Free Republic

All Steve and Bridget Tennes want is to sell their apples, peaches and blueberries at a Michigan farmers’ market without being required to get into the gay-wedding business, and they’re hoping for an assist from Colorado baker Jack Phillips. The Tenneses, who make their home on the Country Mill Farm with their six children, contend that their Catholic faith has been maligned by East Lansing officials who have sought to bar them from the farmers’ market over the couple’s refusal to host same-sex ceremonies on their property. That’s where Mr. Phillips comes in. It was the state’s animus toward the...

(RNS) — Last week, to little notice, the Masterpiece Cakeshop case ended with a whimper. Nine months after the Supreme Court found that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had acted prejudicially in upholding the complaint of a gay couple who were refused a wedding cake by baker Jack Phillips, the two sides agreed to stop fighting. Specifically, the commission withdrew its proceedings against Phillips for discrimination and Phillips withdrew his case against the commission for harassment. Which is to say that Phillips can keep refusing to customize cakes that, as he put it, “celebrate events or express messages that conflict...

Consistent with Jack’s past practices, his shop declined the requested gender-transition cake because it would have communicated that the status of being male or female can be chosen and changed based on perceptions and feelings—a message that conflicts with his religious beliefs. For that decision, the state prosecuted Jack a second time, announcing that he must create that cake or be punished. In forging ahead with that new complaint, Colorado officials confirmed that they applied their laws in an arbitrary way, which the Supreme Court has already said that they cannot do. Worse yet, Colorado commissioners—functioning as Jack’s judge and...

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission on Tuesday dropped its latest case against Christian cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, handing him a second victory against state officials over his refusal to create cakes for certain LGBT events. Mr. Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, agreed in exchange to drop his lawsuit against the state, which he filed last year after the commission took action against him for declining to make a blue-and-pink cake to celebrate a transgender transition. Kristen Waggoner, who represents Mr. Phillips as Alliance Defending Freedom senior vice president, called the outcome “great news for everyone.” “We’re pleased...

Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop (Screenshot) (CNSNews.com) – A federal district court ruled Friday that Colorado cannot block an attempt by Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips to sue the state over its “hostility” towards him and his Christian beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represents Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop, in the lawsuit. As CNSNews.com previously reported , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in June 2018, saying the commission “violated the Free Exercise Clause” by requiring Phillips to go against his religious beliefs about gay marriage...

DENVER (AP) — A Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple on religious grounds — a stance partially upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — has sued the state over its opposition to his refusal to bake a cake celebrating a gender transition, his attorneys said Wednesday. Jack Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver, claimed that Colorado officials are on a “crusade to crush” him and force him into mediation over the gender transition cake because of his religious beliefs, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday. Phillips is seeking to...

DENVER - Attorneys for a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple on religious grounds - a stand partially upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court - argued in federal court Tuesday that the state is punishing him again over his refusal to bake a cake celebrating a gender transition. Lawyers for Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver, are suing to try to stop the state from taking action against him over the new discrimination allegation. They say the state is treating Phillips with hostility because of his Christian faith and pressing...

As an assertiveness trainer, I made up an axiom: "If you can't say no, your yes means nothing." Our belief that we aren't allowed to say no can be a form of self-imposed slavery. We have even bigger problems when our government typifies that belief. Once again, the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) is targeting Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop. The original drama lasted more than six years and concerned Phillips' refusal to create a custom wedding cake for a gay couple. The finale came in June 2018 with a 7-2 Supreme Court decision in Phillips' favor. The...

A far-left activist group was throwing a party to celebrate the fact that Phillips has found himself in legal trouble yet again, despite winning a Supreme Court case earlier this year, and phoned the Masterpiece Cakeshop to order a cake with the words “DOWN WITH MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP!” written in frosting on top. When Phillips turned down the request, CEU units arrived on the scene, kicked down the unlocked front door of his shop, and forced him to bake the cake at gunpoint.

Colorado is trying to compel the same baker who just won a Supreme Court case into baking a second cake that violates his religious beliefs. Masterpiece Cakeshop’s Jack Phillips, who won a Supreme Court case in June, is once again being harangued by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for refusing to bake a cake with a pro-LGBTQ message. Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit late Tuesday night against the commission on his behalf, over the state’s second attempt to compel him to bake a cake with a message that violates his religious beliefs. Two months ago, the Supreme Court...

The Masterpiece Cakeshop decision was not even close in terms of votes (7-2, with Sotomayor and Ginsburg naturally voting in favor of oppression), nor was it a “narrow” ruling on the merits. Instead, it was a ringing endorsement of the idea that sniveling leftist bureaucrats can’t target religious folk for hassles just because the dissenters refuse to bend a knee to the secular idols du jour.This was not about gay marriage – conservatives are no longer monolithic on the issue (I got grief on some site for congratulating Townhall’s Guy Benson on his recent engagement). This was about the right to dissent,...

Would-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) slammed Monday’s 7-2 Supreme Court ruling in the Masterpiece Bakeshop case, attacking “discriminatory practices behind the guise of religious liberty.” The Court found in favor of a Colorado baker who was sued when he declined to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage because of his Christian beliefs. The baker asserted his religious liberty under the First Amendment. The decision avoided ruling on the broader question of whether religious liberty trumps non-discrimination on the basis of sexuality, and held only that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had not given the baker...

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 U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. While the decision ends an almost six-year legal battle, a new journey begins. This nation stands at the proverbial fork in the road. One path will lead us closer to a society controlled by hostility — one in which those who hold the dominant view in society will use government as a weapon to punish individuals who fail to adopt the prevailing orthodoxy. The other path will move us toward a truly tolerant society — one with room for individuals who believe,...

Progressives in the media have no respect for the traditions and structure of the branches of the government. As soon as one issues a decision based on anything but liberal ideology, the world is over. After the Supreme Court released their decision in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop LTD. vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in favor of the baker, Jack Phillips, the media went on a rampage. Liberal book publisher Haymarket Books tweeted out on its verified account almost immediately after the ruling was released, “Abolish the Supreme Court.”

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...

"Whatever the confluence of speech and free exercise principles might be in some cases, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's consideration of this case was inconsistent with the State's obligation of religious neutrality. The reason and motive for the baker's refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions." link to decision https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

New Year’s resolutions: get outdoors more often, read more books, and stop hanging out with people who only bring up the Holocaust as a way to illustrate unrelated arguments and never to talk about the systematic murder of six million Jews. This week the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune published an editorial, “Wedding Cakes And Conscience,” contending that a baker in Colorado being forced to design a wedding cake for a gay couple would constitute a violation of his freedom of expression. To illustrate the point, the Tribune encouraged readers to understand Colorado baker Jack Phillips’ predicament, saying, “imagine...

At Tuesday’s oral argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission—which will decide whether baker Jack Phillips can be forced by the state to design and create a cake celebrating a same sex wedding—it became apparent quite early on that the Court was grappling not merely with Jack’s case, but with a number of potential conflicts between religious freedom and same-sex marriage on its hands.Recognizing that the issues Jack faces in this case are sure to arise again, the justices struggled with where to draw the line for a constitutional rule which will protect First Amendment rights in light...

This week, the Supreme Court hears Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Jack Phillips, proprietor of Masterpiece Cakeshop, refused to create a wedding cake ordered for a same-sex marriage on grounds that it would force him to create a cake expressing a value opposed to his Christian convictions. The gay men who ordered the cake filed a sexual orientation discrimination claim against him with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and the Commission ruled against Phillips. It was clear that this was not a matter of Phillips refusing to do business with these men because they are gay. He offered...