the counter says --
"You come in here every day looking for fruit - and we never have it. We have never sold fruit - and we never will - ever. This is a hardware store - we sell hardware" --
And on this day - the light shines and the nice man gets it -- and realizes his error - as he and the clerk share a spiritual moment --
The man walks out of the store - beaming with his new-found knowledge - as he sets out on his quest for fruit --
He strides confidently down the streets until he finally comes to the "right place" --
He opens he door - and with a sense of great anticipation - he walks into a hardware store...
6
Phillips' lawyers proclaim that the state "is ignoring the message of the U.S. Supreme Court."
So wrong. Actually, it is Phillips who doesn't get it. He did not win. Rather, the state lost on a technicality. Colorado won't make that mistake again.
13
And one day, it'll be this guy's turn to meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. And he'll say, "Dude, why did you refuse to make cakes for all those lovely people? What the heck is your problem?" And the *womp womp* will resound across the heavens.
10
Just. make. the. cake.
On the other hand, would taste more delicious from a more loving baker.
8
If you are in business to provide a service then tend to your business. If you want to practice your religion then stay home or in church.
You waste so much of the People's money.
13
What a detestable, small-minded human. His daily life must feel like torture being confined to living so narrowly within his hateful religious beliefs and personal drive for vengeance against his fellow humans and the state he resides in. As for his business, his cakes are dreadfully amateur. Why would anyone want one?
9
Lakewood needs another bakery. Let competition and a free market decide this. Before we know it, Jack will say that he can't bake for Jews because they don't accept Jesus as their savior. And then it will be all non-Christians. As long as he can find a pro bono lawyer, he will find someone to reject.
17
This case has nothing to do with religious freedom. Perhaps, now is the time for me to refuse to do business with NRA members and gun toters. These decisions work both ways, as the cake baker in Colorado might well find out.
13
Imagine my shock at reading that this bozo is now expanding his demands for Purity. Was it the fact that this customer told him whybshe wanted the cake, or the colors themselves, that forced him to clutch his shrivelled pearls?
Why my goodness, it's as though his court cases were a mere cheap excuse for hatin' on folks. Surely that cannot be true, perish forbid.
6
It sounds like there is a situation where...
The baker either asks every customer what the intended celebration is for each item baked...
OR
Someone is openly mentioning what it is for and trying to entrap the baker.
Based on the prejudice displayed, I would be more likely to believe that the bakery/baker is asking what each item is for, to make sure their beliefs are used to judge others.
Why do people keep trying to give business to an obvious, proven and proud bigot?
18
I'm sick and tired of people cloaking their bigotry in the guise of religion. For that matter, why does it matter if one's beliefs are religious or otherwise? In a country whose Constitution prohibits the state establishment of religion why shouldn't the beliefs of atheists and other non-religious people be given the same weight as those considered "religious".
112
@Jack Kashtan I'm sure the Native Americans felt the same way as they watched corporations dig into their sacred grounds, treatied land, for an oil pipeline. What about Native Americans' religious freedoms? Are they granted none?
@Jack Kashtan Religious beliefs are not examples of bigotry. If that were the case, as you state, then most of our laws and the processes that we've elected to enforce them would be based on bigotry, since on a fundamental level, they were derived from the Christian faith of our country's founders.
@Jack Kashtan
To the best of my knowledge (which I confess is limited) Congress has not made a law establishing atheism as a state religion, nor preventing the free exercise of atheism as a matter of conscience. There are innumerable atheist books and publications available for purchase and residing in public libraries coast to coast. There are various atheist organizations devoted to the propagation of free-thought, and most enjoying non-profit status.
Reminds me of the 'whites only' signs I saw in my grade school history books. While being a hero to the Christian right, I see him as a coward. Sunday school certainly did not teach me that I should serve the public of my choosing. I wonder if any gay or transgender folks are involved in the growing, processing, distribution, etc., of the flour for his cakes? Or how about the maintenance of the roads, communications, and power systems that functionally allow his business to operate? No, he accepts not a single ounce of service from anyone who is gay or transgender, that would be against his religion, and a violation of his First amendment rights.
11
The perception of this pastry chef is that gender is endowed by God, and not a matter of perception?
Fascinating.
3
So a lawyer, who knew the baker had been involved in the supreme court case, called to get a cake, and then made a point to describe what it was she was celebrating, and is claiming she was "stunned" that she got the answer she was actually seeking? At least own up to the fact you called this specific baker to make that specific cake! Don't be a hypocrite and say you were surprised he responded in a predictable manner.
13
It’s absurd that we are having this discussion about a cake, but even more so that this petty, spiteful man refuses to bake them for people whom he objects to. It’s incredible that he is so hateful that he lets his personal beliefs get in the way of his business. I would never buy something from him or anyone else that treats other people that way. Unfortunately we can’t tell people how to think or force them to accept others. He’s beyond bigotry or homophobia.
7
Does Jack Phillips make birthday cakes for people who were born out of wedlock? (What religion is in favor of that practice?)
How about cakes for people who have different religious beliefs from him? Atheists?
How about cakes for people who are divorced? Left handed? Blue-eyed? Who speak a language other than English?
Jack Phillips is in the wrong business.
6
Does he have some sort of pre-cake customer interview process to ensure that he is only making cakes for white, straight fundamentalist Christians? Is there a terms and conditions contract, according to which clients must affirm that said cakes will not be viewed by, associated with or eaten by any LBGT individuals? And most importantly, is there not a single other way to obtain pastries in the Denver metro area than from this bigot?
7
This reminds me somehow of the restaurants that wouldn’t serve Trump cabinet members and staff, that have made the news over the past few months. I believe one of Ms. Huckabee’s meals was one such case.
The left-side restaurant doesn’t want to serve the right-side politicians. That has generally been excepted as reasonable, and there have been no court battles about discrimination due to ideology.
Why can the left discriminate against the right in their restaurants, but in the cake shop, right may not reject the left? It seems that the left is guilty of having a significant double standard.
22
Huckabee Sanders is a public figure who has chosen to willingly engage with the culture in a larger than life way, and is using a national platform, one that is funded by the public, to express and support political views. She has chosen this public role and with it the possible consequences of being a public figure whose position and work effects millions of people.
A customer in a cake shop is a private citizen. Their personal, private choices do not effect millions of people and
13
Charges of hipocracy are quite tenuous. Your argument could easily (and possibly more convincingly) be flipped completely around. Why is it the 'right' are so worked up by politicians being turned away from restaurants...but so utterly unconcerned by a couple seeking to make an expression of love being discriminated against by a cake maker. I have seen more evidence of the aforementioned argument in the 'right' press versus the 'left' press.
1
@Doctor Maybe if you actually understood that gays and transgenders are a protected class in Colorado, then you would get your answer on why Trump cabinet members and staff could be legally refused service in Virginia (refusing service based on political affiliations is legal everywhere except DC). But go ahead and claim double standard on something that doesn’t exist.
My recommend is that every single superior gay baker in Colorado descend upon his store, and offer better cake. Shouldn't be hard, given that all this time he's spent thumping the Bible has put him out of practice.
Alas, alas for you, lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites to a man. And for anybody doubting that the haters of Roe will stop there and not come after contraception.
9
@Robert my suggestion is if you know about his belief system why go to him unless you are looking to pick a fight.
4
The baker did not "win" the last case.
He just did not lose, because the whole case was thrown out on procedural grounds.
A key factor in bringing a case to make a point is choosing the facts and the forum and the defendant to frame the issue.
Are these the best possible facts?
Is this Court the best in which to challenge it?
Is a baker with a whole team of fanatics already behind him the best target?
I think they are getting carried away with what they believe, and may well be sorry they did this, no matter how right they may be in the longer term.
10
No where does it state in the Bible that you can hate
your fellow brother (or sister). This phony stance in the name of God is appalling. But I’m sure this baker knows his demons and what he is doing is unchristian. Lets boycott the bigot. I’m sure his bigoted feelings seep into his baking and I’ll bet his baked goods taste terrible.
15
Is this the only baker in town? While in god’s name would anyone take their business to this hate monger?
29
The crucial distinction in this and other such cases is between 1) refusing the customer, and 2) refusing to sign a contract to perform custom work. If Jack had refused to sell gay (or transgender) customers the products that were on his shelves available to all customers, then, yes--he would be guilty as charged. But should he forced to sign a contract? That is the question. If people are forced to sign contracts, then contractual law is changed at its fundamental roots, since it is integral to a contract that one signs willngly. I admit that this argument runs into difficulties with rental contracts (landlords should not be able to turn away black tenants because they are black), but there is still an ethitcal issue pertaining to contractual agreements. A baker who sells cakes (without messages) to all customers, should not be forced to utter a message he or she (or ze) finds abhorrent (however unjustly). It is in everyone's interests that free speech be kept free. Do we really want puppet speech? Politicians give us too much of that already.
11
@John -- That was his argument, and the Court left it undecided. If there had been a majority in favor of that argument, they likely would have found themselves able to reach the question instead of ducking.
3
The issue is about serving the public. The laws that pertain to serving the public in a restuarant pertain to a bakery. When you go to a restaurant, not a fast food establishment, the food is cooked to order and in better restaurants minor changes aren't out of the question. Housing laws are quite specific about forbidding discrimination without regard contract other than one must be made under the law.
Anyone using the Christian bible to deny service to anyone based on race, religion or sexual orientation is not a Christian because Christ wouldn't support their actions.
It should be a special criminal offense, like hate crimes, for people to break the law while using the defense that they are doing something in the name of Jesus because Jesus would never accept that.
1
This literally "takes the cake!" If a customer said nothing to Mr. Phillips he'd presumably bake the cake, but he projects his own religious bias onto his customers and refuses anyone who doesn't conform. How is this different than refusing to serve blacks at lunch counters or Jews or Muslims who hold different religious beliefs than Mr. Phillips? If you have public business, you should serve the public. Why is such bigotry condoned? Mr. Phillips as not affiliated with a church or an ordained minister in one. Let him eat his own cake and everyone else boycott him. A cake shop is not a religious organization, and the court has grievously erred in allowing such discrimination here as well as with the Hobby Lobby decision. The courts have mistakenly placed religious beliefs over religious tolerance--a hallmark of our Constitution and supposedly all religions. That's what "e Pluribus Unum" means.
20
The baker seems out on a limb with this one.
It is a blue cake with a pink interior. I'll bet similar cakes get made for all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons and nobody objects (though I must say my experience with blue icing is that it is absolutely vile ...)
Would he bake that exact same cake if I called and said it was to celebrate the birthday of two twins, boy and girl, and we alternate the colors each year?
His excuse this time is not that he objects to the ceremony (a same-sex wedding) the cake is being used for but that he objects to the person ordering the cake.
This baker is the one on the crusade. I imagine it will ultimate work out about as well as all the previous ones have.
15
Baking instructions for high altitudes do need adjustments for the elevation.
But this mile-high baker needs to bring his attitude back down to earth.
Any business serving the public must be open to anyone who can pay. That’s what “public” means.
Otherwise we compartmentalize and splinter our society into goods and services for every possible affiliation - the left-handed, the Republican, the right-brained, high-school drop-outs, the childfree, the overweight, the fashion-conscious and so on. Economic and social class have already engendered a solid caste system. Let’s not add to the partitions.
As a teacher, I am obligated to teach and treat all my students fairly regardless of any areas of bias I might have. And this has undoubtedly made me a better teacher.
10
This is a FREE COUNTRY. Our government is not in the business of FORCING people to do things. Discrimination is turning someone away because you dislike something about them. He'll happily sell a pre-made cake to anyone. He just does not make cakes that celebrate things that are against his beliefs; that is all. What if you hated Trump (not a stretch for NY Times readers I'm sure), and someone came to your business and wanted some custom Pro-Trump work done. How would you like the government forcing you to do that work?
29
@Dave - thats not a fair comparison. try something more like an antithesis business owner being asked to cater a church function. right to practice religion is protected, in colorado non discrimination laws extend to protect LGBT populcation, just like a business cant refuse people with certain shades of skin regardless of their religious beliefs. back in the 60's a case went to supreme court because religion was used to deny black people goods and services. also political views are not protected when you are on another person private property (home or business) so your trump example doesnt work, with that said i suspect most on the left would take the business unless they had to be in attendance at a pro-trump event because that is direct participation. one last thing, in your example if i wanted to decline a income from a pro-trump event i would quote 3 times as much unless i made a price list public
2
Dear Dave.
The government forces people to do lots of things; drive below a specific speed, pay taxes, not drink under 21, not discriminate on the basis of race etc.
The issue with the baker is not that he wishes to live by his “Christian” views when providing his services but his selective application of those views only to LGBT people. As other posters have said does he refuse to bake cakes for Jews or Muslims, for people remarrying after divorce, for people who have no faith, for people who do not attend church regularly.
He either has to bake for no one who breaches his Christian principles or for everyone.
7
@Dave, discrimination is turning someone away because of their race, color, gender, religion or national origin. That's the law (Civil Rights Act of 1964). It has nothing to do with whether you like them, but whether they belong to a protected class.
Those who argued for Jim Crow laws during the '60s made the same argument you did. They lost in Congress and the courts.
The question for me is whether this SCOTUS will try to gut the Civil Rights Act as they did the Voting Rights Act. We should all be concerned.
10
Jack Phillips is boring, and by NOW one would think that his "fifteen minutes of fame" are over. Alas, no. I tend to agree with other posts, there are much graver activities going on in this country, and the world. Can we PLEASE move on?
6
Yes. Of course. Thinking about moral responsibility and the limits of the state over the individual makes my brain hurt too. Let’s move on!
3
To all the readers saying, "Let the market decide, just don't buy from him" think about how well that has worked to correct other forms of discrimination in business, like redlining.
9
@zee
Unfortunately, so many
1) do not remember the bad ol' days of legal discriminatory practices (such as redlining),
2) weren't born yet, and now think that the free-market fetishism largely begun in the 80s is the way things have always been and should be, or
3) think that past regulations are no longer necessary because "things have changed" and/or "we've evolved past needing such regulations"
There's a lot of these people.
5
Here we go again. Why couldn’t this person just choose another cake decorator? I’m guessing that Phillips was not chosen by accident.
17
So what? If he discriminates, he's breaking the law. The customer isn't breaking the law by patronizing his shop. He's breaking the law by refusing to serve that person.
If the law doesn't work on principle, it doesn't work.
4
The center-right media is making a big stink about Autumn Scardina, who is a lawyer, making the call on the day that the Supreme Court accepted the first case. I've seen a number of op-eds that refer her as a troll. It is difficult to imagine that the call wasn't strategically placed, considering the monumental date, but to me, that phone call sounds like activism, actually, widening the scope of the issue beyond gay marriage to LGBTQ discrimination more broadly.
I do wonder, however, if the intention might backfire, given that the Court would go on to decide the first case in favor of Masterpiece Bakery. I fear that giving the Courts another chance to protect LGBTQ consumer rights in the marketplace might just give the Court a chance to solidify the religious right's freedom to refuse us. It makes me worried, to say the least.
