As Jack Phillips faces his third discrimination lawsuit, a few salient points about the gay and transgender lobby and free speech and free exercise in America have become glaringly obvious.
Despite a narrowly defined Supreme Court ruling in his favor in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, he was hit him almost immediately with a lawsuit by Autumn Scardina, an attorney in Denver, contending that Phillips was illegally discriminating by refusing to bake a cake celebrating Scardina’s gender transition from male to female. That case was dropped, and now Scardina is trying again. The newest lawsuit sounds like a regurgitation of the second one, claiming, as CBS Denver reports, “Phillips discriminated against Scardina and used deceptive and unfair trade practices.”
What do Scardina and her attorneys want? “The second round was dismissed, frankly, without our input,” Paula Greisen told CBS4. “They disregarded Ms. Scardina and the merits of her claim.” Scardina somehow believes, despite the authority of the First Amendment’s free speech and free exercise clause, that her claims are special, unique, somehow deserving of a second look, despite the fact that the first lawsuit was dismissed.
A third lawsuit, with slightly different details, but again accusing Phillips of discrimination, is an exercise in harassment, and demonstrates just how little Scardina and her supporters care about equality. Gays and lesbians can marry, people can transition to another gender and be accepted by society, and either event can be celebrated publicly, but it’s not enough for them. They want to secure the right to force another person to operate against their wishes, particularly religious beliefs.
How do I know? Because Phillips is not the only baker in the Denver area. There are likely dozens, maybe even hundreds, of bakers in Colorado who would willingly craft cakes specifically celebrating transgender transitions. Some would probably even do it for free, but that’s not the point.
It’s not about the cake. Scardina wants the religious Right to bend to the wishes of the progressive Left, even in the most benign spaces, like bakeries. They want to make an example of Phillips. A second lawsuit, Scardina hopes, will accomplish this goal.
Gay couples don’t want to just get married, they want to force a minister who doesn’t agree with gay marriage to perform the ceremony. Lesbian couples don’t want to just adopt children, they want to adopt children from an agency that doesn’t believe in gay marriage because of their religious beliefs. The Left doesn’t just want teenage girls to have access to birth control from Planned Parenthood, they want nuns to provide birth control against their religious beliefs.
Since the Supreme Court in Masterpiece did not rule on the larger issue of whether businesses can invoke religious objections to refuse service to gays or lesbians, but did scold the Colorado Civil Right Commission for its significant government animus toward Phillips, Phillips is now subject to a harassing lawsuit, for a third time.
In a statement by Phillips’ attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, senior counsel Jim Campbell said, “A new lawsuit has been filed against Masterpiece Cakeshop that appears to largely rehash old claims. The State of Colorado abandoned similar ones just a few months ago. So this latest attack by Scardina looks like yet another desperate attempt to harass cake artist Jack Phillips. And it stumbles over the one detail that matters most: Jack serves everyone; he just cannot express all messages through his custom cakes.”
The Supreme Court punted the real issue in the Masterpiece case down the road, and now Phillips is subject to harassment because of it. As frustrating as that is, and as obvious as it is that the Supreme Court will have to ultimately rule on the larger issue at stake in cases like these, the real onus is on gay and transgender activists. They argued for years they simply wanted equal protection under the law, a legal net protecting them from religious bigots. Now that they have it, they’re proving their own anti-religious bigotry is out of control.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
