Free Republic

A judge has ruled that Colorado Christian baker Jack Phillips violated state anti-discrimination law by refusing to bake a pink-and-blue transgender birthday cake. Denver District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled Tuesday that Phillips violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to make the cake for Autumn Scardina. In his opinion, Jones concluded that Phillips engaged in unlawful discrimination by denying “goods and services" because of Scardina's "transgender status." The ruling states that Phillips' wife had initially agreed to make a pink cake with blue frosting for about six to eight people. But the cake was rejected after Scardina disclosed...

A Christian baker in Colorado who has been at the center of a yearslong debate after he declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding has revealed the intense harassment and “horrific” response he and his business faced amid the fallout. “The emails [and] the phone calls were sometimes horrific,” Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips recently told the “Edifi With Billy Hallowell” podcast of the events that followed his July 2012 cake refusal. “You’d just hear profanity.” Phillips, who shares his story in the new book, The Cost of My Faith, said he had to protect his staff and...

DENVER — He won his six-year legal battle over his refusal to create a gay wedding cake, but Christian baker Jack Phillips is now facing what could be a lengthy courtroom sequel on the issue of transgender birthday cakes. Any hope of a speedy resolution was dashed Tuesday when a federal judge indicated he plans to reject the effort to dismiss the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s latest complaint against Masterpiece Cakeshop involving a birthday cake for a gender transition. “I’m inclined to deny the motion to dismiss,” said senior U.S. District Court Judge Wiley Y. Daniel. He also advised Mr....

The Supreme Court’s ruling this Monday on my case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, helped determine that people of faith remain free to pursue our chosen vocations. . . . after decades of developing my craft, my home state took it away from me. My case started in 2012 when I was asked to design a wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage. I politely declined that request because of my religious beliefs about marriage. But I told the customers that I would sell them anything else in my shop, or create a cake for them for a different...

Tolerance, it appears, is not a one-way street. Since the rise of the gay-marriage movement, it has become fashionable to decry dissenters as haters and bigots, to attempt to write them out of polite society in the same way that the larger American body politic has rightfully rejected the Klan. Politicians thunder against Christian bigots. Media organizations put the words “religious liberty” in scare quotes, as if the expression of deeply held religious beliefs is a mere pretext, used to conceal darker motivations. And ideologues in state agencies give full vent to their rage, mocking faithful Christians as if they...

Although the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Colorado Christian baker Jack Phillips, the court did not definitively rule whether baking a cake for a same-sex wedding constitutes speech and still leaves questions about how other cases involving Christian business owners and same-sex weddings will play out, lawyers say. The nation's high court ruled 7-2 on Monday in favor of the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, who faced backlash from the Colorado government after he refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding in 2012. Although Phillips' six-year legal battle has seemingly come to an end,...

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled via a 7-2 vote in favor of “Gay biased” Christian baker Jack Phillips. The ruling states that Philips had the right to refuse service to a gay couple who asked him to bake them a wedding cake. The owner of the bakery was lynch-mobbed back in 2012 by LGBG/leftist activist for refusing to do business with the gay couple on religious grounds, and he even faced charges for discrimination. It’s funny that the mainstream fake news media called the 7-2 vote of the SCOTUS a narrow win. 7-2 is a...

A California judge refused this week to order a baker to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, ruling that to do otherwise would be to trample on the baker’s free speech rights. Superior Court Judge David R. Lampe said in his Monday ruling that wedding cakes run to the core of the First Amendment. “It is an artistic expression by the person making it that is to be used traditionally as a centerpiece in the celebration of a marriage. There could not be a greater form of expressive conduct,” the judge wrote.

Officials in Oregon have started a legal process to seize $135,000 from Christian bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein after they refused to pay the state-ordered damages for declining to bake a cake for a lesbian marriage ceremony. "Our agency has docketed the judgment and is exploring collection options," Charlie Burr, communications director at Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, told The Daily Signal. "They are entitled to a full and fair review of the case, but do not have the right to disregard a legally binding order." It's a preliminary step to seize the Kleins' house, property, or other assets...

Christian cake artist Jack Phillips, who recently was told by the Colorado Court of Appeals that he will not be allowed to refuse to make same-sex wedding cakes if he wants to keep running his business, has said that hundreds of gay people have told him they support his religious freedom rights to not make such cakes. Phillips revealed in an interview with The Daily Signal that while he has been targeted with death threats by some members of the gay community for his stance against baking same-sex marriage cakes, hundreds of others have backed his position. "The other day...

A crowdfunding website has been set up for Christian cake artist Jack Phillips, who last week was told by the Colorado Court of Appeals that he will not be allowed to refuse to make same-sex wedding cakes if he wants to keep running his business. The website also notes that Phillips has said he would not make Hitler, pornographic, Halloween, or other cakes with themes against his beliefs. "As stated in court briefs, for 20 years, Jack has declined to make Halloween cakes, pornographic cakes, profane cakes, etc. Nor would he make Hitler cakes, KKK cakes, or anything of that...

Pro-gay activists have launched a boycott of an Iowa baker who declined to create a wedding cake for a lesbian couple based on her religious beliefs. Victoria Childress, the owner of Victoria’s Cake Cottage in Des Moines, has been accused of being anti-gay, homophobic, and a bigot after she refused to make a cake for Trina Vodraska and Janelle Sievers. Childress told Fox News & Commentary that she made five cakes for the couple to taste – unaware that they were lesbians. “She introduced herself, and I said, ‘Is this your sister?’” Childress said. “She said, ‘No. This is my...