Free Republic

Victory for a Christian baker was announced on Friday after years of going around the court system for a lawsuit over a rejected wedding cake order. The order for the wedding cake depicted two lesbians; therefore, creating such a cake conflicted with the Cakeshop owner’s religious beliefs about marriage. “Judge rules Christian baker was allowed to refuse to sell cake to lesbian couple,” LGBTQ Nation reported, adding: “In his decision, Kern County Superior Court Judge Eric Bradshaw said that the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing had failed to prove that Tastries Bakery owner Cathy Miller had intentionally discriminated...

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...

Jack Phillips maintains he would 'serve everybody that comes in my shop,' but that he wouldn't 'create cakes for every message.' The baker at the center of a Supreme Court ruling that he cannot be forced to make a cake for a same-sex wedding told “Today” on Tuesday that he doesn’t “discriminate” against anybody and that he simply doesn't want to bake cakes “for every message” — saying that he would also refuse to create a dessert that insulted the LGBTQ community. Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cake in Denver, had argued that his cakes are works of art and...

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.

In early January, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) overturned a longstanding policy that forbade churches from getting federal disaster relief money. The rule change by the Trump Administration affected any houses of worship that were damaged on or after August 23, just before Hurricane Harvey devastated large areas of Texas and especially the Houston area. It was a welcome relief also to congregations in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina in the path of Hurricane Irma, and to church communities in Puerto Rico that endured Hurricane Maria. What might seem to be a neutral stance – that all damaged buildings...

“Religious persecution.” It’s a phrase that conjures up awful scenes of brutality and human rights violations in distant lands. Christians in many countries are routinely locked up, beaten or deprived of their livelihoods simply for attempting to practice their faith. Most of us can’t imagine what it’s like for the government to force us to engage in activities that violate our deeply held faiths or to recant what we believe. We don’t stop to think about it because such things never happen in America. Or do they? While Christians around our nation freely celebrated the Christmas season last week, a...

You need the First Amendment precisely when your ideas offend others or flout the majority’s orthodoxies. And then it protects more than your freedom to speak your mind; it guards your freedom not to speak the mind of another. Thus, in classic “compelled speech” rulings, the Supreme Court has protected the right not to be forced to say, do or create anything expressing a message one rejects. Most famously, in West Virginia v. Barnette (1943), it barred a state from denying Jehovah’s Witnesses the right to attend public schools if they refused to salute the flag. In Wooley v. Maynard...

Once again the story about the baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple is in the ages of our newspapers. We are being asked to look at it as though the baker, Masterpiece Cakeshop, was asking for “the right to discriminate” (LA Times) and that their refusal is akin to a sign saying “No blacks.” But their argument is not only flawed, it is disingenuous and moral cowardice. You see this is not about refusal of service, in fact, Masterpiece did offer the couple, David Mullins and Charlie Craig service, just not the service they asked...

In a surprise move, the Trump administration on Thursday sided with a Colorado bakery whose owner is arguing to the Supreme Court that he should not need to bake a cake for a same-sex couple when their ceremony violates his religious beliefs. Colorado's public accommodation law bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, and its courts have ruled that means businesses catering to the public cannot discriminate against same-sex couples seeking services for weddings or other commitment ceremonies. Masterpiece Cakeshop, however, is run by Jack Phillips, a man who incorporates his Christian faith into the way he runs his business. Baking...

A custom cake baker in suburban Denver can’t cite his religious convictions in declining to make a wedding cake for two men, a Colorado appeals court ruled today. “Cake artist” Jack Phillips said he gladly serves gays and lesbians in his family business. But, Phillips said, he could not in good conscience design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple when, as a Christian, he believes that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. A three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that not doing so amounts to illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation, the...

Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of famed preacher Billy Graham, decried a decision by Oregon officials to fine bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein $135,000 for refusing to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, calling it “unbelievable.” “Brad Avakian, Oregon’s Bureau of Labor & Industries Commissioner, upheld the ruling that the Kleins have to pay the lesbian couple $135,000 for a long list of alleged damages including: ‘acute loss of confidence,’ ‘high blood pressure,’ ‘impaired digestion,’ ‘loss of appetite,’ ‘migraine headaches,’ ‘pale and sick at home after work,’ ‘resumption of smoking habit,’ ‘weight gain,’ and ‘worry,’” Graham wrote. “Give me...

