Posted on 12/11/2013 3:10:11 PM PST by NYer
DENVER, December 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Denver cake baker who was ordered by a judge last week to service same-sex “weddings” or face punishing fines has told Fox News that he would rather shut down his business and serve jail time than violate his beliefs and play a role in facilitating gay nuptials.
In an interview with Fox’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck, cake maker Jack Phillips said, “You know, [I’ll serve jail time if] that’s what it takes. It’s not like I have chosen this team or that team. This is who I am, it’s what I believe.”
“Does becoming a business owner mean you have to check your convictions at the door?” Hasselbeck asked. “Why is it important for you to have a business and not have to abandon personal religious beliefs just to make a buck?”
“I don't plan on giving up my religious beliefs ... I don't feel that I should participate in their wedding, and when I do a cake, I feel like I'm participating in the ceremony or the event or the celebration that the cake is for,” Phillips said. “My priorities would be towards my faith rather than towards my safety or security.”
Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, has been under fire since July 2012, when David Mullins and Charlie Craig filed a discrimination complaint after Phillips refused to sell them a wedding cake.
While Colorado’s constitution states, “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage in this state,” Mullins and Craig had nonetheless planned to “marry” in Massachusetts, where a court order made same-sex “marriage” legal in 2004. Afterward, they planned to hold a reception in Colorado. When they visited Phillips’ cake shop to ask him to provide a wedding cake for the event, he declined, explaining that his religious beliefs prevented him from participating in same-sex “weddings.” Phillips said he would be happy to sell them brownies or other treats to serve at the reception, just not a wedding cake.
The two men reacted with angry disbelief. “It was the most awkward, surreal, very brief encounter," Mullins told Denver Westword at the time. “We got up to leave, and to be totally honest, I said, ‘F--- you and your homophobic cake shop.’ And I may or may not have flipped him off.”
After the two men departed Phillips’s business, they filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission with the help of the ACLU, arguing that Phillips violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws, which were expanded in 2008 to include sexual preference and gender identity.
Phillips and his lawyers have argued that the religious nature of his objection to gay “marriage” warrants an exception to the anti-discrimination law, which also names religion among its protected classes.
But on December 7, Judge Robert Spencer ruled in the gay couple’s favor, equating Phillips’s deeply held religious beliefs against gay “marriage” with racial bias. To allow Phillips to refuse to serve gay “weddings,” the judge argued, “would allow a business that served all races to nonetheless refuse to serve an interracial couple because of the business owner's bias against interracial marriage.”
Wrote Spencer, “it may seem reasonable that a private business should be able to refuse service to anyone it chooses. This view, however, fails to take into account the cost to society and the hurt caused to persons who are denied service simply because of who they are.”
The judge also rejected Phillips’s argument that he was simply obeying the state constitution by refusing to recognize a same-sex relationship as “marriage.”
“Although [Phillips and his lawyers] are correct that Colorado does not recognize same-sex marriage,” wrote Spencer, “that fact does not excuse discrimination based upon sexual orientation.”
Phillips’s attorney, Nicolle Martin, told the Associated Press that Spencer’s decision was “reprehensible” and “antithetical to everything America stands for.”
“[Jack Phillips] can't violate his conscience in order to collect a paycheck,” Martin said. “If Jack can't make wedding cakes, he can't continue to support his family. And in order to make wedding cakes, Jack must violate his belief system.”
Martin says her client has not ruled out an appeal.
He has some beautiful cake designs; sadly we’re too far away to splurge on on of his creations. A donation will have to do. Thank you for the link.
Queers and other faggots better take note: Any friends you used to have, YOU NO LONGER have.
You picked on this guy DELIBERATELY. You cost him money, WHY?
Because you are hateful, bigoted, MEAN spirited intolerant heterophobes and raging Anti-Christian HATERS.
You faggots should remember, you are ONLY about 1% of the population. And when that population gets tired of you, like they are now because of your bad attitude, they will rat you out to the mudslimze.
