Masterpiece Cakeshop owner back in court to defend freedoms

Baker Jack Phillips on Tuesday appeared before the Colorado Supreme Court to defend his religious liberty to refuse business conflicting with his Christian beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jake Warner is defending Phillips in the lawsuit brought by attorney Autumn Scardina, a man who self-identifies as a woman. For over a decade, Phillips has faced repeated legal challenges for refusing to create certain custom cake designs. Phillips’ lawyers have also described him as a cake artist entitled to free speech protections.

Scardina filed a discrimination charge with the Colorado Civil Rights Division in 2017 after Phillips refused to create a cake for him. Scardina requested a cake to be pink on the inside and blue on the outside to celebrate a so-called gender transition. Scardina claimed Phillips’ refusal amounted to discrimination based on gender. That charge was later dismissed. However, in October, the Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear a separate lawsuit brought by Scardina based on the same incident.

Just how long has Phillips been defending free speech? Phillips has fought legal battles since 2012, when he refused to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 ruled 7-2 in favor of Phillips. The Court ruled in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission that his religious objections to gay marriage were protected views.

What does the court have to decide? The justices must determine whether the cake is constitutionally protected speech even though Scardina did not request any words on the cake. The American Civil Liberties Union argued that Phillips agreed to make the cake before Scardina revealed the meaning behind the cake. A district court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2023 found that a pink-and-blue cake did not constitute protected speech under the First Amendment. Phillips’ ADF lawyer, Warner, argued that the government could not punish Phillips for declining to express the admitted message of the cake.

What is Phillips’ argument? Warner says Scardina made the request in order to set Phillips up for a lawsuit. After the U.S. Supreme Court last summer ruled in favor of another Colorado Christian business owner in 303 Creative v. Elenis, ADF attorneys filed a supplemental notice with the Colorado Supreme Court. They argued that the court should apply the national ruling to Phillips’ case. 

Dig deeper: Read ADF CEO Kristen Waggoner’s column in WORLD Opinions about why Phillips won’t back down.