6
Of course her actions were strategic. But i share your concern about the outcome, especially now that Kennedy's not on the court.
2
I wonder how Mr. Phillips would view baking a birthday cake for a child conceived using in-vitro fertilization? That seems an intervention by man over God's will. Really, where does it end?
9
@gnoaklnd, there was a case several years ago in Minnesota where a pediatrician refused to see the baby of a lesbian couple because she disapproved of THEIR union. It's not inconceivable that this SCOTUS, if Kavanaugh is approved, would extend this baker's religious exemption to professions like medicine.
3
Persecution doesn’t happen when you’re asked to bake a cake; it happens when you are told that you won’t get the cake because the baker dislikes who you are.
10
Obviously, his fifteen minutes of fame weren't enough. Poor baby, he has to have still MORE recognition for his "sincere" and oh, so, noble "Christian" mores! We, the people, and the hapless Governor are persecuting him simply because people come into his place of business and ask to be served. If he's get over himself and his "art" and simply serve customers as he is supposed to, we'd all be better off.
10
If our government cannot protect us from being discriminated against by someone quoting religious beliefs, where does it end? Can I be legally murdered because someone’s religious beliefs tell them they must do so? If government cannot protect us, government is useless. The Supreme Court will decide this is OK. And then we are lost as a civilized country and will return to the Middle Ages and the Inquisition.
12
My strongly held religious beliefs say there is no such thing as owner ship of material things. Does that mean I can take your car?
11
Bake a cake for a same sex couple or a person celebrating their transition. Don't bake a cake for adulterers, abandoners and divorcers.
Consider the three sins of adultery, abandonment and divorce. Adultery, abandonment and divorce are forbidden by the teachings of the Church of Rome. In every case, harm is the result. Adulterers betray those whom they claim they love; adultery often leads to abandonment. Abandonment destroys lives, forces the selling of the family home; often, the children have to move, go to a different school, lose their friends. Divorce destroys trust, leads to years of bitterness, anger, resentment and guilt; frequently, it destroys a family's finances.
Now compare the above with same sex or same gender marriage, and transition from one gender to another. Unlike adultery, abandonment and divorce, no harm is done.
Yet millions and millions of those who claim to be God fearing and devout, especially in America, commit adultery, abandon their spouse and their children, divorce their wife or husband.
Humans are such hypocrites and the more religious the human, then typically the more hypocritical he or she is.
Bake a cake for a same sex couple or a person celebrating their transition. Don't bake a cake for adulterers, abandoners and divorcers.
7
@Colenso -- "Don't bake a cake for adulterers, abandoners and divorcers."
If they come in and brag to him when ordering that is what they are celebrating, do you know if he'd bake the cake anyway? He seems pretty rigid.
5
In previous articles it stated he does not bake divorce celebration cakes or halloween cakes either. He has stock bakery items anyone can purchase, but he tries to uphold his Christian values in special orders.
3
What if someone came in and ordered s custom cake with the words “ for my favorite mistress” written on it? Or if someone wanted a custom cake to celebrate the anniversary of their divorce? What if there were a couple who happened to be neo-Nazis and and they wanted a swatstika on their cake? If Phillips were an actor could the government force him to play the role of a transgender person?
In the New York Times article "Colorado Bakers Sues Governor Over Cake Dispute With Transgender Woman" the author Julie Turkewitz writes about the legal case between Masterpiece Cake shop owner Jack Phillips and customer Autumn Scardina. Where bakery own Mr. Phillips is refusing to make a blue and pink cake for Ms. Scardina's transgender celebration. The outcome being that state law requires Mr. Phillips to bake a new cake. However, Mr. Phillips argues that the state's ruling violates his first amendment right to freely practice his religious beliefs. Previous from this suit, Mr. Phillips was involved in another legal issue where he refused service to a gay couple who were seeking a wedding cake for a reception in Colorado. Angered by Mr. Phillips rejecting their business, the couple filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, claiming that Mr. Phillips had violated the state law, banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Although the United States Supreme Court ruled in Jack Phillips favor, they missed the chance to decide whether a business can refuse service to homosexual or transgender people by enforcing their First Amendment rights. I personally do not agree with Mr. Phillips decisions to deny service to transgender or homosexual people. However, Mr. Phillips is entitled to his First Amendment rights. He should not be forced to go against his own belief that gender is "given by God."
7
@Bengal11Nina041102
Then maybe he shouldn't represent his bakery as a public business. Because it's not.
Words hurt deeper than a slap on the face. How can his cake even taste sweet?
3
The bible also says it is a sin to divorce and remarry. I wonder if this cafeteria xtain would bake a cake for trump if he got married again. Cafeteria xtain, one who selects what is sinful according to his or her own likes and dislikes. I wonder if he would bake one for someone who gossips or lies. These are also sins but he probably does them so that makes it ok. Hypocrite why point to the splinter in your neighbors eye and ignore the beam in your own eye.
22
This is the world’s last problem. When this issue is resolved, the world be a perfect place. We are so close!
8
The State of Colorado is demonstrating fascism at its worst. Do as I say or we will punish you. Considering the Supreme Court just admonished their prejudiced actions against Philip's Christian beliefs, this latest attempt should be considered illegal. Once again the Left is proving that the rule of law should not apply to their emotional tantrums.
18
The baker is pretty discriminatory. How would you like someone to deny you service because they don’t like your kind? The state needs to protect those discriminated against. He should not be open to the public if he does not like certain groups.
5
This guy should be put out of business.
21
Masterpiece Cakeshop and their cakes are very high in calories, and bigotry.
17
Oh come on. There are other bakers. Children are being bombed in Yemen, caged in the US, starved in Palestine.
22
@Zejee, discrimination is not a minor issue, even if this case seems trivial to you. A ruling by SCOTUS expanding religious exemptions would extend to professions beyond bakers, and to many other groups.
1
He should stop baking, its costing taxpayers money.
18
To paraphrase Samuel Johnson: Religion is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
34
Will Jack make a cake for a Catholic Priest?
35
Aside from everything else, make your own cake!! Can't anyone cook anymore???? (Only slightly kidding)
14
I don’t want to live in an America where a fellow trans HUMAN can’t get a cake from the religiously conservative baker of his/her particular choice!
This is an outrage! Put this man out of business! Hound his friends and associates! Jail him if need be, until he bakes whatever is asked of him! Except of course cakes that feature tweets by Alex Jones or Roseanne Barr. I think everyone here is cool if we allow bakers to ban THAT kind of crimethink, right?
7
That is not the point and deep down you know this. Would you accept this if a doctor refused medical service based on color, race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation? This Baker is open to the public, he should serve the public or close up and only offer services to religious organizations he approves of.
6
It is so weird that this is apparently the only bakery in all of Colorado. It seems that nobody can get cakes anywhere else, and so when this old bigot refuses to serve them, they are denied the chance to eat empty calories and too much sugar in celebration of whatever.
If that sarcasm wasn't apparent, allow me to be a bit more clear: when this old guy refuses someone they should walk a couple blocks to the next bakery and order their cake there. It might help if they don't rub it in the baker's face that this cake will be to celebrate something that the old testament condemns, because there's a lot of fundementalists in America. Just walk in, say I want a cake with a blue exterior and pink interior that says "Happy Birthday", and there would be no problem at all.
The nonsense that people are focusing on these days, when we have an ignorant fascist in the White House trying to destroy America, is highly irritating to me.
29
One issue is whether she had other options, or if this is the only place to get a cake. If it's a 100 mile drive to the next cake shop, maybe the the cake-maker should give a little on his religious feelings. But in Denver there must be many other shops. It seems suspicious that she ordered from this particular shop, this close to the time of the court decision. It couldn't be that she didn't know about the Mullins/Craig case, so is this just harassment of the one cake shop owner who had dared to stand up for himself before?
The next issue is whether she had to tell the cake shop the purpose of the cake; it doesn't seem there was any need. For 2 gay guys who wanted a figure of 2 guys on the cake, maybe, or could they have just found such a figure somewhere and put it on the cake after they got it home? If transition was mentioned just to create the problem, that's a problem.
If my wife and I walk into a church, store, school, wherever, and announce that we have anal sex every Tuesday, is that OK under freedom of speech or the principle of always telling the truth? Or should we have had the common sense to just not say anything?
I'm left-handed. If I find a store that only sells right-handed scissors, do I sue? (I've gotten along fine for years before I knew there were left-handed scissors.)
There are enough serious problems in the world, that it doesn't seem necessary to pick yet another fight with a guy trying to make a living making cakes.
28
I don’t think your way of thinking really goes with the law. The SC court had issue with the way way one Colorado official stated their disagreement with the baker. Feeling they had something against his religion. However, he has proved many right, he’s just a bigot using religion to justify denying his publicly offered services. It’s not much different to deny people a seat at the counter, when you really think about. If he ran a diner and a gay couple came in and he refused service, would you think differently? The only difference between ordering dinner and a special cake is time
3
If I walk into a bottled water shop, selling pink and blue bottles of water, do you get to say no if I'm a man and I choose pink? I think not.
Stupid comparison, and you know it.
2
@Mark Miller
Many restaurant and hotel owners were trying to make a living too; they jut didn't want to serve blacks.
8
This guy is quite an attention seeker!
7
@Will. He didn't seek this latest case. A lawyer sought him. He was the target, not the marksman.
9
Poor fellow. People must have been paying less attention to him lately, so he needed a re-boot.
Perhaps he can open a branch store in Colorado City, AZ and discriminate against polygamists next.
I hope this time the Colorado panel is more careful how they express themselves when they slap him down again.
5
Given Mr, Phillips’ history of discrimination it does seem a provocation to ask him to bake a cake for a transgender celebration. Why give this bigot, who hides behind his bible, the press or the business?
12
Refusing to bake cakes for Catholic priests- now that I could understand on religious or ethical grounds,....but everyday gay and transgender folks- no, they're generally okay.
8
Just boycott the dude and let him stew in his own juices. Every member of the public has the right not to patronize him, just as he claims the right to pick and choose who his patrons will be.
So starve the dude out. Simple. Effective. If he wants to stay in business, he will just have to quit being a jerk if potential customers, whatever their religious affiliation or sexual preferences, stand up to him by saying 'thanks, but I'll just take my business elsewhere.'
10
Just youtube “cake making” and stop harassing this poor man.
6
Any fool can and does say "God made me do it". It's an old excuse.
13
I m gay and am starting to roll my eyes even more over all of this brouhaha over cakes.
Why on earth would my gay brethren go to a breeder for a cake to begin with? If you are looking for a dry cake with a lifeless frosting and amateurish balance of colors, go for it. Otherwise, seek out some queen who dresses like Julia Child and get something worthy of your wedding! :)
Its one thing to walk into a baker's shop and pick out the second cake in the display case and be told no, you are gay. Its another to go in and order someone to draw something on their cakes that goes against their beliefs. Test the guy - have a heterosexual couple go in and order a wedding cake with explicit pornographic images on it and I will bet good money he says, No!
If a devout Christian goes into a gay baker and requests a cake with the bible verse "Stone the homosexuals", does the gay baker have to produce such a cake? No. Again, the baker can show the display case with some lovely choices.
37
@tom Harrison, this case isn't about a baker and a cake. It isn't limited in scope to the LGBTQ community. It's about reversing decades-long judicial precedent on individuals in protected classes, be they minorities, women, LGBTQ, etc.
This case is most closely aligned with the Hobby Lobby decision.
3
Is this the only cake shop in Colorado ?
America Kneads to no.
16
Sounds like this baker is being targeted by LGBTQ activists.
34
How dare LGBT people attempt to patronize his business.
6
Sounds like if you are open to the public, you should serve the public and not just the people you like the sexual orientation of.
2
Or he is being used by religious activists.
9
After all the controversy .. This clown is still in business!
Outside of coastal, liberal cities [with the obvious exception of Austin, TX] ... All I can say to the LGBTQ community... You have a long way to go baby!
7
For those against the baker, I would like to know whether a business owner should be forced to serve at _any_ event?
How about a Trump political rally? How about an abortion shower? How about a KKK meeting? How about a Black Mass?
Let's think about where this is going if we force business owners to sponsor any possible event. And let's remember that certain businesses (photography, fine cakes, chair delivery), can't just provide their goods, they actually have to go to attend the event and assist with set up and take down.
13
Except that he has a storefront. Supposed to serve the public.
2
@Jonathan Indeed. Don't attempt to shop a business that may not share one's values.
Simple. Let the bigots be bigots. Soon, that best advertising medium, word of mouth, may have an adverse effect on his bottom line.
1
@Jonathan, that's the slippery slope fallacy. The Civil Rights Act lists five protected classes: race, color, gender, religion and national origin. That's all. The KKK and political rallies aren't covered.
This case is really about the right's decades-long efforts to dismantle the Civil Rights Act. Jack Phillips is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has figured out that the way to undermine the Civil Rights Act is to attack it based on the principle of religious freedom. They're going to keep up these suits until they get the results they want.
6
For a baker he is sure leaving a terrible taste in a lot of peoples mouths. Dude should stick with sugar and butter and leave the spite out of his recipes.
66
Perhaps this man should find a new career. What about one where his prejudicial attitudes will in no way affect the service he provides? Or maybe he and Kim Davis can pair up and create a reality TV show to appeal to the people with Christian persecution complexes.
1
@BCG His case is very different from Kim Davis's. It was her job to be a witness (nothing more, nothing less) to an event recognized by the State she served. He is not a civil servant. He chose not to enter in a contractual relationship (to perform custom work). A contract by definition requires the FREE consent of both signatories. If one is forced to sign a contract, it is not a contract.
6
Even from a religious point of view, there is no justification for not serving gays or transgenders. Never did Jesus advise shunning sinners. Quite the contrary. He treated prostitutes and lepers like human beings. Even if you go to Leviticus, you don't find anything commanding merchants to withhold their wares. If anything, the Bible commands its followers not to judge, and Christianity reminds its followers to hate the sin, not the sinner. This whole thing of "I won't bake a gay cake" has no legitimate religious support whatsoever.
4
@RobertSF It is true that Jesus did not shun sinners, but he did shun sins. Maybe he saw homosexuality as a sin (his culture certainly did), and maybe he did not. That is a question for the theologians. But Jesus did not offer blanket approval to all commerce. He drove the shopkeepers out of the temple. Even if you are right, your argument is a two-edged sword. If the baker is the sinner (and who isn't?) then he too deserves to treated like a human being. He has been targeted by activists as a thing.
2
@RobertSF
He does not discriminate that way.
He sells cakes to gays or transgender all the time.
He won't make a cake that he knows will be used for some purpose that celebrates being gay.
2
Looks like the cakemaker is getting tons of free publicity from Jesus, LGBT and Courts . Give and he’ll come for more.
Does not deserve more than a paragraph without picture on page 5 of the local town paper.
5
Who knew that cake baking could become so political? I'm hoping the NYT will not place this controversy front and center, daily, once again. As if there aren't bigger issues going on in our country? Why did this transgender person go into this person's shop to begin with? Move on. Boycott. Go somewhere else already.