HEEHEEHEE, go get one of THEM to bake you a cake there cupcakes!
The FIRST amendment has a piece in it regarding religion, “The Free Expression Thereof.....”
This imbecile who things he/she is a so called “judge,” needs to be canned and forced to sell pork to the local mudslime community.
“Where in the Constitution does it say you can force someone to labor for someone else against their will?”
They don't care. They demanded tolerance of their behavior right up until they achieved power. Now they will show anyone who doesn't tow their line no mercy and no tolerance.
Could I demand a pork sandwich from a Kosher deli, just because I want one? I think not. This seems much the same.
Who are these fruits? Where do they live? And out of all the cake bakers in Colorado, why did they search out and PICK on Jack Philips specifically?
The answer is simple, because like all faggots, they are emotionally and mentally disturbed. And like that queer so-called Marine lezzbo who FAKED the anti queer message on her receipt, they pulled this STUNT to make headlines and for self aggrandizement.
Pathetic narcissists.
Never giving a DAMN what they were doing to an innocent businessman.
Maybe heteros should target queer bakers and FORCE them bake cakes that celebrate JESUS! BOOYA, now that would go over like a FART IN CHURCH!
They should be sued into POVERTY.
I'll bet there are only a couple dozen queer bakers right around the corner from where they live, (and that's why I asked that question) who would have taken their business GAYLY.
I'll bet these two fruits AVOIDED mudslime bakers like the plague.
And then queers just DON'T understand why folks hate them so much!
I hope to God this man goes all the way - the more fines and the more jail time, the more asinine this leftist judge will appear
Who knows for sure? Sometimes, when the scum sucking dirt bags get a lot of bad press, they back off. I hope it happens here. I hate rats. Do you think that might be a better tagline?
He's a better man than me. If I were facing jail for refusing to bake a cake for a couple of depraved freaks, I'd make sure I tack a lot more criminal offenses to my rap sheet along the way.
“I don’t plan on giving up my religious beliefs ... I don’t feel that I should participate in their wedding, and when I do a cake, I feel like I’m participating in the ceremony or the event or the celebration that the cake is for,” Phillips said. “My priorities would be towards my faith rather than towards my safety or security.”
I’d bake them a cake alright.....and accidentally spill some saltpeter in it. Goodbye honeymoon!
If only our politicians were willing to lose their jobs, let alone go to jail, to stand up for the right principles. Instead they cave into the demands of the left for fear of not winning their next election. This citizen is a great man. Most of the Republicans are spineless cowards collaborating with the pure evil coming from the left.
I have a better idea.....let’s string the assclown of a judge up on
a lamppost for the edification of the rest of the judiciary.
I have a better idea.....let’s string the assclown of a judge up on
a lamppost for the edification of the rest of the judiciary.
With a side of cow pie.
What if the Westboro Baptist Church asked for a cake with their slogan “God Hates Fags?”
Would it be religious discrimination to refuse them...or discrimination against gays to make the cake?
The issue is that a business is not being allowed to differentiate between male and female customers.
If that logic holds, then it would be illegal to refuse letting a man use their women’s restroom.
It would be illegal to not hire a man to play Mary Poppins in a play.
It would be illegal to charge women discounts for a bar promotion.
It would be illegal to not hire a man as a Hooter’s waitress.
It would be illegal to not let a woman go topless anywhere that a man can go shirtless.
It would be illegal to not let women on men’s sports teams and vice versa. And that is perhaps the closest analogy to marriage. Marriage is a team between a man and a woman, like mixed doubles in tennis. This court precedent would have to also outlaw a tennis organization from having a mixed doubles team. They’d have to allow two men.
We are legally allowed to treat the genders differently in many situations. If suddenly we’re not allowed, society would be drawn into a high degree of chaos.
Of course the next case will be forcing churches to marry two men or two women, if this court decision stands. Because ending “discrimination” is more important than religious freedom.
Charge them extra in advance, if they serve it they are nuts
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Put up a sign GAY WEDDING CAKES $5000 AND UP.
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