Masterpiece Cake Shop On Trial For Refusing To Bake A "Transition" Cake

[Ubiquitous]

The litigation against Jack Phillips hasn’t subsided after his Supreme
Court victory. Now he’s on trial for refusing to bake a cake
celebrating gender transition. The Bake Shop attorney says “Masterpiece
Cakeshop has regular customers who are transgender. The issue has to do
with the message …. This lawsuit isn’t about discrimination, it’s about
the freedom to disagree.”

Masterpiece Cake Shop famously won a U.S. Supreme Court case over it’s
owner Jack Phillips’ refusal to bake a cake that celebrated a same-sex
marriage. Phillips said while he would sell anyone a cake, requiring
him to put lettering on it celebrating the marriage violated his
religious beliefs and was unconstitutional.

https://youtu.be/oLMBT6zNgN8

The Supreme Court ruled in his favor, though it didn’t announce any
sweeping principles of law.

But it wasn’t over, the cakeshop was sued again by the State of
Colorado after the same person requested a “gender transition” cake,
Colorado goes after Masterpiece Cakeshop again – this time over “gender
transition” cake.

The state eventually dropped the case, Masterpiece Cakeshop wins again
– CO drops prosecution for refusal to bake ‘gender-transition cake’,
but the woman sued privately, Masterpiece Cakeshop Sued A Third Time,
Ostensibly Over “Gender Transition” Cake.

https://youtu.be/YPP4nDxYy14

That was the last time we covered the attacks on the cakeshop, but that
third case just popped up on the news because it is in trial.

Courthouse News reports on some details:

Three years after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Masterpiece
Cakeshop — albeit narrowly — in a case over a same-sex wedding
cake, a transgender woman took the Christian bakery back to a
Denver court Monday after the bakery refused to make a birthday
cake commemorating her gender transition….

“Why not just bake the cake? That’s a question Jack Phillips
gets asked a lot. Avoid years of litigation, avoid the death
threats. Just make the cake. But Jack Phillips sees himself as
an artist, and the cake as an expression of his soul,”
explained Phillips’ attorney Sean Gates of the firm Charis
Lex. “Jack Phillips’ cakes convey a message.”

The conservative Christian organization Alliance Defending
Freedom is also supporting Phillips’ defense.

Showing a slideshow of racecar, cat and basket-shaped cakes,
Gates said, “Even though he creates a lot of cakes, none of
them are the same. When he makes a cake, he finds out what
that person loves so he can create the right message for the
right time.

“But Jack Phillips is a Christian and his religion affects
what he can create,” Gates continued. “Jack Phillips will make
cakes for all people, but he cannot make cakes for all
messages.”

Phillips says that over the years he has declined to make
cakes celebrating Halloween, alcohol, racism and marijuana as
well as ones with demeaning messages.

“Masterpiece Cakeshop has regular customers who are gay,
Masterpiece Cakeshop has regular customers who are transgender.
The issue has to do with the message,” Gates argued. “The
evidence will show that if Jack Phillips bakes that cake that
it would mean he agrees a gender transition is something to
celebrate. This lawsuit isn’t about discrimination, it’s about
the freedom to disagree.”

Jones is presiding over the four-day trial, which is being
held remotely in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

CBS Denver reports that the plaintiff testified she was calling
Phillips’ “bluff” by demanding the transition case:

On Monday, during a virtual trial being conducted by a state
judge in Denver, Scardina said Phillips had maintained that,
as a Christian, he would sell any other type of product but
opposed making the gay couple’s wedding cake because it
involved a religious ceremony.

She said she called Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop to place
the order after hearing about the court’s announcement because
she wanted to find out if he really meant it.

When her lawyer Paula Greisen asked whether the call was a
“setup,” she said it was not.

“It was more of calling someone’s bluff,” she said.

This never was about the cake or discrimination. It’s about compelling
speech.

--
Trump won.