9
@thomas, this is a very big issue.
Look beyond the cake, which is of course trivial. What is under attack is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Jack Phillips is defended by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They support recriminalizing homosexuality in the U.S., state-sanctioned sterilization of transgendered individuals abroad, the horrendous laws against homosexuality in Uganda. They represented Hobby Lobby in Burwell v Hobby Lobby.
They are a powerful, well-financed organization dedicated to returning the United States to what they consider its biblical roots.
4
@Thomas
There are no issues more fundamental to American culture than those of free expression, equal protection, public accommodation, separation of church and state, and due process—all of which are embodied in this case.
Are there not dozens of other bakeries or cake makers in the area who’d love to have Ms. Scardina’s business, and isn’t she perfectly well aware of that? Targeting Philips simply to harass and provoke him so thoroughly reeks of fascism it has lost any defense.
13
@to make waves
And so, therefore, blacks purposely sitting at a whites-only lunch counter in the 60s was simply harassment and provocation... right?
This shopkeeper is nothing more than a Trump wannabe-likes to see his name in print. Well, stop attempting to shop for his services. Starve the publicity hound and he will go away.
Problem solved.
2
Well don't this just take the cake!?
"I'll bake you anything, birthday cake, party cake any thing but not a "wedding" cake for a gay wedding. I am not prejudiced I simply cannot help you with a gay wedding." And apparently he forgot to mention a trans birthday.
Me thinks someone is full of it.
And if the State council points out to him again that his excuses for his bigotry are commonly used by bigots it is not a demonstration of hostility of any kind or an infringement on his rights. It is simply the pointing out of the fact that bigots always try to claim they are doing gods work. This case makes it very clear that he is a bigot not someone whose religious virtues are being impinged upon.
"Pride goeth before the fall."
Seems he forgot to read that part of the bible.
26
@magicisnotreal Defending the Commission's ruling is where you're wrong. Their hostility was clear, at least to the Supreme Court. Not only in the public statements the commissioners made about the man, but also in that they stated in 3 other cases that a bakery could choose not to make cakes which the bakers found offensive for a non-religious reason, like a neo-nazi theme. Their discrimination was against a religious objection. In their own ruling, the art was attributable to the both the customer and the baker. The bakers could not simply say the customer wanted it and the work did not speak for them, so they were allowed to say no. But in this case, that no longer applied?
If you want an anti-discrimination law, you can't discriminate against religion, and you can't leave it up to a government board to parse someone's religious belief for qualification for protection.
1
Does Jack Phillips bake leavened cakes during Passover? Its prohibition is in the Bible.
5
@Ockham9 Okaaay, but maybe he isn't Jewish. And maybe (just maybe) he would support a Jewish baker's right to abide by Jewish Law. I bet he would. I certainly would.
2
@John: I agree. In fact, I assume he is a supersessionist. If the New Testament replaced the Old, why should not Christian doctrines about gender and marriage undergo an evolutionary progress?
Conservatives are always talking about how they don't want a nanny state. This baker is the biggest nanny ever. Won't make a cake unless is for a cause he approves of. I wouldn't go to that bakery to buy a biscuit. The height of hypocrisy.
3
"This time, the suit involves a customer, Autumn Scardina, who asked Mr. Phillips to make a cake with a blue exterior and pink interior that would mark her birthday and the seventh anniversary of her gender transition."
Autumn Scardina DID NOT ask Mr. Phillips. The request for that cake came from Autumn Scardina's LAWYER in a phone call, not from Autumn Scardina, in person, walking in the front door. You would think the NYT could get these basic facts correct? Or, then again, maybe obscuring reality in pursuit of a narrative is the real goal.
This whole thing is a set-up to try to put the bakery out of business in retaliation for its winning the Supreme Court case.
24
@Projunior
Incorrect. Ms. Scardina *is* a lawyer.
"the lawsuit says Ms. Scardina, a lawyer, called Masterpiece Cakeshop"
Your comment is full of irony. Indignation often ends that way.
10
One reaps what one sows. Isn’t that in the Bible?
2
Jack Phillips is so much smarter than all those folks trying to compel him into doing something he does want nor have to… All the publicity his business is getting at the expense of those who actually despise his cakes, but want to show off how they can make their will prevail in current times. Go get your cake elsewhere smartasses!
3
No one should be allowed to Discriminate based upon ones Religion or Religious beliefs.....period
1
Why not take a page out of religious fanatics' own playbook? Protest this shop just as they protest abortion clinics. Publicly shame people going in to order baked goods. Attempt with literature and speech to have people patronize other nearby businesses. Use megaphones and chanting people and all kinds of other shenanigans in front of his store front so that even people who want to go buy a cake will think twice about it and probably ultimately go somewhere else. All in the service of deeply held beliefs about how his deeply held beliefs are horsefeathers.
1
From another website:
"He refuses to make custom cakes promoting alcohol or drug usage. And he refuses to create cakes that include disparaging messages – including those targeting people within the LGBT community."
So am i to conclude by reading the comments here that I should be able to go to a jewish owned bakery and order a nazi themed cake? (Just picking one example of many)
8
@Fred
I actually did think of that example.
I think you are wrong.
The cake isn't the issue with the baker in the case mentioned in this article.
He has no problem making the cake.
He just won't sell it to these people.
Your example and the prior case that went to the supreme court is different.
The cake is the issue.
If these Nazis wanted a regular birthday a Jew like me would sell it to them.
I wouldn't if they wanted a cake glorifying the Nazis.
1
I don't care how good his cakes are. After his refusal to sell celebratory baked goods to a gay couple, why would anyone want to give this guy their business?
Let him sit by the phone waiting for his "mythical perfect customer" to order up a cake he has no consternation about commoditizing.
5
@D Price I suspect that millions of Americans would love to patronize him. The country is divided right down the middle. Half would seek him out genuinely wanting his services; the other half would seek him out hoping he will refuse them so they can sue. In either case, he will not be sitting "by the phone" waiting for it to ring. You can be sure it is ringing off the hook as I write these words, and ringing off the hook when you read them.
I am opposed to discrimination, but maybe this guy has a Constitutional right to be a major jerk -- there are arguments either way.
But what I just don't get is this: If you're opposed to gay sex, don't have gay sex. If you are opposed to gender reassignment, then don't have gender reassignment. I am a vegetarian and I live by my deeply-held principles every meal I eat -- but I don't tell other people what they should eat or judge them. That would be utterly pointless, counter-productive, and just plain stupid. No one is going to put down their burger because I wagged a noxious finger at them.
I just don't get why this baker wants to take his stone-throwing to court again. Doesn't he have anything better to do with his time?
2
@Ann He does NOT want to go to court. He is being taken to court by activists who have targeted him. Why can't you see this simple distinction? Also, he is not throwing stones. The stones are being thrown at him. He just wants to be left in peace.
6
@John
Jack Phillips just wants to discriminate in peace, like most bigots.
1
This reeks of a set-up to test the limits of the U.S. Supreme Court's somewhat vague decision in the 2012 wedding cake case. Ms. Scardina, who just happens to be a lawyer, had no need to disclose the "wealth" of personal information she chose to impart to the person on the telephone at Mr. Phillips' bakery. Simply requesting a cake, with a description of what she wanted, could have sufficed.
It seems there was not an issue until Scardina deliberately described the occasion as a "gender transition" celebration. It cannot have escaped her attention that Mr. Phillips has extremely biased views regarding matters of human sexuality. I'm guessing this was baiting, pure and simple, and Mr. Phillips bit - hook, line, and sinker.
Ms. Scardina almost certainly could find MANY better bakeries in the Denver area to provide her beautiful, creative, and delicious cake without the bitter, judgmental flavor imparted by this modern-day pharisee.
4
He is right about being targeted. And I am fine with same sex marriage and fine with this guy doing what he is doing. The attitude by almost all now is gays can be married. Why go and crush the ones who are still old school.
8
Maybe Mr. Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, could post a list of those people/groups/entities he WOULD serve. It might make his life a bit easier...
For people who think this is about cake, it's not. It applies to other businesses as well. My family owns apartments in an area where the occupancy rate is regularly above 90%. What the SC decision opens up are situations where landlords can deny people housing based merely on sex,gender, religion, nationality, etc. We can claim our religion forbades us renting to Christians. Do you really desire that? For many people, having a place to live in can mean the difference between accepting or rejecting or maintaining a job.
3
@ms You make a strong argument, but a landlord does not offer custom work. On the other hand, bakers and landlords both sign contracts (the former for custom work) and that is where the line gets murky.
@John, you can be sure that the Alliance Defending Freedom will try to push the next SCOTUS decision beyond those narrow boundaries you describe. Ms is correct. This case would be about far more than a baker and a cake. It would be about far more than whether someone is offering custom work.
Do people who have previously been divorced also offend Phillips' religious sensibilities? Or is that simply a problem for Catholics? The list of people excluded by his interpretation of Biblical teachings could be long given that there is little agreement about what the Bible does or doesn't say and it certainly varies from one group to another. Perhaps the baker could post just whom he intends to serve on the door of his business so that it is public knowledge.
I'm with the comments that call for a boycott. This man is just making up the "rules" as he goes and is just using religion to cover his prejudices. He's the test case being used by the right to undermine all civil rights advancements of the last 60 years. Let's not give them the satisfaction of undoing what's made life better for millions. Let the market undermine his mission.
2
Maaaaaybe the scotus case was decided correctly as a 1st amendment issue as there are certain things in the Bible... (I am not agreeing or endorsing these beliefs). but I don’t remember anything in the Bible about transgender people at all, much less about how they should be discriminated against.
1
This controversy will only end when the Supreme Court defines "religion" and articulates objective criteria to determine when a "belief is sincerely held." It has never done so and, in my view, never will. There is no consensus on the Court to do so and no indication that society at large would accept such a thing.
The easiest path forward has been blocked by the Court's recent decisions allowing for First Amendment defenses where none had previously existed. Before, the general rule was that you were free to believe whatever you wanted but could not practice what you believe in if it conflicted with societal norms as they evolve through time. Hence child and animal sacrifices, polygamy and other religiously practices are banned. Regardless of belief, you cannot lawfully deny services because of a customers race, gender or religion. Slavery would not be permitted just because the would-be owner claimed divine sanction. So, under that rule, the Phillips case is easy: bake the cake. Under the newly expanding rules, everything is muddled and there’s is no clear way forward. In fact, the only limitation I foresee on this pernicious expansion expansion will come when religious freedom and sincerely held belief under the First Amendment are interposed as a defense to paying federal income tax. The Court's attempt at articulating a principled distinction in that case will make for interesting reading, to say the least. Lets hope that common sense prevails well before then.
1
Health Dept needs to visit this place. The picture shows much disarray in an area that should be reserved for food preparation. After viewing the picture, I know I wouldn't want anything from this bakery.
1
Autumn Scardina should have known that Jack Phillips was a religious man who did not approve of her gender transition. There had just been a well publicized trial that was heard before the Supreme Court about his refusal to bake a gay wedding cake due to his deeply held religious beliefs. This should have been a clue he would not be able to bake her a cake either. She is a troublemaker who should have gone to a bakery that would have gladly baked her speciality cake.
He is correct in standing up for his religious liberty and rights. Like his previous case, he will win this one too. No one should have to go against their principles.
6
@WPLMMT then he should get out of the business of serving the public.
3
@WPLMMT
Rosa Parks should have known that Jim Crow Bus Service would require her to sit in the back of the bus. She was a troublemaker who should have taken a taxi instead. The mass transit system should not have had to go against their principles.
Right?
A couple of thoughts on how to proceed:
1. Each day the store is open they should be visited by one or more persons requesting a cake, refusing to say what the use of the cake is...that's not the seller's business...yet making it obvious that its use is not agreeable to the baker's idea of what a religious person would do. And after wasting a lot of the baker's time, either don't order the cake or cancel the order later.
2. Remember the lunch counter boycotts down south and the abortion clinic protests all over the place? Different people have different beliefs and religious notions, but don't we all get to make it uncomfortable or impossible for others to get the food or abortions we want and are entitled to? Picket that business for the good of us all!
3. If there's website/Twitter page/Facebook page for this business or person, do what the Russians do...a lot of computer scamming goes a long way...don't we all get to express ourselves on Twitter and Facebook, after all?
4. Try doing a Go Fund Me to pay for a cake from this baker...say $50,000 if he bakes a "gay cake" and signs it. When he refuses (as person of deep of deep conviction totally uninterested in the holy buck) use the money (with donor consent) to fund the opening of a "gay bakeshop" next door to his with free wedding cakes and give him a run for his money.
2
Has anyone ever tasted his cakes? Are they that delicious? Do the friends and neighbors purchase these cakes to support this individual in particular or are they truly addictive? Are they just a more accessible vendor? Are there comparable bakers within 100 miles that are literally starving for business? Does anyone know the answers?
1
May I suggest that people needing bakery goods in Lakewood, Colorado who don't share this man's narrow minded views either find alternative local bakers or order from specialists elsewhere.
Why spend money at his shop (or attempt to), or waste time arguing with him and his equally narrow minded supporters.
Here's a better idea. Find a terrific baker and help her or him get their bakery "for everyone" established. Then support it. That would teach Mr Phillips a tasty lesson in tolerance.
Here's a fitting shop name: Everyone's Bakery.
Good luck and good eating. Send me a cupcake.
3
His lawyers say: “Jack shouldn’t have to fear government hostility when he opens his shop for business each day.”
Absolutely right. That would just lead to more court battles and more free publicity for him.
Purchasers of any product or service have a right to discriminate based on personal taste and beliefs. What he should fear when he opens his shop for business each day is no customers.
2
Perhaps if Mr. Phillips made clear exactly with whom he is willing to do business, things might go a little easier for him. How about a sign in the window listing all of the disqualifying characteristics or beliefs so that potential customers do not have to waste their time suing him. Such as.....
1. LGBTQ
2. Democrat/Liberal/non Trump voter
3. Human rights activist
4. Non Christian
5. Believe that all people are created equal
3
Is the conservative Christian organization Alliance Defending Freedom compensating Phillips to participate in the suit?
1
If you are a progressive, the sacred religious texts are hate speech. Anyone who adheres to their teachings must be punished.
3
@Jeremiah Springfield, this sense of victimhood is completely unwarranted. Many progressives are Christian.
The principle being argued here is whether the Civil Rights Act will hold, or whether it can be weakened by a religious exemption.
1
Those must be some pretty good cakes if people go the Supreme Court over them.
5
Whatever the facts may be about whether the baker is morally required to do business with the customer, or not required to, this was a setup.
This man is not comfortable with certain themes and ideas that he perceives to conflict with his religion. Quite plausibly it is wrong of him to deny service to people because of that. But is it necessary, if one knows that this is how he feels, that one create a deliberate provocation? Doesn't common sense say to leave it alone and spend one's money elsewhere?
Arguably, this man has a very limited worldview and does not enjoy the breadth of mind that others are fortunate to have. If that's the case, shouldn't the response to such a pathetic individual be pity at his limitations, rather than picking a fight with him?
