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.
So if the state of Colorado doesn’t recognize gay marriage, why should the baker be required to do so? That is a legitimate question, is it not?
Probably not judicially, but more likely through a denial of medical services.
1st Amendment: freedom of religion, freedom of association.
Would a judge require an Islamic caterer to provide ham at a Christian wedding?
Would a judge require an Islamic caterer to provide ham at a Christian wedding?
Where’s that “like” button when you need it?
Wondering what Jesus would have these Christian bakers and photographers do? Turn the other cheek? Give them your coat when they demand your shirt? Bake the cake all the while praying for these poor sinners??? Just put flowers on top but no 2 guys or 2 girls. Let the customers do that for themselves.
This reminds me of the Hare Krishnas on the U of Florida campus dishing out their free food to anyone who wanted it. There was an admonition from a discerning Christian pastor not to eat this food as surely these HK’s were praying their HK prayers over the food. Why subject yourself to such spiritual contamination of pagans? So, Gays & Lesbians, do you want your wedding cake to be corrupted by the prayers of the Christian bakers? Now the Christian photographers is a whole different story of having to attend the wedding and chronicle the event. I would go to jail over that before cooperating. Once again, there are plenty of photographers who wouldn’t object, so why pick on the Christians??? That’s a rhetorical ?
Fox shows are continually rife with victims of authoritarian, anti-gun and anti-religious overkill who get to tell their stories to a sympathetic ear.
However, how much do you want to bet that this baker will NEVER be invited on O'Reilly, Greta, Megan or Hannity? Or anywhere else!
Why not?
These shows are dependent on advertising....and the national gay community has a high disposable income average. These talk shows (including other networks, of course) are scared to death of the the real or perceived power of the organized homosexual activist movement....so while the show hosts may sympathize privately with victims like the baker, they will not go so far as to feature them as show guests for fear of inviting the boycotting and legal threats of the gay lobby.
Leni
I guess we’ll see.
Very good point, but I am sure we all know the answer to that question.
I wonder if it’s actually possible to buy the Scumbag Steve hat and send one each to the plaintiffs and the judge.
Not a chance.
Actually, I saw him interviewed on FNC. I don’t remember which show. It could have been The Kelly File.
That’s what Johnny tells us.
I believe Johnny.
Good point. It is like the liberals think everyone and their time and property belong to the government, so the government as the owner of the people and their property, can decide how government property is traded.
/johnny
“Now he’ll get more orders for gay wedding cakes than he could possibly handle. He could find some gay bakers and sub the work out to them and make a killing. The best revenge is success.”
And let it be known later that he donated all funds received from gay cakes to a christian organization.
Somewhere in the bible is reads: “The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just”.
Probably not prudent to piss on the cook, either.
/johnny
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