Free Republic

For more than 10 years, a Colorado law has been misused to punish me for something I didn’t do. For more than 30 years, my family and I have quietly operated Masterpiece Cakeshop, baking treats and specializing in custom-designed cakes to celebrate special occasions. I welcome everyone into my shop, treat them with respect, and if they ask for a particular kind of custom cake, do my best to create something beautiful and memorable. Like most of us, I too have sincere beliefs that guide and inspire my life, so I can only create custom cakes that will express or...

I’ve been writing about Denver-area baker Jack Phillips for over a decade now. It’s clear to me he’s going to be badgered into the grave by authoritarians intent on punishing him for thought crimes. From the first time his name appeared in the news until this day, the media have misled the public about him, about the case, and about the law. The latest chapter in Phillips’ Kafkaesque saga involves a transgendered lawyer named Autumn Scardina, who demanded Phillips create a pink cake with blue frosting to help celebrate a “gender transition.” As expected, Phillips, who’d already spent years fighting...

A federal jury has awarded $100,000 to a same-sex couple who sued a former county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue them a marriage license, claiming that doing so would violate her religious beliefs. Kim Davis, the former clerk in Rowan County, Ky., was sued by two same-sex couples to whom she refused to grant marriage licenses. The district court found Davis personally liable in both cases, but only awarded damages in one. In the case Ermold v. Davis, the jury awarded $50,000 to each of the plaintiffs, David Ermold and David Moore, according to attorneys for Davis. No...

Two customers at an Orlando location of the grocery chain Publix wanted a cake for an event they were holding late last month celebrating and supporting the transgender community..."Trans people deserve joy" was the inscription they asked to be written in icing decorating a colorful sheet cake. But the bakery worker taking the order hesitated. "After a loooooong waiting period a manager comes up...and says, 'yeah, we can't write that we aren't allowed to take stance either ways on this issue... ...the corporate account for Publix responded to Flasterstein's Facebook post with an apology - and an offer to make...

Legally actionable?

Denver, Colo., Jan 26, 2023 / 15:45 pm A Colorado appellate court has ruled against a baker who appeared in court once again for declining to make a cake that contradicts his religious beliefs. While Jack Phillips’ successful U.S. Supreme Court case concerned his refusal to make a same-sex wedding cake, he now faces a civil lawsuit for declining to make a cake celebrating a purported gender transition of a transgender-identifying attorney. In a Thursday decision, a Colorado Court of Appeals three-judge panel sided with Autumn Scardina, a man who identifies as a transgender woman. Scardina said Phillips and his...

This week, the Supreme Court will hear a case that will reignite a continuing conversation about what to do when long-established religious convictions clash with gay people’s civil rights. In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, a Colorado web designer, Lorie Smith, wants to create websites for clients’ weddings. She is a Christian, and because of her religious beliefs, she does not want to offer these services for same-sex weddings. However, she serves L.G.B.T.Q. customers for other design projects. This week’s legal arguments will most likely focus primarily on questions around free speech: Can the government compel artists or designers to...

..... And the difference between the two women should be studied in what is wrong with the radical left and why they should not be in power to defend the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in the case. “For nearly a decade, the justices have dodged and weaved on this clash of legal values, declining to hear some cases and punting on one involving a baker who refused to make custom wedding cakes for same-sex couples. But now the issue is back before a far more conservative court, a court that reached out to hear Monday’s...

The couple thought that they finally had everything lined up: Their paperwork for a marriage license, their attendance to mandatory counseling, and — just to be safe — an order from Mexico's Supreme Court to honor their request to complete the first same-sex union in the state of Baja California. But on January 11, in their fourth attempt at marriage since June 2013 in Mexicali, Baja's desert capital, Victor Manuel Aguirre and Victor Fernando Urias were met with closed doors and once more couldn't get married. Instead, religious conservatives picketed the municipal registrar offices (along with alleged non-interested parties meant...

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado baker who won a partial Supreme Court victory after refusing on religious grounds to make a gay couple’s wedding cake a decade ago is challenging a separate ruling he violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by refusing to make a cake celebrating a gender transition. A lawyer for Jack Phillips on Wednesday urged Colorado’s appeals court — largely on procedural grounds — to overturn last year’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by a transgender woman. The woman, Autumn Scardina, called Phillips’ suburban Denver cake shop in 2017 requesting a birthday cake that had blue frosting on...

