The Colorado baker at the center of Monday’s Supreme Court decision dealing with his refusal to design and bake a wedding cake for a gay couple said Tuesday he doesn’t discriminate against anyone, and only wants the right not to make certain cakes that go against his belief system.
“I serve everybody, it’s just that I don’t create cakes for every occasion that people ask me to create,” Jack Phillips said on NBC Tuesday.
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“I was thrilled.” Colorado baker Jack Phillips tells @hodakotb and @savannahguthrie how he felt after hearing the Supreme Court’s ruling pic.twitter.com/OIOMDRsW22
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 5, 2018
Phillips explained that he allows anyone to come into his shop and buy anything, but said he refuses to design cakes for same-sex marriages, or cakes for Halloween, or cakes with messages that disparage any group of people, including LGBT people.
“I don’t discriminate against anybody. I serve everybody that comes into my shop. I don’t create cakes for every message that people ask me to create,” he said.
“I told these two men when they came in my store, I’ll sell you cookies, brownies, birthday cakes, I’ll make you custom cakes. I’ll make anything for you,” he said, although he said he wouldn’t make a wedding cake.
“This cake is a specific cake. A wedding is an inherently religious event, and the cake is definitely a specific message,” he said.
The Supreme Court issued a 7-2 ruling on Monday that didn’t address the larger legal question of whether bakers and other artists have the right not to create a product that goes against their religious beliefs. That larger fight will continue, mostly likely through lawsuits that continue to be filed by same-sex couples against bakers, florists and others that refuse to be involved in same-sex weddings.
But the court did rule narrowly in favor of Phillips, by saying the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was hostile toward Phillips’ religious beliefs when it considered the case locally.
