A Colorado District Court Judge ruled against Masterpiece Cakeshop and its owner Jack Phillips for refusing to bake a cake that celebrated a Denver attorney’s gender transition.
In the 28-page ruling, Judge Bruce Jones said that Masterpiece Cakeshop violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) by not baking the cake.
The Colorado baker, Jack Phillips who won a partial victory at the US Supreme Court in 2018 for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple went on trial Monday in the latest lawsuit involving a birthday cake for the transitioning Denver attorney.
Autumn Scardina attempted to order the birthday cake on the same day in 2017 that the high court announced it would hear baker Jack Phillips’s appeal in the wedding cake case. Scardina, an attorney, requested a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside in honor of her gender transition.
Her lawsuit is the latest in a series of cases around the US that pit the rights of LGBTQ people against merchants’ religious objections, an issue that remains unsettled by the nation’s top court.
This would not be the first time that a christian merchant has come under fire for refusing to serve LGBTQ persons on the basis of their Christian belief.
In 2017, The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld a $135,000 fine against two Christian bakers who were ordered to pay the money to a lesbian couple after declining to bake them a gay wedding cake in 2013, before gay marriage was legal in Oregon.
According to court filings, the lesbian couple said they felt “mentally raped” after Aaron and Melissa Klein declined to bake their wedding cake.
The Kleins are evangelical Christians. their lawyers argued in court that the government’s penalties against the Kleins violated their rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, and due process under the U.S. Constitution.
“Freedom of expression for ourselves should require freedom of expression for others,” declared First Liberty Institute President Kelly Shackelford following the Oregon Court of Appeal’s ruling. “The Oregon Court of Appeals decided that Aaron and Melissa Klein are not entitled to the Constitution’s promise of religious liberty and free speech.”
As previously reported by Breitbart News’ Tom Williams, “Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, were found guilty of discrimination in 2013 of for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because it violated the tenets of their Christian faith.”
Though the couple repeatedly served customers of any sexual orientation, they did not feel comfortable custom-designing the wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony. They likewise have declined to customize cakes for divorce parties, bachelor parties, and even Halloween — anything that is inconsistent with their personal understanding of their Christian faith.
“We lost everything we loved and worked so hard to build,” Melissa Klein proclaimed following the incident.
The case will likely now be appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court. A similar case from Colorado is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
There have been numerous other instances of Christian bakers receiving penalties for refusing to bake gay wedding cakes, including a case in Northern Ireland, and a case in California.