The lesbian couple turned away by a Gresham bakery that refused to make them a wedding cake for religious reasons should receive $135,000 in damages for their emotional suffering, a state hearings officer says. Rachel Bowman-Cryer should collect $75,000 and her wife, Laurel Bowman-Cryer, $60,000 from the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, an administrative law judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said in a proposed order released Friday, April 24.

April 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Joshua Feuerstein was just trying to make a point. Now, he may face legal action, as a bakery that refused to provide him with a cake opposing same-sex “marriage” threatens to sue him for taking their conversation public. The bakery owner is also threatening to press charges related to the recording of the phone call. In the wake of heated national debate over whether business owners should have the right to refuse to participate in same-sex “weddings” that violate their religious beliefs, Feuerstein, an internet evangelist, decided to see if pro-gay business owners would give...

A Christian florist and grandmother who declined to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding because of her Christian belief in traditional marriage has been fined $1,001 by a Washington court and will be held liable to pay the legal fees incurred by the gay couple, which could "devastate" her financially. As previously reported by The Christian Post, 70-year-old Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Washington, was found guilty of violating the state's non-discrimination law in February, after referring Rob Ingersoll and Curt Feed to another florist when they asked her to provide the floral arrangements for their...

Is anyone surprised by this? Steven Crowder went into a bunch of Muslim bakeries in Dearborn, Michigan, and tried to order a “gay” wedding cake. Many of the bakers politely declined and sent him to other bakeries, including one man who tried to send him up the street to Kroger. Oddly enough, we haven’t seen any mainstream media reporters ambushing unsuspecting Muslim bakers and demanding in McCarthyesque fashion, “Are you now, or have you ever been a homosexual hater?” Could it be because, as Crowder notes in the video, “You’re still killed in virtually every Muslim country for being gay.”...

As a pastor who regularly performs weddings, I can tell that some couples are more likely to divorce than others. It’s not most evident in pre-marital counseling or private comments made before the service. I can’t see it as the vows are said or rings exchanged. It’s not even in the kiss. As a pastor, I can predict the likelihood of divorce based on how the wedding cake is exchanged. I’ve been performing wedding ceremonies since I was 18. One of the first ceremonies I performed was pretty routine. Everything went without a hitch until it came time for the...

A gay couple is pursuing a discrimination complaint against a Colorado bakery, saying the business refused them a wedding cake to honor their Massachusetts ceremony, and alleging that the owners have a history of turning away same-sex couples. As more states move to legalize same-sex marriage and civil unions, the case highlights a growing tension between gay rights advocates and supporters of religious freedom. "Religious freedom is a fundamental right in America and it's something that we champion at the ACLU," said Mark Silverstein, the legal director of the group in Colorado, which filed the complaint on behalf of the...

After all the fuss about an Oregon baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, the state says there is "not an investigation into this issue." The dispute involves a Portland woman, her fiancee and fiancee's mother. In February, the mom and one of the brides-to-be went to Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham to order a wedding cake. Aaron Klein, who runs the bakery with his wife, says same-sex marriage goes against his Christian faith so he would not make a wedding cake for the couple. After that, the small bakery gained international attention with...

Business is booming for a Des Moines cake-maker who took a stand for her faith when she was approached by a lesbian couple for a wedding cake. Victoria Childress, owner of Victoria's Cake Cottage, tells OneNewsNow the couple arrived for a taste testing. "But at that point I just said, I have to tell you that I'm a Christian, and because of my Christian convictions I cannot do your cake," she says. Childress has stated she did not belittle the couple. In fact, she tells OneNewsNow that she provided the lesbians names of some bakeries that might be willing to...

Given her known preference when it comes to putting her dietary hypocrisy on display, this would make a lot of sense...