6
@Mark - Many of the similar confrontations of the civil rights era were also deliberate provocations, "setups" if you will, fully knowing how racist owners felt and would react/ Should those people have left it alone and simply brought their business elsewhere as well?
2
To those saying that people shouldn’t keep “prodding” at this bigot: Masterpiece Cakeshop could just decline for other reasons such as being unable to fulfill too many custom cake requests, something they did state was an actual issue they face when responding to this complaint. Instead they willingly decided to keep openly violating Colorado state law on public accommodations in order to keep up their so-called moral crusade. The bakery admitted fully that they refused to serve this woman because of who she was and that any other supposed reasons were secondary.
It’s also notable that the Alliance Defending Freedom represented them in this complaint. This shows that they were hedging their bets and are trying to get a more definitive ruling that would allow people holding “religious” views, that this group happen to agree with, to use “religious freedom” to deny goods and services to certain people as a form of legalized oppression. This is not about religious freedom, it’s about the rights of LGBT people to not be denied public accommodations simply for the fact of being LGBT.
People need to understand that just because same-sex marriage was legalized that everything is not hunky-dory for LGBT people. We’re still not even equal in our marriages. For one example, in most states employers can explicitly reserve benefits for opposite-sex spouses of employees while denying those same benefits to employees’ same-sex spouses. Still a long ways to go on the road to equality.
82
@Donovan Smith
And if your religious belief that you cannot serve LGBT people is recognized by the legal system, what's next? Your belief that you cannot serve people of other races? Other religions? The slippery slope steepens dramatically if the argument is even allowed just ONCE. This is just one of the reasons that there is, and should always be, a strict separation between church and state, but our current GOP, its leadership, and this administration is too dim-witted to even appreciate where their collective stupidity - with its kowtowing sellout to the Evangelicals - leads us.
2
@Donovan Smith
This is well articulated, but I am not convinced that this one baker is the place to battle because it pits individual conscience, and not organizational practice, against accommodation. Be that as it may, it looks as if this one is headed to court. I do hope Ruth Ginsburg is still on the court when it arrives.
Vote in legislators that make laws that make this illegal and your problems are solved. No reliance on judges to be your saviors. Participate.
8
@X
In fact, Colorado DOES have laws which make it illegal for a business owner to deny services to gay people, transgender people, etc. In the gay wedding cake case, and in this new case, the Colorado Division of Human Rights applied those laws, and ruled that Phillips broke the law by discriminating against these people.
Phillips has never argued that he didn't discriminate! Rather, he (and his political backers) has argued that he should be EXEMPT from the law and be ALLOWED to discriminate, because his "religious beliefs" dictate that he must discriminate against GLBT people.
That's the whole premise of the Conservatives' push for so-called Religious Freedom laws, i.e. that conservative Christians should be allowed to ignore laws when they have "sincerely held religious beliefs" that tell them that they can't follow the law. In other words, people can use their "religious beliefs" to ignore laws.
Therein lies the slippery slope. Who gets to determine which religious beliefs are valid, and get to override laws? Should Rastas be allowed to smoke ganja; should Native Americans be allowed to use peyote? Should Mormons be allowed to have multiple wives? Should Muslims' sharia law override American civil law? Should a biblical literalist be allowed to stone people to death, because that's what Leviticus commands? Are cults valid as "religions?"
Sorry, but you can't carve out an exemption for Christians without considering these other questions as well!
3
@X
It is illegal. The SCOTUS ruled against the State enforcing the law because they WRONGLY asserted that the members of the State Council charged with evaluating such claims were showing hostility to religion when they pointed out that his excuses and explanations are the same ones all bigots have always used. He did not win the right to discriminate he was let off the hook because the SCOTUS WRONGLY asserted the state was wrong in how they spoke to him.
1
@Paul-A So are we all required by law to sign contracts (that signal our willing consent)? Marriage itself is a contract. If a gay person proposes to a straight person (or vice versa) and the proposee respectfully declines the offer, are they guilty of discrimination? Is all discrimination wicked? I would hope that everyone (gay or straight or transgender) should be not only free but encouraged to exercise discrimination in matters that concern them so closely. The problem is not discrimination, but the grounds of discrimination.
1
Does he reject any cake orders with theological messages with which he disagrees, or is it only about issues of sexuality according to his religious beliefs?
Someone should go in and order a cake decorate with a rosary to celebrate Mary, Queen of Heaven and see what happens.
8
It's about time that those who use a god as an excuse for bias, (or the other multitudes of their "sins") should have to prove said god's existence in court.
6
I’ve been saying the same things about people who claim disparate impact and systemic racism, but those are hard prove too.
But still, I’m with you. Believers are the WORST! I think the Soviets and Maoists took the right approach with them. No quarter!
This 'horse' is not only dead, but its bones are nicely bleached in the hot glare of national publicity. Jack Philips has received a Supreme Court-sanctioned seal of approval as a unreconstructed bigot--he'd rather have his cakeshop lose business than treat people he hates fairly. What self-respecting person would consider assisting this wretched man in his livelihood? Is not his product seriously tainted by his evilness? As for silver linings, here's one: although Philips won his case on a technicality, the larger lesson that he kindly provided is that some religions--in this case, particularly, right-wing Christianity--can be a horrible example of spiritual enlightenment. Observers, especially younger people, have taken note.
10
This brings up another huge problem in America, and that is cake. You can't have your cake and eat it too, is the old expression, but we should start saying you can't have your cake and be healthy too.
The number one cause of death in America is heart disease, and the most common reason for heart disease is being overweight and sedentary. Celebrating every little occasion with a great big cake, full of empty calories and sugar, is making Americans die younger than they should.
So yes this baker is a bigot, but in denying cakes to various people (assuming, as we all seem to, that he is the only baker in Colorado), he is extending their lifespans. While we work on reducing bigotry, let's see if we can reduce waistlines too.
3
Deuteronomy, Forbidden to wear cloth of two different fabrics. I sure hope he hasn't sold to anyone in a cotton blend T shirt. What's he wearing? Straight cakes. Good business model.
1
@4Average Joe
And I sure hope he does not mix the flesh/fat and milk of any animals - or the eggs and milk for that matter. That's strictly prohibited by the Bible as well. All that buttercream is surely forbidden, not to mention the cake recipes themselves, I am sure!
As an openly gay man I don't patronize businesses that discriminate. I would not eat a slice of cake from this self-professed Christian baker. Maybe I'm just tired or maybe some fights are just not worth picking. You're not going to change his perspective on sexuality even if he loses. As a former Christian one needs to understand that suffering for your Christian faith is intrinsic to the whole headspace. Why make this guy a martyr over fondant and chocolate ganache?
10
The man doesn't get it that he didn't win his case in the Supreme Court, Colorado lost its case because of one person's negative comments about religion. I hope he wakes up soon - - or NOT.
8
This guy is in the wrong profession. Maybe the ministry is a better fit, where he can demand that congregants follow HIS interpretation of the Bible. Barring that can he, and those like him, post a list of rules on their door and website. I don't want to be publicly humiliated and refused service because of some perceived flaw. No matter his reputation, his cakes would leave a sour taste in my mouth because of his unkindness towards others who are picked on yet again.
9
You know, regardless of your politics, you have to wonder when this guy finds the time to bake.
Seriously, how much can one man possibly need to judge the lives of other people? He could have baked hundreds of cakes in the time he has spent whining about his religious freedom.
Don't we all have closely-held beliefs that other people don't share, and we just have to get over ourselves and live and let live because life's too short and what are you going to do? What's with this guy?
9
When is someone going to open a rival bakeshop in Lakewood? Seems to me there's an underserved market there.
23
Whatever happened to "Love thy neighbor?"
17
Or this:
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you."
2
@L
You mean the saying is not "Love thy neighbor, if like yourself."?
2
Hahahahaha, surely you don't think that ever really applied in Christianity.
1
Obviously not a very serious man. If he were, he'd know that all of God's creation merits respect and decency. This is what is wrong with America - ideologues!
7
Again? Is this a set up? By either party to get the 'issue' in the courts again? Ms. Scardina actually called THIS bakery? What did she expect - or was that the point?
7
Elizabeth--Whether a set-up, or not, this guy needs to defend himself in court. I think he will lose. It's not up to the people he hates to avoid his business. It's up to him to prove he is not discriminating on the basis of religion, which is illegal.
2
@ChesBay
No, he is discriminating based upon gender and sexuality/orientation, which is illegal at the state level but 100% legal at the federal level. Had his religion mandated discrimination against another religion, that would not be legal, but against people of a certain gender or sexual orientation is perfectly fine (at the federal level).
To everyone posting comments that say LGBTQ+ people should take their business somewhere else, and/or the baker should publicly post what is ok and what is not: The point is to take this particular business to this particular baker "to test the limits of the law," as stated in the NYT article. Sure the customer could have withheld the reason she wanted the cake. Sure she could have gone somewhere else. But those actions would not have been actions of resistance, and actions of fighting bigotry. I say: request gay wedding cakes from this baker! Request transition cakes from him! Take him to court when he refuses! How else will change happen?
10
Maybe he should put up a sign reading: "No Jesus, No Gender, Not Hetero, No Service."
7
Mr. Phillips, like many phony evangelical Christians, walks around with sanctimonious smugness, a chip on his shoulder and hate in his heart. People like him are precisely why I'm glad I gave up on Christianity many years ago.
11
Why is anyone buying cakes from this business? He clearly discriminates under the guise of Christianity and his behavior is exactly opposite to what Jesus would do.
10
I hope thoughtful people are boycotting this horrendous individual. Give him a taste of his own discriminatory behavior. I'm rooting for him to lose his business, thanks to his very public hateful, arrogant, entitled, self-righteous behavior. p.s. That cake does not look like a Masterpiece to me. Bet you could find a better one, elsewhere.
32
If all you want to do is create religious cakes, work for the church. These bakers should be denied business licenses.
15
I'm Jewish, and so clearly I do not believe in Christ. Does this mean that Mr. Phillips believe he has the right not to bake a ckae for me for a Bar Mitzvah or wedding with a Star of David on it or for Chanukkah with a menorah? What if believes dark skin is the mark of the devil? How far can he take this? This appears to be designed to dismantle the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
207
I just don't see all the penumbras and emanations from the First Amendment that Mr. Philips claims to see.
The essence of Mr. Philips response that he performs a religious exercise in a customer's use of his cake. Its absurd on its face.
The cake orders in question were the same as every cake order he receives - choices of cake, filling, icings, decoration - except for a character of the event in which the cake would be consumed after purchase.
As Justice Ginsburg wrote in her dissent, Mr. Philips provides the market place with cake. He sells cake. Customers buy the cakes, at which point they become their total property to do with as they please, within the bounds of the law.
Thus, it is unclear wherein Mr. Philips has an exercise of religion in that entire process.
True, he has moral disagreements with the private lives of at least two acknowledged people who attempted to purchase his cakes. But even his moral disagreement (now classed emanation-ally as "deeply held moral belief") isn't connected with a "free exercise of religion."
Moral beliefs are important, but they are not the 'free exercise of religion." Again, where is the religious exercise in, regusal of service upon hearing how a cake will be used after it is purchased and no longer the baker's property, an exercise of religion?
116
Yeah, because Jesus said “take this cake and eat it. This is my body.”
Or was it, “Let them eat cake.”
@Ego Nemo
I think you are on to something. If the cakes are works for hire, then the customer holds rights to the images. However, if not, then the baker holds copyrights to the images long after sale and consumption/destruction. Do other customers get to dictate the imagery? Or, is the imagery unique, and his design and artistry alone?
Mr Phillips is going to lose this one.
Nowhere did I read it saying the transgender woman asked for an inscription. Accordingly, this is not a speech issue. The baker is saying he has a right to refuse service to one who doesn't believe in his doctrinaire views.
The state of Colorado should immediately revoke his business license.
6
What's truly interesting is if the Supreme Court accepts the Arlene's Flowers appeal pending right now. In that case, there's no hint of state animus and indeed the same civil rights commission in Washington State had another case that held a dentist accountable for damages for discriminating against a Christian customer (the damages were higher than those that the wedding flowershop had to pay).
But if the Supremes decide the Arlene Flowers case, it will happen long before this second Masterpiece Cakeshop case makes its way up the judicial ladder, and could end it all much sooner.
On the other hand, if SCOTUS decides that religious business people have the right to use their public accommodations to discriminate against customers who they decide for incomprehensible reasoners are "sinners", it will be the end of our religiously pluralistic society, and the start of the Christian Nationalist theocracy. Sad!
4
Doug McKenna--They well might do that. This is why everyone needs to pressure their elected officials to do everything they can to get ALL the Kavanaugh documents BEFORE hearings begin. Kavanaugh would see nothing wrong with this. Those documents will prove it. Then, while we delay, elect a Democratic Congress.
2
I'm a live and let live kind of guy. We all know who this guy is and what he believes. Leave him alone. There are many others who will bake your cake. Just take care of your side of the street and leave others to take care of theirs.
15
It seems to me that anyone can cpevting to conduct a public business is obliged to sell to anyone with legal tender providing the intended use was legitimate ( if I owned an agricultural supply store I might reasonably refuse to seek large amounts of fertilizer to self identified extremists) It is the custom aspect of this business that makes the question trickier. Presumably cake decorating is artistic and an artist should not be compelled to represent something they disagree with. It will be interesting to hear the decision once this reaches the Courts, but I hope that some balance is found between requiring the baker to sell ( off the shelf) and allowing people to decline special orders for religious reasons. I think this would allow consistent application of the law ( a socially conservative pharmacist would be required to fill contraceptive prescriptions for all customers but a gynaecologist would not be compelled to perform an abortion -
Is this a question of refusing to sell a cake already made and which absolutely anyone else can purchase? Or is it a case of refusing a commission?
I fear people on all sides are confusing issues deliberately, to what they mistakenly think is their own advantage.
5
Mr. Phillips may be a talented baker, but he fails as a human being.
7
I suppose the question is whether his personal opinion about a customer's lifestyle entitles him to refuse service to that customer. No doubt it is a question that will have to be settled in a courtroom.
2
Could some public minded philanthropist please bankroll a really ,really talented , personable young baker across the street from this man and work to put him out of business please?
6
I wouldn't want to eat a thing that was prepared by someone who despises me.
Or other people.
5
The real issue is: Can a business owner exercising their first amendment religious freedom choose to provide a service to some of the public and withhold that same service from other people people because of who they are? Framed this way, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to say "no".
The service in question is to "make a cake with a blue exterior and pink interior that would mark her birthday." This is a service the bakeshop would provide. Then Ms. Scardina, disclosed how it would used: to also celebrate the anniversary of her gender transition. That is potentially problematic. Had she instead, added that she wanted her cake made this way because she is transgender and then the bakeshop declined, that would have framed the core of issue - the service was declined because of who she is.
