{"id":1676316,"date":"2022-10-06T14:33:02","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T18:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1676316"},"modified":"2022-10-06T14:34:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T18:34:18","slug":"the-never-ending-persecution-of-jack-phillips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-never-ending-persecution-of-jack-phillips\/","title":{"rendered":"The Never-Ending Persecution Of Jack Phillips"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-never-ending-persecution-of-jack-phillips%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1676316&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>By the time I <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2016\/09\/06\/how-a-cakemaker-became-an-enemy-of-the-state\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">visited<\/a> Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2016, Jack Phillips, the man who had famously refused to bake a specialty cake celebrating the wedding of a gay couple, had been the victim of a four-year campaign of harassment by the authoritarians at the Colorado Civil Rights Commission intent on punishing him for a thought crime. <\/p>\n<p>Now Phillips is <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/religion-lawsuits-colorado-discrimination-deaccfb6277ac8671726398f0e40b761?taid=633e33cd45ffe30001a18092&amp;utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&amp;utm_medium=AP&amp;utm_source=Twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">back in the news<\/a>, as his lawyers attempt to get new charges against him dismissed on appeal from a Colorado judge\u2019s decision last year.<\/p>\n<p>For the past decade, the media and lawyers and judges and leftists have misrepresented Phillips\u2019 position. No, the baker never turned a gay couple away from his shop. Or a transgender person. Or anyone else.  No, he never refused to sell anyone a wedding cake (ceremonial, in the case that made him famous, as the request predated both <em>Obergefell<\/em> and Colorado\u2019s recognition of gay marriage). Philips refuses to create any <em>specialty item<\/em> from scratch that features any message that conflicts with his long-held religious beliefs. He will refuse to create such cakes for any customer, gay or straight or black or white.<\/p>\n<p>After years of fiscal hardship, Phillips finally won a 2018 Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/17pdf\/16-111_j4el.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">decision<\/a>, in which the Court ruled that the Colorado commissioners had displayed \u201ca clear and impermissible hostility toward [Phillips\u2019] sincere religious beliefs\u201d in their efforts to punish him\u2014by which the justices meant members had compared Phillip\u2019s faith to that of Nazis and segregationists. While it was a personal victory, it did almost nothing to preserve religious liberty or free expression rights.<\/p>\n<p>Really, <em>Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission <\/em>wasn\u2019t much of a personal victory, either. All the commission now had to do was avoid openly attacking faith. A person can still walk into a business in Colorado and demand the proprietor create a message that conflicts with their sincerely held convictions \u2014 as long as that message comports with the contemporary left\u2019s evolving virtues.<\/p>\n<p>We know this is true because it happened again. In June 2017, on the day the Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips\u2019s case, a transgender activist named Autumn Scardina called Masterpiece and requested a custom cake with a blue exterior and a pink interior symbolizing gender transition. Scardina, who was almost certainly the same person who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/the-persecution-of-jack-phillips\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">called<\/a> Masterpiece later to order \u201ca three-tiered white cake\u201d with a \u201clarge figure of Satan, licking a 9\u2033 black Dildo\u201d and another cake with \u201can image of Satan smoking marijuana,\u201d knew the baker would turn the offer down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was stunned,\u201d Scardina <a href=\"http:\/\/files.eqcf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/110293527_Appendix-Vol3.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lied<\/a> to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, later admitting that the activism was about wanting to \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/adfmedia.org\/case\/scardina-v-masterpiece-cakeshop\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">correct the errors<\/a>\u201d in Phillips\u2019s thinking. A thought crime. The commission \u2014 this time, doing its unconstitutional work without any superfluous commentary \u2014 agreed that Scardina had been discriminated against as a transgendered person. Judge A. Bruce Jones of the Second Judicial District upheld the commission\u2019s decision. Now, Phillips has to go through the entire ordeal again. And we have to listen to people distort the case and the law. <\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/us-supreme-court-jack-phillips-lawsuits-colorado-denver-a589873d7c2be64d07e1dc0433b13f64\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claims<\/a> that these types of cases \u201cpit the rights of LGBTQ people against merchants\u2019 religious objections.\u201d Again, this is factually incorrect, since Phillips wouldn\u2019t create a transition cake requested by a non-transgendered person or a straight pornographic cake or a cake pronouncing Xenu the one true God, either.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/michaelshermer\/status\/1577862623705542656\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">argues<\/a> that the best way to signal \u201cyour opinion that this baker is on the wrong side of moral history\u201d is to not solicit his services. \u201cBoycott his business. Contract with other bakers. If his income stream diminishes he\u2019ll either go out of business or rethink his policies,\u201d he tweeted. Does anyone who\u2019s spent more than a minute reading about this case believe that Scardina, or any of the other people harassing Phillips, are happening on Masterpiece Cakeshop looking for transition cakes? When I wrote about Phillips in 2016, I counted a dozen other bakeries within a five-square-mile radius of Masterpiece. Is the right side of \u201cmoral history\u201d compelling people to say things when there are 12 other establishments that will cater to your needs? <\/p>\n<p>There is no legal \u201cright\u201d to compel others to say things they don\u2019t believe. Until the Supreme Court explicitly reaffirms the foundational protections of religious liberty and free speech, there will be no end to the state compulsion or harassment. There is some hope in the case of Denver-area web designer Lorie Smith, who refuses to create websites for same-sex couple marriages, which the Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com\/article\/news\/local\/lgbtq\/web-designer-lgbtq-supreme-court\/73-48b0ac35-6822-491c-8169-47c1dfb86839\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">has taken up<\/a> this term. Let\u2019s hope the justices do their jobs this time.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the time I visited Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2016, Jack Phillips, the man who had famously refused to bake a specialty cake celebrating the wedding of a gay couple, had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":1894569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1676316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1676316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1894569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1676316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1676316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1676316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}