An Oregon state agency has dramatically reduced the penalty it issued to a Gresham bakery that refused to sell a same-sex couple a wedding cake nearly a decade ago. Oregon Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle announced Tuesday that she had slashed the penalty for Sweet Cakes by Melissa from $135,000 to $30,000 in response to a Jan. 26 ruling by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

An Oregon Court of Appeals ruling earlier this year found the state’s initial award of $135,000 in damages against Sweet Cakes By Melissa showed signs of bias. The state of Oregon has drastically reduced financial penalties it assigned a Gresham baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple nearly a decade ago. In compliance with a state appeals court ruling earlier this year, State Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle announced Tuesday that the Bureau of Labor and Industries is ordering Aaron Klein to pay $30,000 damages in the case, down from a $135,000 penalty handed out in...

The Oregon Court of Appeals for a second time Wednesday upheld a ruling by the state civil rights division that found that a Gresham bakery illegally discriminated against a same-sex couple by refusing to sell them a wedding cake in 2013.However, the court found that the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries did not exhibit religious neutrality in issuing an $135,000 fine to Sweet Cakes by Melissa for illegal discrimination and sent the case back to the civil rights division to reassess its fine. . . . But the court found Wednesday that the Supreme Court’s rulings didn’t change its...

DENVER (AP) — A U.S. appeals court has ruled against a web designer who didn’t want to create wedding websites for same-sex couples and sued to challenge Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, another twist in a series of court rulings nationwide about whether businesses denying services to LGBTQ people amounts to bias or freedom of speech.

Colorado baker who won a partial victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by refusing to make a birthday cake for a transgender woman, a state judge has ruled. In Tuesday’s ruling, Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones said Autumn Scardina was denied a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside to celebrate her gender transition on her birthday because of her transgender status in violation of the law. While Jack Phillips said he could not make the...

There's nothing like a smarmy hypocrite getting exposed, and North Face, the virtue-signaling outdoor clothier, just got called out as an emperor with no clothes on, following its declaration of war on Big Oil. Here's the must-see smackdown video, done by a think tank and featuring a Big Oil employee, exposing the company in all its naked glory. North Face had declared war on Big Oil by sanctimoniously refusing to make custom jackets with their label on them for the employees of an oil firm that tried to give them some business. The oil and gas extractors wanted to give...

Many states have announced vaccine lotteries - and companies like Krispy Kreme have offered incentives for vaccinations. Dating apps have also begun allowing users to share their vaccination status, all in the name of encouraging people to get the shot. After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law forbidding the use of what some call “vaccine passports,” a Tampa Bay concert promoter decided to creatively motivate his community to get vaccinated by providing $18 discounted tickets in exchange for vaccinations, and charging $999.99 for those who have not gotten vaccinated. Promoter Paul Williams came up with the idea as vaccination...

Customers at one Northern California cafe were taken aback Monday morning after they got a glimpse of the new store policy that greeted them at the door. “$5 FEE ADDED TO ORDERS PLACED WHILE WEARING A FACE MASK,” read the poster on the glass window at Fiddlehead’s Cafe in Mendocino. A second sign with the same memo was located by the register. Just below the large print were two additional notes on the poster that warned guests if they were "caught bragging" about their vaccines “an additional $5 fee” would be added to their bill. The sign claims the fees...

JUST IN - Florida Gov. DeSantis has just signed a bill into law that would allow everyday Floridians to sue Big Tech Platforms for monetary damages. https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1396861517065330689

A unisex salon refused to give a manicure to a gender-fluid singer ‘because the beautician is Muslim and cannot touch a man’. Andrea Di Giovanni, 26, said Style Studio in Wimbledon, London, called them an hour before their manicure appointment on May 19. After hearing their voice and asking about their gender, they allegedly said ‘you’re a man’ and then cancelled Andrea’s appointment. The salon claims it refused Andrea before seeing them and without knowing they were gender-fluid – assuming they were a man from their voice