The "use" of a product distorts the core issue. For example, a pet store sells rabbits; presumably rabbits to be pets. If the pet store learns that a buyer of a rabbit intends to eat the rabbit, the pet store might reasonably decline to make the sale. In this case, it is a birthday cake presumably intended for the celebration of a birthday, but here the plaintiff says they intend to also use it to celebrate her gender transition. This potentially muddies the waters. Is that related to who she is? Of course, but it is not ENTIRELY about who she is. Thus why I think this may be anther flawed case to answer the constitutional question that desperately needs answering.
7
@Ted A. Much along the lines of my own thinking...and fair to both parties.
@Ted A No, there's no question that desperately needs an answer. If you offer a service or a good for sale to the public, you may not deny the service or good to a person based on their race, color, gender, national origin, religion, or other essential part of someone's humanity, defined in law as a protected class. In my state, there were once signs on shop doors that said "No dogs or Indians." We stopped allowing that for a reason. Barring someone because of their gender or the gender of their spouse is equally wrong.
5
@Ted A: I don't buy your argument. If somebody wants to by a car, but the potential buyer then says that he wants to use it to bring his family to church, does that mean the seller can then refuse because he does not agree with the views of that church? What about a Trump supporters, can somebody refuse service to them because they are supporting an authoritarian imbecile with no moral compass and full of hate? I won't sell computers to MAGA hat wearers because they are going to use the computer to bully normal people online and spread Trumps lies? Or is it only okay to refuse people whose life style you don't agree with? Remember, Church and State are separate. Justifying your actions by the bible does not change the legal standing of your actions.
5
A custom-decorated cake is a specialty consumer item made by an specialized artisan. The production of a cake in no way resembles the providing of essential medical, safety, or security services and such comparisons are inane. I don’t identify with or particularly admire Mr Phillips’ reasons for refusing to provide paid services.
However, unlike religious institutions, this baker and his business pay federal, state, and local taxes to operate. Unlike during de jure segregation in the US South, the State (re the lunch-counter analogy) has no active role in enforcing his personal beliefs and has in fact acted against his business with the aim of enforcing its owninterpretation of “anti-discrimination”. And unlike in the de facto segregation of the US outside the South pre-1960’s, there is no shortage of alternate service provider of—it bears repeating—this non-essential item.
Anyone on the fence about the rights of artists, craftspeople, and professional “creatives” of all stripes to refuse work might look at the list of musicians who refused to consider performing at Trump’s inauguration and ask yourselves whether it wouid have made sense to compel or coerce them to perform, and how exactly that would have worked out.
By the way, if anyone thinks that the feelings of LGBTQ persons and Christian pastry chefs are the most pressing issues facing the US right now, I suggest getting out for a bit and taking a look around.
36
@Jack Gladney An edible cake is not art. It's a product. By the way, if you think this case doesn't have larger implications for our society, I suggest you do some research.
4
@Jack Gladney Did you read the article? A person ordered a specific cake. That persons order was accepted. After learning that the person was transgender they refused service. The cake was identical, I think this time Jack got himself in a black and white discrimination situation.
4
You think the feelings of LGBTQ people are unimportant, I presume, since none of this affects you.
Further, your argument is flawed. The musicians would have to show up and play at an event they didn’t support. Nobody has invited the baker to a wedding or birthday party. People are just trying to buy a cake.
3
I can remember how in my hometown every one of the little businesses had a sign in the windows: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”
8
But they didn't. The Supreme Court made it plain long ago that vendors DO NOT have the right to deny service to anyone. And those who put those little signs up -- who did they want not to serve?
18
scottthomas--Yes, that was their version of Jim Crow.
3
@scottthomas Yes, you are allowed to refuse service to individuals. If a black customer harasses your employees, you can refuse service, and it's not discrimination. But that's not the same thing as having a policy of not serving black people in general, regardless of how they behave in your store. The same thing applies to gender in the state of Colorado.
5
I hope that the Colorado courts do the right thing this time. If not, perhaps the Supreme Court can take care of it for once and for all.
6
Selling cakes is an act of commerce, not an act of religion, and the rules of commerce should apply. Neither the baker's beliefs nor the customer's should enter the calculus.
51
Freedom and Religion don’t play well together. Never have.
31
People should know by now, don’t buy a cake from this guy unless you’re confident that your religious beliefs align with his.
If this so-called Christian man found a lost and starving person in the woods, and then discovered that person was gay, sounds like his religion would forbid him offering assistance.
18
Hey, so if you can use religion to exempt yourself from following a law, who decides which religious beliefs are OK? (I'm assuming sacrificing virgins is still out.) Would is be a government entity, perhaps, like a court, deciding which religious beliefs are good enough reasons?? And mightn't it be that the beliefs that will end up being proclaimed legitimate reasons to break the law will be those of the mainstream, while minority religious beliefs will be rejected as "nonsensical?" Maybe we should just decide that ANY religious practice is TOTALLY FINE unless it breaks the law. Then religion doens't become a catch all excuse to do whatever you want. And we can call it a "secular society."
6
You think Phillips might consider moving to Canada, or trying another line of work; one that didn't put so much stress on his "religious freedoms"?
13
@Slann
I would suggest he would hate it here under that pretense. Our Charter protects peoples rights with regards to this type of discrimination and the courts would likely toss him out on his head. Not to mention his line of work does not have ease of access through the immigration process. Here you are free to practice your religion but discrimination laws are very specific in how they apply to people and explicit it is listed one cannot discriminate based on gender.
2
Slann--He needs to understand the difference between freedom of religion (which is also freedom FROM religion,) and the Jefferson Beauregard Sessions inspired "religious liberty," presumably so adherents can do whatever they please, using religion as their excuse. Ever the" victims of discrimination," according to them, but it's okay to discriminate against others, based on their so-called "religion."
5
Why is this guy still in business? Is the fact that he is not boycotted an indication that he reflects the community he is in? Scary.....
5
Jesus doesn't want Mr. Phillips to make a cake with blue and pink in it????? Really?
I would have thought that Jesus had a lot more on his mind than whether blue and pink cakes should be made. For example, he might be concerned about the rape of children. He might be concerned about the denial of healthcare to so many poor and middle class in America and the world. He may be concerned about the degradation of His Father's creation (i.e. the earth). He might be upset that His followers keep disenfranchising the poor, the sick, the children and others whom He thought to be important. He might be upset that he keeps getting misquoted a someone who thought that hurting the afflicted was a good thing.
Mr. Phillips may be many things, but I really can't see the Christian part. I am reminded of Mahatma Ghandi's famous comment that he liked Jesus but didn't care much for Christians.
50
Hypocrisy at work. “The woman on the phone did not object to my request for a birthday cake until I told her I was celebrating my transition,” Ms. Scardina wrote in a complaint to the state, explaining her interaction with one of Mr. Phillips’s employees. “I was stunned.”
Did Ms. Scardina had to say that? No, unless she wanted to make an issue out of it. She was not the first person for whom Mr. Phillips refused to bake a cake, and she will not be the last. Stop patronizing his bakery and go to a LGBT-run or approved business that caters to that segment of society. There are many in Colorado. Unless you consciously want to get involved in a legal battle with someone clearly against your chosen lifestyle, and whose concept of American society doesn't agree with yours.
As for Mr. Phillips' suing the governor, good luck. One wonders who is paying his legal fees.
4
@George Hawkeye. I suspect provocation was the intent.
2
@George Hawkeye I would rephrase it to: "unless you conciously want to show that Jack blatantly discrimants and breaks the law, because he thinks he has a magic right to break the law".
1
This baker needs to find a new line of work.
What he does in his house or house of worship is his business, but what he does in a business serving the public needs to conform to current laws.
13
Imposing your faith on another in refusing service, is just the tip of the iceberg and must be stopped.
Take it to the full measure of what many people would do in this country. Read about the woman who died in Ireland, because her doomed child still had a heartbeat and they would not perform an abortion to save her life until the heartbeat stopped. They killed that poor woman. She died a horrible death, because they imposed religious beliefs over her right to choose to live.
Her death resulted in Ireland moving forward, let us not move backwards.
38
@Heidi Actually, they did not impose religious beliefs, they followed the law which was recently changed.
@skeptic ...a law which was based on religion.
1
@Heidi on point!
2
Dear Mr. Phillips, Why do you care about another person's gender identity? And who are you to say what gender "God" intended to "give" this customer? Perhaps she is living precisely the gender that God "gave" her, just in a different way than we HUMANS understand. Make the cake. What harm? And isn't generosity of spirit what true Christianity is all about? Jesus himself said that there is "something higher" than just RULES (or I would add, human hubris in thinking that we can fathom "God's intentions"). I hope you take a little time to think about these things, see how your decision is based on nothing at all, look again at yourself and at others, and make the cake, thus doing a small act of kindness (not to mention business) for a fellow human being.
29
Good grief, is this the only baker in town? They need someone who lives and breathes their pastry to bring joy, not grief, to the world. Thank God he's not the only cook, with such judgment of his neighbors, they would all starve.
5
We have a homophobic grocer in my town who vigorously campaigned against a municipal anti-discrimination ordinance. I do not shop in his store and I bad-mouth him to everyone I know. Good enough for me.
31
His business license should be revoked.
1
The poster didn’t state that the grocer refuses service to anyone only that they expressed their contrary opinion on a legislative issue. A boycott is certainly appropriate but not government denial of authority to do business.
2
The baker won before on a technicality. I am quite Happy to see him go to court again.
14
Tolerance is a two way street. If you want it give it. The Baker did not seek this confrontation Ms Scardina went looking for it. All the pontificating in the NYT comments section will not change the fact the law is on his side - he won at the Supreme Court.
86
"he won at the Supreme Court."
On a technicality. It is well documented. You should read the briefs.
17
@mkm Go back and actually read the decision. Note that the majority opinion did not win the baker the right to discriminate: the state lost their case explicitly because they "displayed hostility" toward the defendant's religious beliefs, and it stated that the decision might have gone the other way if the state's evaluation had been "religiously neutral." So no, the law isn't actually on his side, and this case gives the state another bite at that particular apple, and you can bet they'll be more careful in their evaluation this time. It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will be brave enough to hear it again and decide the actual issue this time.
And if you choose to openly and publicly discriminate against certain defined classes of people, then yeah, people in those classes are likely to seek you out to provoke a confrontation and to try and establish the case law.
7
" He won at the Supreme Court ". And they've never been wrong, or guided by their own, personal religious beliefs. Grow up.
2
I'm bothered by an (admittedly small) detail in the reporting here.
The plaintiff -- a transgender person who went out of her way to request a transition-themed cake from most famous anti-LGBT cake shop in the country -- claims to be "stunned" by the cake shop's response. She's being plainly disingenuous. Okay, fine, the stakes are huge, and it's a small lie. I guess I can't blame her for trying.
Her little lie was carefully crafted to boost its odds of getting quoted in the media. As seasoned journalists, this was plain to you when you read it in the complaint. And yet you decided to play along and quote an obvious lie with no commentary? Next time, please just roll your eyes and choose a different quote, or no quote at all. Do not encourage such nonsense.
95
"Her little lie was carefully crafted to boost its odds of getting quoted in the media."
THAT's your takeaway from this article? Sorry but no -- This news item was going to happen no matter what, given the previous famous case that was in the news with the same bakery.
9
I think Emerson is essentially right that this was a setup. This transgender woman knew full well her request would get denied by this bakery, which is why she pointed out to them it was for a celebration of her gender switch. Had she not said that, she'd have gotten her cake, but cake is not what she wanted.
27
@Dan Stackhouse
That it was a setup I think is pretty clear but the original comment doesnt seem to understand any of that.
2
This baker has found that he can make a niche and gain fame through provocation. He could tell a transgender person, "I can't make it" but chooses to explain that he won't because of his beliefs. We should all just ignore him so he can go away or maybe go out of business.
14
Ugh. Not again. The baker (wrongly IMHO) won the case. Let this bigoted baker live in his small-minded bubble in peace! I know there's a principle involved, but honestly, I wouldn't want to give his man my business or my money!
11
One wonders if an ER physician could use their religious beliefs as an excuse for refusing to treat a transgender person.
36
@Jim in short, yes. It's a festering rot that placates some people's superstitions at the expense of a civil society:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/18/578811426/trump-wil...
2
@Jim Of course, there is no Hippocratic Oath for bakers.
2
@Jim Catholic doctors and hospitals use their religious beliefs to deny care to women all the time. They will not do tubal ligations, even if another pregnancy will likely kill the woman, they will not participate in termination of a pregnancy, even if the fetus is dead.
1
Ego trip, laced with hate and fear-mongering, pure and simple.
7
let he who is without blame cast the first stone, jack philips. also, you are a person who sells something in order to put food on your own table - it's just a cake. sell it. it's called retail - not sunday school.
23
@linh Well put.
2
Don’t waste any more time or effort on this guy. Publicize that he discriminated, then find a sympathetic baker. And if you enjoy the cake, tell others!
10
@Donald Cassidy Amen!
1
His website offers a MLK cake, oh irony.
10
And what about the "hostility" shown to certain members of the public by so-called religious people ??? I want freedom FROM religion. Yours, and any other. Want to believe in an invisible sky man ? Fine. Do so at home, or in your Church. But if you have a license for a Business serving the public, you can NOT pick and choose, as long as the transaction and goods you are selling are legal. Get over yourself, or close your doors. Boycott this prig, he is insufferable, and displaying extreme moral Vanity. He truly needs a lesson in what the free market really means. Seriously.
51
@Phyliss Dalmatian, EXACTLY! The baker is guaranteed his religious rights in the private, personal sphere but, when he opens a bakery business, he must serve all comers.
3
@Phyliss Dalmatian Ah, is that so? Ok, all you need to do is redefine the existing protections FOR religious freedoms, to clarify that it means FROM religious freedoms.
While you're at it, consider where you'll get your defense for the rights to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." I think there was a phrase in that sentence, which you might object to keeping.
Time for a boycott by customers and suppliers. Bigots shouldn't be patronized.
27
If someone wanted a cake to celebrate a bar mitzvah could a vendor deny services because he disagreed with those religious beliefs?
18
@Andrew J. Cook based on the reasoning that religious beliefs are the absolute measure of everything (apparently), I cannot see why your hypothetical would not pass the test. Further, it was only a few decades ago that Mormon theology held that those of African descent were somehow less than fully human. Why not refuse to bake a cake for someone based on a belief like this? Where can this ever stop? So many fundamental precepts of American life are being rapidly challenged and eroded by the ideologically-driven adherents of religious doctrine developed when priests had total control over societies. Take America Back Again!
2
Wars of religion, here we come! Can't wait till some protestant born -againer refuses to bake a cake for some kid's first holy communion party. This is why the first Amendment prohibits the government making any law respecting an establishment of religion.
9
All I can say is:
Don't push your luck, Jack!
5
Giving bakers a bad name. Sad.
12
His legal expenses must have been a lot and the state was the cause of them, so lawyers like to sue especially those with money like a state.
2
@vulcanalex
Not sure about that. But I find if I limit my caffeine consumption later in the day my ability to correctly assess the news becomes less...chaotic. Everything happens so fast and it is all easier to sort out.
I think awaiting news on the Manafort front also seems to divide my attention and decreases my ability to multi task.
There! Right there. I should have written multitask as one word, which is perfectly acceptable.
3
On the one hand, yeah. This was clearly a staged stunt, with staged outrage. It was disingenuous, and part of me shrinks back from saying this needs to go to court. Emotionally, I cringe, and feel like we should all leave the guy alone.
But it's of a piece with other, similar, tests of the law. Certainly the Scopes Trial (about teaching evolution) was based on a staged classroom provocation, with a volunteer testing the law. Brown vs Board of Education, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, Plessy v. Ferguson ... all are test cases.
We need to establish clearly at what point the real interest of customers in being able to demand equitable treatment collides with the interest of service providers being able to avoid coerced offensive speech. For what it's worth, I don't think either of these cakes sound like coerced offensive speech to me (if the customers asked him to write a message on the cake that went against his beliefs, I can understand why he'd refuse to write the message). But it's something that needs to be worked out in courts.
10
I don't have a problem with God,but I'm not sure about the people working for him.
13
It's not who they are. It's what they're celebrating.
I doubt this baker would design and decorate a cake for a straight person's party celebrating abortion or adultery or divorce or pedophilia...or anything else that conservative Christians believe is sinful.
On the other hand, I don't think he'd have a problem designing and decorating a cake for a gay man's retirement party.
The very first sentence of the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.."
Have no doubt, religious freedom will survive in this country only as long as President Trump (or Mike Pence) is the person making Supreme Court appointments and the Senate is controlled by Republicans.
10
@Peter Murphy, Is denying a service to someone because of his/her sexual orientation or gender identity a free exercise of religion, or is it discrimination? I'd argue it's the latter. No one is prohibiting the baker from exercising his religion. He can go to the church of his choice and he can worship the God he chooses and in a manner which he deems appropriate. Discriminating against a fellow human being doesn't seem especially Christ-like.
7
The irony of using Trump as what religious freedom stands for is priceless. A man who violated several commandments, including adultery—on all three wives no less, who plays golf rather than attend church, and epitomizes exactly what Jesus would NOT do, is held up by the religious right as a savior of religious liberty only because of the willingness of that same group to ignore all of their moral compass in order to ram their version of religion down every American citizen’s throat. And God help us if Pence gets more power—he can't even talk to women alone!
3
I think it would be really, really weird for someone to request a cake celebrating an abortion or pederasty. Divorce though, that sounds like a great idea and a solid niche market.
3
Everybody living in the vicinity of this shop that cares about Sexual, religious, age, etc. discrimination should visit his shop. Phillips should be inundated with thousands of requests for special occasion cakes in person and by phone. He then can explain why their order is being rejected.
3
So what’s next? If someone wants a cake to celebrate getting a first car, will Mr. Phillips object, saying “If God wanted people to drive cars, he would have made cars instead of donkeys.”?
How many aspects of modern life are there that weren’t in the Bible? If Mr. Phillips is going to object to all of them, I think he’d have to declare his cake-baking business a violation of God’s law. Or maybe he thinks refined sugar and food coloring is God's invention.
9
No one should be forced to create a piece of art for a person whose values they oppose.
14
@Rolf
Where does this stop? Firefighters who refuse to put out fires for people they deem objectionable in some way?
3
No one should think a cake is art. It's food, and remarkably unhealthy food at that.
5
@Rolf, According to your statement, the owner of the restaurant who denied service to Ms. Sarah Huckabee was justified in her actions because she doesn't share her values. I think that what the restaurant owner did was wrong - just like I think that what the baker did was wrong. If we start to pick and choose whom we will provide services to, according to our own personal beliefs, we're going down a very slippery slope and we won't be able to survive very long as a cohesive society. No one should discriminate against another person because they hold different values.
5
With Cavenaugh we are going to lock in for a couple of generations a dramatic change in America
Freedom of Speech will morph with Freedom of Religion into Freedom to Hate.
This will be the lever that the activist court will use to change America to resemble the intent of the founders
Curtailment of all minority rights by allowing the majority to discriminate
One could argue that the reverse of minority discriminating, but of course real economic power resides with the white, heterosexual, christian majority
This is really what Trump is all about.
Any why he is the overwhelming favorite of white evangelical men and women.
10
@Blue How foolish to assume all these things that are very unlikely to happen. Of course only time will tell, a long time.
@Blue it's actually Kavanaugh, your comment will read better with the correct name and people might then be swayed by your arguments.
1
Come on, Supremes. You created this mess. Now end it. People do not have the right to impose their bigotry on others in the public market place. Corporations have no religious rights. The rest of us are entitled to freedom from religion as our first amendment right.
10
@Dan Barthel Yes they should end it, nobody should be forced to create anything for any reason. So no cakes, no photographs, no catering, no special services. If you want the common stuff you get it, otherwise no. Now I would not turn such away, I might charge them more.
2
@vulcanalex
How about a cardiologist who refuses to treat someone with his patented device and procedure because it offends his religious sensibilities to assist someone (the patient) involved in the devil's work (homosexuality, Islam, Judaism, etc?)
1
So this lawyer, on the day of a Supreme Court ruling on this one small baker's case, happens to call and ask for a cake, and happens to mention why she wanted it? And then claims to be "stunned?" Yeah, right. Go get your cake (if that was really the intention) and pay for it from a baker who wants to bake your cake. This is nothing but grandstanding.
38
We are all animals. We evolved from earlier creatures. If there is a Creator who pushed the "magic button and hence the Big Bang, this Creator likes surprises.
The Bible does not contain all of the answers. Science plays a role too. This is where we find many of the surprises. The Universe is bigger than you think and so is your potential. Don't turn against what you do not understand. NO surprises on that path.
The Bible says "Love one another as I have loved you."
And surprise them. Bake a cake!
6
This guy seems like the perfect candidate for a position in Trump's cabinet. Has all the basic requirements including narcissism, bigotry, and self-righteousness.
10
Bigotry Rides Again!
As a food supplier, my deeply help religious beliefs have forced me to stop selling eggs, sugar, flour, salt, and vanilla extract to Mr. Phillips bakery.
As a sanitation manager, my deeply help religious beliefs have forced me to stop garbage collection at Mr. Phillips bakery.
As an electric utility provider, my deeply help religious beliefs have forced me to cut off the power to Mr. Phillips bakery.
As a natural gas provider, my deeply help religious beliefs have forced me to cut off the gas supply to Mr. Phillips bakery.
As a law enforcement officer, my deeply help religious beliefs have forced me to no longer patrol the vicinity of Mr. Phillips bakery.
As a firefighter, my deeply help religious beliefs have forced me to never stop a fire at Mr. Phillips bakery.
As someone with deeply help religious beliefs, I think that Mr. Phillips doesn't really have any. He only pretends to in an attempt to legalize the basest qualities of human nature.
As an artist, I'm forced me to say that Mr. Phillips produces the most ascetically unpleasing cakes I've ever seen.
39
@Chicago Guy +And so your deeply held religious beliefs would be what, exactly? At least Mr. Phillips can enunciate his.
2
@scottthomas, this baker's deeply held religious beliefs are that anyone who isn't hetero is evil and doesn't deserve to be treated like everyone else. It's a hateful way to be and the complete antithesis to what Jesus preached. And yet he gets to call himself a "good" Christian.
1
Ms. Scardina was clearly baiting Mr. Phillip's employee by volunteering what the cake was celebrating.
But my real question is, why on earth would you ever want to patronize a business who has previously refused to provide service to other people based on their sexuality? And don't tell me that Ms. Scardina as a trans lawyer in Colorado was not aware of the Supreme Court case.
It just doesn't make any sense, I am sure there are plenty of excellent bakeries who would happily make her a blue/pink cake. Why look for conflict?
40
@Jason A. It makes a lot of sense, many people want the government or use of the courts to force others to do as they want. They want conflict, after all they insist on people confronting people who just have a job for someone they apparently hate.
6
@Jason A.
I see two reasons:
1 - in a major city there would be other alternatives. But in, say, rural VT,or the Hill Country of TX, one or two refusals may well mean you're not getting a wedding cake.
2 - today, it may be one in the major city. If this is seen as legal, over time and in at least some places we will go back to the way it was under segregation, where certain types and classes of people will be denied the service based solely on who they are.
But, most importantly: **why** is it okay to discriminate, regardless of the other alternatives?
This sad man should be required to post a second-class license for his buisness so everyone knows what he can and cannot do. Who is bankrolling this agenda, anyway and why is he keeping these secrets since he's so proud of his bigotry?
7
@A Lady Agree. And, does he receive any small business tax benefits? If so, they should cease immediately.
2
It's pretty simple. Does his business fall within the jurisdiction of the city of Lakewood, CO? If so, what nondiscrimination protections does the city have on its books that all businesses under their jurisdiction need to follow? If not the city, what about the state?
Separation of church and state. The city of Lakewood and the state of Colorado cannot endorse any religions. When you're open for business, you are agreeing to also follow the nondiscrimination protections put into place by the state and city legislatures. If you are religious, and don't feel like making cakes for LGBT folks, that's perfectly fine. That means you don't have a business open to the public. It's private at that point, as you have now chose to not follow the nondiscrimination protections. Along with going private for a business, are all the protections that are afforded to you by the city or the state for operating a business open to the public.
You cannot have your 'cake' and eat it too.
72
@Justine Akehurst A very simple solution is to have a "club" for custom cakes, with rules. And sure you can, just make more cake.
You can have your cake and eat it. In fact, the only way you can eat a cake is if you have one. You can’t eat your cake and have it.
@Justine Akehurst It's the difference between public and private sectors. Also, profit vs non-profit. There's been several non-profits organizations who have discriminated against LGBT, and they're allowed b/c affiliated with a religious organization. That's another place where things get a bit scary.
As a gay man, I have never understood the fascination with this baker. Patronage is a two way street. If we aren't good enough for him to serve, he isn't good enough to receive our money.
That should be how we handle this.
I don't think he needs to bake a cake he doesn't believe in. Government-mandated values is a bit of slippery slope. While it may theoretically serve us today, that worries me long term. Being a bigot isn't illegal, just sad!
213
@Johnause this fight was already fought in the 60s and 70s. religious freedom was the reasoning behind racial discrimination.
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
— Judge Leon M. Bazile, January 6, 1959
Without the sit ins and protests and continual fight to destroy segregation it would still exist and still be "God's will." We cannot accept the enshrinement of "Religious Freedom" as an avenue for discrimination to continue. If you want to serve food, you serve all people regardless of race. If you want to bake cakes, you bake all cakes regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
https://thinkprogress.org/when-religious-liberty-was-used-to-justify-rac...
That is a fascinating read into the history of religious freedoms arguments and how we have backtracked so heavily recently.
3
@John
"Being a bigot isn't illegal, just sad!"
Sadly, it appears you've bought into the slippery slope of false conservative logic.
Being a bigit absolutely can be illegal, given qualifying circumstances. If a patron were black and denied service based on their race, SCOTUS would've handled it differently.
Care to try again?
What if you didn't live in a cosmopolitan city like New York but a small town where 90% of the business were bigoted? How would an individual survive that situation if someone could claim religious freedoms and deny them service? I'm not just talking about cake either. This is discrimination and you can't hid behind religion to justify it.
Just let the market decide. Let the invisible hand speak. When Peter Stuyvesant, who had been hired to be the director-general of the Dutch settlement on Manhattan refused to let in Jews, his bosses back in Amsterdam told him he couldn't do that because it was bad for business. Let Mr. Phillips find out why discrimination is bad for business. Why wait for the courts? Refuse to patronize him and refuse to patronize those who do. Let him eat cake.
131
@Max & Max
"Just let the market decide. Let the invisible hand speak"
That didn't work in the Jim Crow era.
Admittedly, we live in the age of social media, but that knife cuts both ways (pun intended).
Relying on the invisible hand of moral economics to keep the Civil Rights Act alive and well is a pollyanish mistake.
1
@Eric W
"Jim Crow" affected the public sector- what a local community could do with public education and other public facilities. The reaction, by those who opposed Brown v BoE was to pull funding away from public schools. The power of the purse is a major force and the costs of not providing public education outweighed the benefits. It's not pollyanna politics. It's pragmatism that secures results that no Supreme Court can reverse. Nobody can make me buy a cake from Phillips. However, his martyrdom, created by the Court, will get him customers and reduce the power of the people to work, from the grass roots, toward making a more civil society in the long run.
Perhaps the Dutch thought that refusal of Jews was "bad for business." Americans did not share that view. When this country imposed a quota on Jews entering this country, it resulted in the death of many of those Jews. When Franklin Roosevelt turned away the Jews on the St.Louis, who had fled Hitler, straight back to Hitler, he was sending them straight to the gas chamber, and knew it.
Can't Denver muster up enough indignation to boycott this bigot out of business?
9
Jack Phillips is a bigot. No mater how his behavior is dressed up with religious icing, his cake is bigotry. The question is whether or not he can legally practice his bigotry in the marketplace.
7
Let's say you're a Muslim E.R. doctor and the Colorado bigot baker comes into your E.R. complaining of chest pain. Can you refuse to treat because the cross that the bigot baker is wearing offends your religion? Or, if you're an orthodox Jewish optometrist can you refuse to provide prescription sunglasses for a Jewish woman because you know she will use them to drive her car on Saturday?
Whatever happened to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's?" Freedom of religion in America cannot possibly be a general purpose get out of jail free card.
28
@Crusader Rabbit do bakers have a Hippocratic oath like doctors do?
1
This reminds me of Star Wars
“We don’t serve your kind here!“
6
I wonder what the reaction might be were a Muslim surgeon to refuse to operate on an infidel, claiming a religious justification for his (in)action.
5
Will his religion call him to refuse services to persons who are not Christian believers or members of his sect?
To people who are not his skin color?
How Christ like.
''Satan's successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips.''
Ghandi.
Would he refuse lifesaving medical aid from one of "them people"?
6
Why would anyone who is not some kind of religious zealot shop at this place? By the way, I cannot imagine Jesus refusing cake to anyone. If I lived in the Denver area and could actually bake, I would offer this customer a cake, free of charge. The people want cake. Let the bakers eat hypocrisy.
12
Well, here are the lead paragraphs from the Washington Times on this case - notice the difference in content:
The Christian baker who fought in the Supreme Court to preserve his right to refuse to make cakes for same-sex weddings says he is now the target of harassment by Colorado and some of its more mischievous residents, who have made a crusade out of trying to force him to bake cakes offensive to him.
One requester demanded that Jack Phillips bake a cake for Satan, complete with a working sex toy.
He is not the only baker in the area, so why pick on him?Apparently it is not OK that he won his case.
17
@Frank Exactly. It's NOT ok that he won his case. He won it on a technicality based on misbehavior of the Colorado Human Rights Commission which appeared to show bias against religion in its decision against Phillips. Restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, etc., are all public accommodations, and as such are by definition required to serve all the public. Imagine if instead of a gay couple, Phillips had refused service to an African-American couple. No court in the country would give him the time of day. Period.
4
@Frank Please read the Supreme Court ruling - it is a very narrow one (as explained in the article). Supreme Court made sure that there will be other litigation on this issue. Yes - he won A case - a narrow one. His ability to blatantly discriminate and attempt to control the lives of other people will be tested again.
3
I wonder what happens when someone refuses service because of race or because they are muslim. The act of making a cake it itself does not violate the religious beliefs unless the cake has a depiction that the baker cannot create without violating his beliefs. But dough is dough. What happens with the cake afterwards is none of his business.
5
Jack the Very Important Baker must be very anxious to extend his 15 minutes of fame.
6
I've got to say that this baker's "religious" beliefs confuse me. I was brought up in the Catholic church and attended parochial school. We learned all about the New Testament. We were taught that Jesus might appear to us as the beggar asking for a handout. We were taught that Jesus was generous of heart and spirit. He was forgiving. His code word was "LOVE."
What "religion" is it, exactly, which prohibits a baker from making a cake for a transgender person? I am a 62, white heterosexual male raised in the South. Nevertheless, I understand that anyone who is transsexual, gay, or lesbian already has had a much harder time on this planet than others. (And, yes, God made them that way.)
Why, in God's name (literally) would anyone claiming to be "religious" further insult and hurt a fellow human being on such a ridiculous basis? It's just a cake, for God's sake!
I was taught that charlatans wear their religions on their sleeves. We have seen that with the white nationalists (not a true "Christian" among them); those who want to do away with a woman's right to choose, do away with Medicaid, do away with food stamps, etc. These folks might be "religiously" selfish, hypocritical, and grossly unaware of their own traits and feelings, but they are not, by any stretch of the word, "Christian."
Let's reclaim that term and stop allowing hoodlums, thugs and Greedsters from calling themselves "Christian." For Christ's sake, enough already!
329
@Scott F.
Thank you for this. It so heartened me today.
3
@Scott F.
Thank you, you expressed my sentiments much better than I did.
"Christian" has become a shield for haters - white supremacists, anti-gay, anti-immigrant etc., folks.
Those who hide behind Christ to cover their hate will have a price to pay.
Its high time for those of us who are true followers of Christ to reclaim Him.
4
@Scott F. I wouldn't follow a single word from the Catholic Church. You might want to rethink all that. To follow a mystical book that is the equivalent of the game of Telephone is also insane. It's just a BOOK for "God's Sake".
Honestly, can we just stop with the butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers dominating our discourse on civil rights.
4
People are saying why push the issue with this baker. Because the time tested saying "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" applies. Its important to persist. If you let discrimination take place, then all bets are off for the future.
15
This guy Philips is profiting nicely over his phony beliefs. He gets free legal representation, free publicity, and tens of thousands of dollars in gofundme money.
Look for a conservative cottage industry to spring up in being sued for gender discrimination.
4
Dear Mr. Phillips:
This October seventh I will be celebrating my sixty-sixth birthday and want one of your signature birthday cakes. I am as straight as a nuclear missile and consult regularly with the patriarch of my national church. I would appreciate an estimate of the necessary shipping charges.
Sincerely,
V. Putin
27
Why give him business?
5
This baker was set-up by Autumn. The left loves to provoke and threaten religious folks. "Oh, I want to have someone make a transgender cake, maybe I'll call the guy the LGBTQP community has vilified." Meanwhile, Facebook, Google and Apple are blocking conservative voices from their platforms at the behest of liberals.
5
Why not just find another baker? For God's sake are people looking for a fight? Why would any gay or transgender or anyone who supports them continue to do business with this guy?
13
The shock from Ms. Scardina is completely fake. The LGBT activists deliberately provoked him and knew they'd get their way -- temporarily -- because he is a member of a hated religious minority. If they'd've gone to an Islamic baker, they'd have gotten the same refusal but not the sympathy from the state government.
Justice Kavanaugh will gladly clarify his First Amendment rights against compelled speech and right not to promote a message that's against his religion. The pointless bullying of this homophobic baker is going to backfire and the overreach by the activists only makes them look bad after they've won the culture war. Further, it's insulting to compare their plight to what black people were put through. It's just not a sympathetic argument when clearly any other baker would have given her what she wanted.
10
At some point, we will have to decide as a society whether there must be limits to the number and types of identity groups that can leverage the apparatus of government to muzzle their critics. This a slippery slope. More and more people at both ends of the political spectrum are embracing this troublesome world view. Aside from religious liberty, the mission of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission burdens free speech.
3
His free speech isn’t burdened; make it simple, serve all your customers.
2
The inability to buy a cake may seem trivial, but seen in context with military service bans, bathroom bills and TSA harassment, the core issue is whether or not transgender people are allowed to live, move and thrive in public space.
11
I still don't understand the problem. This business owner is a bigot, we know it, and he is open about it. Lacking compassion, kindness, and a moral compass is not illegal although most of us would likely avoid people who demonstrate a lack of those human values. Then we have gay and transgendered people who want to celebrate an important day in their lives. Rather than choosing a baker who would value their business and treat them with respect and dignity, they choose a baker who is the opposite. I am sure there are many bakers in Colorado who could get the job done in a respectful way.
If you want a cake, order one. If you want to make a political statement do that. Trying to do both at the same time is starting to look like this has nothing to do with celebrating a personal milestone.
8
His cakes aren't that great. There are plenty of great bakers in Denver. People should try some of the Mexican bakeries in North Denver, Lakewood and Wheat Ridge -- they'd be happy for the extra business.
15
At this point, the baker is being intentionally harassed. Legal process is being abused to harass him.
Like there aren't better bakers who would be more than happy to design, bake and decorate a cake for Autumn Scardina? (A seriously delightful name, btw.)
Of course it would have been better if the baker had refused to produce the pink-inside-blue-outside cake on grounds of feminist opposition to gender essentialism.
7
Can we assume that from now on every variant's rite of passage has to include a trip to Masterpiece cake shop? For most other businesses that could be seen as a windfall. Doesn't anybody bake for themselves anymore? Technology has turned us all into helpless creatures with big chips on our shoulders.
7
I wouldn't want one of Phillips' cakes,
even if he gave me one.
8
One is left wondering if Mr. Phillips has read and understood any of Jesus' teachings. Such ingrained bigotry is unfortunate and I agree with other posters that the best path here is a boycott. The real crime here is to see a person ascribe their bigotry to Jesus.
12
I wouldn't force anyone to cook or bake for me who didn't want to. Didn't you see "The Help?"
9
Religion is a singular, personal human condition. A person's "religious beliefs" should not extend into the world beyond the limits of their skull. No one is stopping Phillips from "believing" what ever it is that he wants to believe. The problem is in him attempting to impose his religion on his business, a human legal construct which has no existence or consciousness, and certainly no religion or "religious beliefs". If he wants to benefit from the ability to do business in the commons, then that "business" cannot decide that it will choose to selectively discriminate against people who the owner deems to be "unacceptable".
8
Just stop buying baked goods from Jack Phillips. Its too hard to determine who Mr. Phillips approves for commerce.
11
I'm intrigued that a man who decorates cakes for a living is a stalwart for traditional gender roles.
26
@Ananda "Somebody's gotta do it."
Can we use the same law to force atheists to perform for religious ceremonies? This is not about a broader customer service, this is about demanding an artist to perform.
7
@John Not clear on the thought experiment. Atheists just have to follow the law. If their Atheism compels them to break the law, they can just suffer the consequences. Religion should have nothing to do with whether or not you are allowed to break the law, although it can certainly inform your choices about what laws you support and what laws you oppose.
If your hypothetical atheist ran a religious ceremony business, then yes.
Is that the best analogy you can come up with? Forcing atheists to oversee religious ceremonies? How utterly absurd. Frankly, your reasoning is horrible and you might want to rethink your position.
1
This ties back to some much larger issues in health care, where the merging of many of the nation's hospitals are resulting in a large proportion of medical facilities owned by Catholic organizations are refusing to perform services that are legal - by no means just abortion, but issues regarding reproductive rights, maternal health risks, and end-of-life issues.
So far it has been pretty much flying under the radar, as hospitals are generally neither required nor are posting exclusions to services so that people are unaware of this unless directly affected.
We have laws disallowing and allowing some tough issues, and when we allow exceptions to be repeatedly carved out, we end up believing we live in one sort of society when in fact we live in a completely different sort.
So no, this isn't just about a cake by a long shot. It's like not having voted in 2016 - a nice, easy way to avoid the incredibly tough decisions by ignoring one of the only duties of a free and open society: to vote.
2
If you are in business and serve the public, then you must serve all equally no matter who they are. That is the law.
It does not matter if someone sought you out to test the law, because the law is on their side - always.
Your religious conviction does not ''trump'' my human rights, nor anyone else's. Get used to it.
10
@FunkyIrishman
I'm pretty sure human rights do not include the right to buy a birthday cake.
5
Cake- while we fight over who gets one, our social security, Medicare and Medicaid gets taken off the menu. Honestly just stop buying from the little man who has no god but his own kitchen.
20
"Mr. Phillips refused because the celebration ran contrary to his belief that gender is “given by God,” his lawyers said, and “not determined by perceptions or feelings.” "
Mr. Philips should be required to present his god in support of his argument. Let god sort it out.
6
As an atheist, I nevertheless frequently find myself asking What Would Jesus Do? WWJD. I believe Jesus was a powerful historical figure, not divine, and through his actions and words was a person worth following, be one Christian, non-Christian, but religious, or agnostic, or atheist. I think I am far, far closer to what Jesus wanted to see people on Earth be like than vast numbers of self-described Christians, and of leaders of Christian communities. I wish all you Christians would get with the program.
14
You know, when I said it wasn't the last time we heard of Masterpiece Cakeshop, I was talking about the jurisprudence...
Seriously, we are doing this all over again?
4
@htg We are doing this all over again because the Supreme Court didn't do its job the first time.
1
@htg Yes - because of the narrow SCOTUS ruling.
2
Some of the commentators recommend that the would-be customers of this baker go to a more accommodating one. The problem with this approach is that once a merchant is allowed by law or court decision to discriminate against a member of an unpopular group based upon purported religious belief more merchants will follow suit. And before long, members of the unpopular group will have no place to take their business,
3
@Alan Mass
There is simply no proof of this. Economic theory says that if there is a demand that is profitable there will be a supply.
Even when we look at segregation in deep South after WWII we see that fewer and fewer merchants were willing to forego profit and refuse to offer their services to black people. Instead what we see was that the market was desegregating the South everywhere but in the most extreme areas of black poverty and in those situations the segregation was of little consequence because the black population was unable to purchase the goods and services regardless of the discriminatory practices of the local merchants
1
In 1994 I married a black woman. At the time of my birth, 1943, that would have been illegal in most U.S. states. It was also considered immoral by many Christian churches. Undoubtedly, some who call themselves Christian today think this is still immoral.
Should they be allowed to not make an anniversary cake for us because it goes against their religious beliefs? (Full disclosure, we are divorced, but the issue is still relevant.)
2
@Peter Wolf This is a very very good example of a logical consequence of accepting his argument. Who gets to decide whom Jack the baker gets to discriminate against? Why, the government, of course!
@Peter Wolf Peter- the Courts have spoken and the answer is clear- "No cake for you." Seriously, the problem with the bigot baker is the slippery slope- which your story illustrates. But I suspect it gets much worse- imagine pharmacists and doctors unwilling to dispense or treat because of their religious "principles." Catholic hospitals already fail to provide a full roster of women's health care.
Can people just stop patronizing this business? Why bother with a shop that may or may not choose to fulfill your order, depending on their personal beliefs?
7
Where in the Bible or any testament is Transgender discussed? His beliefs aren’t based on religion, it’s based on his bias and prejudice. Another word for discrimination.
32
Just because someone fervently believes their principles in good faith does not make them right.
No religious beliefs should supersede another’s rights. That is elevating the church above the state, and we are not living in a theocracy.
Maybe Mr. Phillips should consider selling baked goods at churches that have the same religious beliefs as his.
My belief is that when you open a business to the public, you should serve all of the public not just those who agree with you.
20
I don’t understand why this guy is stepping back into the legal arena. And I really don’t understand why anyone would patronize his shop. His cakes can’t really be that special, can they?
6
You could be forgiven for thinking that this bakery never bakes. Instead, it embroils.
3
Religious freedom should not be allowed to discriminate anyone for any reason. This guy can practice his religion as he chooses but not deny anyone service because he believes that some alleged and probably fictional Sky Daddy commands anything.Since no one has ever been able to prove that there is some diety out there in out there land, that belief cannot be allowed to deny anyone their civil rights.
4
There's an easy test for bigotry. If your actions are bigoted, then you're a bigot.
Your excuses, religion based or otherwise, are just that: rationales for your being a bigot.
That's true whether you're a Christian refusing services to gay customers, an Orthodox Jew who refuses to sit next to a woman, or a Muslim who wants to ban women from being able to drive a car.
10
Clarity is a virtue. If we return to the time when exterior signs warned transgressors to take themselves and their money elsewhere, at least situations would be clear from the git-go.
Examples that come to mind include:
"Negro Entrance." "Whites Only." "No Counter Service for Blacks." "Drinking Fountain for Whites Only." "No Hippies Allowed." "Turbans not entirely welcome." "Muslims are not our favorite customers." "No Service for LGBT's."
I'm sure readers can think of many more signs that would at once eliminate confusion and please The Lord.
2
@Taz - here in Seattle it is pretty common to see businesses fly a Rainbow flag in their window along with a black lives matters sign AND a statement inviting those of all ethnicities, etc.
1
Should a black baker by law be required to decorate a cake with celebratory words for the KKK? Should a Jewish baker by law be required to decorate a cake with a swastika? If you answered "no", do you still believe that a Christian man should by law be required to decorate a cake with celebratory words for gender transition?
3
@Step Have we as a society decided that you can make a vendor depict whatever symbol you want? No, we have not. Probably because it is not a good idea. I have seen no suggestion of such a law. Colorado, however, has apparently passed a law that says you can't refuse to serve people based on their race, gender, or sexual orientation. That law should be enforced no matter what the identity of the baker is. If a black baker refused to serve a white person, of a female baker refused to serve a man, they too should be prosecuted. Argue against the law if you want, but your example is totally irrelevant.
2
1) No.
2) No.
3) Yes.
Asked and answered. : )
3
@TvdV - But the baker didn't refuse the gay couple. He offered several of his already made cakes. He just wouldn't draw up an image that didn't go along with his color scheme. Big difference to your example.
2
So Eve came from Adam's rib. Does that mean Eve was transgendered?
9
@Ron Brown But that's OLD Testament.
Oh, lawsy, not another one.....?!?!
C’mon, honey, give your hormones a rest - and the rest of us a break....!
2
I'm sorry, if the baker has so much judgement and difficulty in working with the general public, maybe he shouldn't have a public business. His right to discriminate is not greater than the average citizen's right to be served rather than judged (over a CAKE?) and diminished by a random baker.
Here's a solution: if you are a business that needs to discriminate in order to feel 'free,' identify your business on all platforms to indicate that. Then, the free market can decide and individuals don't have to run around town in an embarrassing effort to pass muster to buy a damn cake.
8
@Meg L
I'm sorry, I don't think you understand the details of the case. The gay and transgender customers can buy anything from the store they would like, so there is no refusal of service.
The question is whether Mr. Phillips can be compelled to use his artistic expression to create a special order. The best analogy, used more than a few times, are whether a black baker can be compelled to make a special cake for a KKK celebration. This is a question of compelled expression, not gender/sexual orientation discrimination.
Of course, since the discrimination in this case comes from the gay/transgender community and is directed against a Christian, well, that is acceptable discrimination by the left. If it was the other way around with a gay baker refusing a religion themed cake, the left wouldn't bat an eye. Discrimination in any form is abhorrent, even if liberals support it.
6
It's just cake. What normal vendor interviews potential clients to check why they feel like buying a cake? Who cares if it's for a baby shower, a birthday party, Lefthander's Day, or you're just going on a binge and blowing your diet? Does this guy interview every customer to make sure that pastry isn't for someone they're cheating on a spouse with, or someone they're shacked up with without benefit of marriage? C'mon, now.
43
Agreed. It's just a cake. Go back to Justice Ginsberg's dissent in the Phillips case. The cake wasn't a wedding cake: it was just decorated with flowers; no written message and no wedding or gay images. Phillips was not being asked to produce an "expression" about marriage, homosexuality, or anything else. So RGB argued that the majority could have employed the same arguments it did, but could have ruled the other way. Concepts that the cake was for a wedding, or to celebrate any kind of sexuality, were just thoughts in people's heads, not expressed in the cake. Mr. Phillips was not being asked to express anything. In this case too: it was just a pink and blue cake with no expression that Mr. Phillips was required to render about anything. The use to which the cake would be put was not to be expressed in the decorations, and the purchaser could change her mind and decide it wouldn't be used at any celebration. In both cases, how a purchase is used is the customer's business. In both cases, Phillips was not being asked to express anything. It's just a cake.
7
He’s a fundamentalist.....
Fundamentalist, definition: A fundamentalist is someone who’s afraid that someone, somewhere might be happy....
2
I'm not religious but I come down squarely on the side of Jack Phillips in this debate.
Whether or not he can claim a religious freedom constitutional privilege in denying the customer a "Transition Celebration Cake" (and some smart lawyers can certainly make his being able to do that very plausible to a court), his claim, if made in good faith and possibly backed by some sort of religious authority, is simply more significant than the customers right to the cake UNLESS there's absolutely no other reasonable way to acquire a cake in the customer's locale.
Religion should be afforded reasonable protections and, as hard as it might be for NYTimes readers to acknowledge the role religion can play in some people's lives, it can decide the very question of how people navigate the world. It can mean the very difference between eternal damnation and salvation.
I applaud Philips for not giving way on his principles. That happens far too much in today's world.
33
@LR
So If Jack was of a religion that didn't believe in serving another religion, you would be ok with that?
@LR Right. Of course, many Christians people used to believe (and some still do) that mixed marriage is a sin. As is being a Jew, or any unbeliever doomed to Hellfire.
What a shame that the laws that control being a public business doesn't let him deny his services to them, too.
Okay - enough sarcasm. This is bigotry, pure and simple. All the rest is rationalization for his bigotry. So sad that the current Supreme Court buys into this bunk.
@LR " It can mean the very difference between eternal damnation and salvation."
No, it cannot. Because it's not real.
2
This case is going nowhere. The tiny fraction of cases that reach the Supreme Court are virtually all backed by special interest groups like the NRA. They also have to attract financial backing. To prevail, Phillips needs to prove his good faith religious beliefs. Anyone reviewing this case for backing would be deeply concerned that Phillips likes the limelight more than the Bible. And so he will have no backers this time.
10
The baker is engaging in religious discrimination, both in the gay wedding case and this one.
Once he claims that gay marriage and gender identity fall under *a* religious rubric, then the customers must be acting under a *different* religious structure.
So, how can he be allowed to do this when the law is explicit with respect to discrimination against customers based on religion?
30
@arty Please consult the Supreme Court decision.
1
@Mon Ray
The SCOTUS decision did not address the substance of the case-- "please consult" the article, which points out that fact.
If you disagree with the substance of what I said, please make a substantive argument. How is it not religious discrimination by the baker?
1
If businesses have the right to deny service based on their 'religious beliefs' then I believe those business owners need to be forced to place signs and advertise themselves as bigots so as potential customers we know not to bring our money there.
315
vegetarians are hardly seen in butcheries. What attracts gay and transgender into his shop? Bigottery?
4
He “refused because the celebration ran contrary to his belief that gender is ‘given by God,’ his lawyers said, and “
‘not determined by perceptions or feelings.’”
So, when an individual believes anything (s)he can say that it’s against his religious beliefs? So, anyone can deny service to people of other races, different religions, gender, political beliefs, or even hair color, as long as they believe that their god has ordained it? Where does this end? Just because a person holds a religious belief, no matter how extreme, Does he believe that it's okay to act (or not act, as the case may be) in a discriminatory fashion? Does he deny service to divorced individuals? People who are known to have broken a Commandment? For heaven's sake (I couldn’t resist), what about all those who are known to have broken one of the hundreds of proscriptions in the Bible?
130
@Sharon Edelson Eubanks - exactly - The Bible says let he without sin cast the first stone. Is this man without sin?
1
@Sharon Edelson Eubanks Some racket, eh? :)
@Sharon Edelson Eubanks
"So, anyone can deny service to people of other races, different religions, gender, political beliefs or even hair color, as long as they believe their god has ordained it?"
That's the slippery slope the 5 right-wing reactionaries of SCOTUS have set us on with their bigoted rulings in "Hobby Lobby" and "Masterpiece."
1
instead of being paying customers trying to get this prejudiced company to comply with laws against discrimation, just boycott them. god would be ok with that.
73
I wonder how poor Jack can justify making ANY birthday cake. There are no birthday celebrations mentioned anywhere in the bible . Hmmn - I'm not sure he should even be making cake!
132
@EME: “And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great celebration on the day that Isaac was weaned.” Genesis 21:8.
There you go. Menu unknown but there was probably cake.
2
Although I do not share Mr. Phillips's ideology, I would ask why any party who is aware of Mr. Phillip's biases would even be willing to be a patron of his business
94
Maybe they’re trolling him.
4
@psrunwme Well, probably for the same reason that there was a lunch counter sit-in at Woolworths in 1960...
Mr. Philips is providing goods for the public, not a private dinner party.
4
@psrunwme for the same reasons that blacks who were aware of the segregation laws nevertheless staged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters.
4
The Supreme Court will have to decide if beliefs based on a book of mostly fiction override the lives of real, palpable people?
84
@Alton - They already did. He won.
3
@Alton They already have. The Supreme Court already sent this bigot a loud and clear message that he has the full force of the US courts behind him in his efforts to shove his religion on other people.
@Alton
They already have.
Fiction wins.
Christophobes are trying to destroy a man because he is a Christian. The state should not support this bigoted persecution.
20
@Danusha Goska - He can be Christian all he wants but if he wants to run a business he has to abide by the rules that prohibit discrimination.
1
@Danusha Goska -- pretty sure it's about treating all people with the same decency and respect, not hatred of Christ. But nice way to try and make yourself a martyr.
2
@Danusha Goska So instead it should support the cakemaker's bigoted persecution?
1
Jesus. Just let this poor little man, with his poor little mind, lead his poor little life.
43
Alas, this isn't just about the man. It's also about the rights of various kinds of artificial persons, of which Majestic Cakeshop has been several (including a non-profit). Should artificial persons be held to our highest standards? Should cleverly-incorporated self-driving taxi cabs be allowed to automatically discriminate against Tinder users on religious grounds?
2
@Pdxgrl
Once he goes to work for a church where he won't need a public business license.
1
@Pdxgrl
Once he declines his public business license and bakes at the local church kitchen, then the public (you know the entity that gave him the business license) will leave him alone. In the mean time, maybe we need to audit his business and send the health department to search his premises. His religion may not believe in cleanliness judging from the lack of a hairnet and he probably does not believe in reporting accurate receipts on taxes.
mr phillips should probably clearly advertise which celebrations his god approves and which ones she doesn't. clearly gay weddings and gender conversions are out. what about non-first-time straight weddings? i imagine his god doesn't approve of that either, and so he would not bake a cake for straight people getting married for the second or third time, right?
or is it only gay celebrations that his god doesn't approve?
111
@guillermo Maybe some of us should help Jack advertise his preferences in his local papers.
1
But probably ok to bake a cake for folks with multiple wives.
2
As a gay man, I don't understand why a couple would want to buy such an important cake from a bigot. I'd rather set out Twinkies than serve hate to my wedding guests. On the other hand, I am *Gay* - so I can create the mostest fabulous cake by myself, without help from any straight, homophobic baker.
371
@Pete as a black man, I don't understand why blacks had to sit in at segregated lunch counters and suffer all manners of physical and mental injuries from such pointless demonstrations. Why couldn't they just stop being so uppity and just patronize blacks-only lunch counters? They could have just set up their own lunch counters for BLACKS ONLY, ya know? Segregation is not a bad thing, especially if one doesn't have to deal with racist people all the time.
1
So he‘s a bigot? Seems it goes both ways!
@Pete
you are awesome.
1
The LGBTQ community simply needs to stop giving this narcissist a voice. Stop ordering his cakes. Stop engaging with him. Stop making this guy some hero to the bigots and homophobes of Colorado. There are other bakers with as much or more talent and a heck of a lot more compassion and kindness than this cruel individual.
228
@Bryan
Bryan, no.
We’re not going to accept mistreatment just because you don’t like conflict.
We’re not going to keep our heads down!
Where does this stop? Who will be the next to be mistreated?
2
@Bryan I think the LGBTQ community is trying to provoke him with the goal of getting more right established, with the assumption that the courts will rule against the baker, thereby spreading equal rights
1
@Madeleine You have to be kidding about who's being mistreated. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/17/hate-crimes-up-america-10...
He won his Supreme Court case. Can't he now just be a good Christian and treat everyone with respect?
17
@Mr. SeaMonkey, no, obviously he can't. For religious reasons.
1
@Mr. SeaMonkey
he has to keep suing until he gets some money, good Christian that he is.
2
@Mr. SeaMonkey He won his Supreme Court case. Can't the LGBTQ community and the State of Colorado stop trying to set him up?
1
The Supreme Court ruling addressed state's expressed hostility to the baker, no his right to discriminate. Colorado can require him to make cakes for all customers, but the state has to do it sweetly. Not demean his religious beliefs in requiring him to conduct his business in accordance with laws against discrimination based on anything. And, really, we're going out on a limb to guess that, if his bakery were burning, he wouldn't be checking under the fire persons' gear to make sure the guys were really guys and the women weren't trans. He seems a fair weather bigot. But the state can't tell him that when they require him to serve all customers.
67
@winchestereast
my religious belief is that he should be wearing a net over his hair & beard to be seen in public because he might molt his christian hair follicles onto my clothing or person or on my food. When did health departments stop requiring hair nets around food? How unsanitary & disgusting? I try to avoid fast food places because of this lack of sanitation around my food. Go ahead & eat at McDonalds where people can sit there babies with dirty diapers on the counter where your food is place. But don't force a merchant to sell his product to a nonmember of his religious belief.
1
@winchestereast The plaintiff in that SCOTUS case seized on an imprudent comment made by an individual and from that shred of fiber spun a whole cloth of "state hostility," which gave the justices just the pretext they needed to tamp down the controversy without ruling on the legal substance. That decision was a minor monument to judicial cowardice and duplicity.
4
I do not see why anyone is not free to decline services, such as baking a cake, that they choose, for whatever reason. Lawyers are not required to represent anyone who comes along. An architect is free to decline a commission for any reason at all. Leave Mr. Phillips alone.
45
@RBrown
Not true. If you are licensed by a governmental entity, as are lawyers and architects, you cannot decline service to someone in a "protected class" because of their membership in that protected class.
Think of how many business owners would refuse service to African Americans, among other groups, if it were simply up to them. That's the whole point of the civil rights laws--to not be discriminated against because of your membership in a certain category. Whether you agree with it or not is a different question, but that is the law.
183
@James, amen!
@James
We can't compare it to discrimination against POC because Christians believe that being gay or transgender is a choice, but it's obvious that race is not a choice.
This one is sticky.
This supposed good Christian can't stand anybody who isn't like him.
61
Call the health department. Jack Phillips doesn't wear a hairnet or gloves when he works. Yet another reason why I wouldn't want to eat one of his cakes.
274
People should not buy anything from this business.
112
But strangely they do! Must be an excellent baker, not seen anywhere else in Colorado.
1
Ms. Scardina's "stunned" reaction to the rejection of her transition cake seems blatantly disingenuous; she clearly was intentionally testing the legal limits.
What even is the point of telling the person on the phone what the cake was for? Who cares? This is simply not analogous to the previous case involving the same-sex couple; they couldn't simply keep to themselves that the cake was a for a same-sex wedding.
I have ordered many birthday cakes in my life with all kinds of flavor, color or themes--never once have I provided an explanation or exposition on the person being celebrated or anything about them personally at all.
Must we actively seek out conflict?
244
@James did anyone look between your legs to confirm your gender before taking your money?
@James Yeah, you're right. I mean how about that Rosa Parks, couldn't she have just sat at the back of the bus and stopped actively seeking out conflict?
6
@James I understand your comments completely, I believe. However, and you are probably right that the woman meant to test the legal limits, there is already a conflict, seek it or not. I applaud the transgender lady for her actions, which forces this issue to be read about, talked about, litigated about, judged about. It is my hope that kind of "activism" will ultimately help those who value human dignity over appalling hatred.
Obvious case of harassment/persecution by the State.
17
@Blake, obvious case of bigotry on the part of the baker's business.
3
@Blake better to be harassed/persecuted by the State for engaging in segregation/discrimination than to be harassed/persecuted by the State for opposing segregation/discrimination. This picture should provide some clarity for you:
https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/02-birmingham-1963.jpg?qu...
2
The free market solution is to stop using the services of this squeamish baker and find a competitive bakery. Boycotts work. He can keep his so-called religious values and people with open views can shop elsewhere. Problem solved and without having to waste the time of the SCOTUS.
89
@Jean M
Jean, would you say the same to a Hindu or black or asian person? Tell them, “We don’t serve your kind here?” Shall we all tell others we don’t approve of to get lost?
There is a much larger principle here: how we treat each other in this democracy. This issue was settled years ago, it’s time to move on.
And I’m not going to keep a map of which counties I have to travel to to get the things I need, especially if no one else has to.
Time for Mr. Phillips, and others similarly disposed, to put on their adult pants.
@Jean M We had segregated lunch counters under the "free market solution". Are you implying that you are in support of segregated lunch counters under the guise of "free market solution"?
@Jean M, let's see if you'd swallow this: "He can keep his so-called religious values and blacks can shop elsewhere." That makes a difference, hunh?
2