Posted on 07/29/2014 8:14:09 AM PDT by xzins
LAKEWOOD, Colo. -- Imagine being ordered to go against your religious beliefs, and if you refuse, you could be arrested, fined, or sued.
That happened to the Christian owner of a Colorado bakery who now must make wedding cakes for gay couples.
However, the owner is standing his ground and his action is inspiring people around the world.
Discriminating Accusation
The sign on the door reads "Celebrating 20 Years of Great Cakes!" For two decades, Masterpiece Cakeshop has created art in the form of baked goods that keeps customers coming back.
From cookies and cupcakes to signature cakes, Jack Phillips and his daughter Lisa have transformed their bakery into a studio. Phillips said it's all inspired and motivated by his faith in Jesus Christ.
"It's the most important thing that I think about throughout the day. When I wake up, when I go to work, I want to know that what I'm doing is pleasing to Him, that I honor Him and His Word because that's the most important thing," Phillips said.
But Phillips' Christian faith landed him in trouble with the law. His crime: adhering to his biblical belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.
In 2012, a homosexual couple sued the baker after he declined to make a cake to celebrate their marriage. An administrative law judge ruled against him, and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission agreed.
The commission stated Phillips' refusal went against the state's public accommodation law. It requires businesses to serve customers regardless of their sexual orientation.
In a public statement, one member of the Civil Rights Commission said, "I can believe anything I want, but if I'm going to do business here, I'd ought to not discriminate against people."
"I didn't discriminate against anybody," Phillips countered. "Like Nicolle (his attorney) said, I've chosen not to make cakes for same-sex weddings. I told David and Charlie when they came in that I would sell them cookies and brownies and birthday cakes and shower cakes. I just don't do the same-sex wedding cake. So I did not discriminate against them, just that event I've chosen not to participate in."
His attorney Nicolle Martin said the Commission violated his First Amendment rights. She's taken the case to the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Conform to Comply
The Civil Rights Commission's order requires Phillips and his staff to make cakes for same-sex celebrations if asked.
He must also re-educate his staff about Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act. Under that law, artists must endorse all views.
The order also requires him to put in place new policies to comply with the Commission's order.
In addition, he will submit quarterly "compliance" reports to the government for two years.
According to Alliance Defending Freedom, the reports must include the number of customers declined a wedding cake or any other product. They must also include why it was declined "so to ensure he has fully eliminated his religious beliefs from his business."
"The government has chosen which message it favors in this case; I think the state has made it very clear," Martin said.
"Jack's First Amendment rights, Jack's freedom to express himself or more importantly, not express himself, must bow to the complainants' message," she said. "And all I can say is what that looks like to me is something very frightening, and that's nothing more than diversity through conformity, and that's not diversity at all," she added.
First Amendment Disappearing?
Phillips' case is one of a handful in which complainants sued private businesses for refusing to accommodate gay couples getting married.
It also helped lead to controversial proposals in several states allowing businesses to decline service based on the religious beliefs of owners.
"This case is not about and it has never been about the young men that came in here almost two years ago asking Jack to design and create their cake," Martin said. "This case has always been about the message that that cake expresses, what that cake communicates."
"It's surprising," Phillips said. "This is not what they taught us in civics class... they could do this to you. They do this in other countries, not here."
"So Jack stands on the First Amendment. In this case, we're going to learn whether the First Amendment has a future in America," Martin said.
In a country founded on freedom of religion and speech, that's a future important to all Americans
See my post #60.
Just sent a note of support. I’ll follow the talk with the walk if it comes to that. Is there a legal defense fund for Mr. Phillips?
What a bunch of BS. And the rest of us sit back and let this happen.
I think that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission is probably full of people with the same orientation and viewpoint. These people know that they can read the hearts of their victims and improve society by beating down all the nails!
So much for free speech, free expression, freedom of thought and the government not being allowed to prohibit religious practices.
I once owned a business and would do business with anyone. Some just had to pay triple price.
You take it up with the people who wrote the statutes by pressing the test.
Do it, make a stink about it, bring it to court if nothing else for unequal protection under the law. Make them work to justify it.
If forcing someone to provide a service they don’t want to provide and to force them into reeducation camps so to speak isn’t unconstitutional then nothing they do is.
Be done letting them make the rules that go against basic freedoms and just rolling over and saying those are the rules, constitutional or not, so we have to live by them. Submission to tyranny has been going on too long. Tyranny will grow and prosper as long as we say “it’s the law, nothing we can do” and walk away.
Where does the Civil Rights Commission get its authority to tell anybody what they can and can’t do? And where can we see the names of the people who made this ruling?
Somebody should sue PETA for not serving up hamburgers if they have any fundraisers/events that involve food.
Or sue Muslim business owners who won’t sell pork.
Etc.
I didn’t see anything in this article, other than the title, that mentioned re-education. But if I was in the area I would go with him to re-education and would speak my mind. They’d be begging me to leave by the time it was done. And if they wouldn’t let me be there I’d sue them for discrimination.
Yeah. Make them make a bunch of signs that say “Homosexuality is perversion”.
And how about California? Don’t they discriminate against gays who want therapy to cure homosexuality? If psychologists are going to offer any “therapy” shouldn’t they have to offer whatever therapy the customer wants?
I don;t think this is about Christians....it is about Government thuggary of “other” nationalities wanting to change the face of this country to their ideals.... and we’re going to see much more like it.
It can be no other way when you take a look at all the foreign nationalists working in our government....and this administration....alibama has made our government into something else entirely than American Governance...and brought those within it to make it happen.
Meh, I meant Image not Calf.
Thanks
I think it is. It is a Christian business, with Christian employees being told to violate their religious beliefs.
“Instead he could make a plain white stacked- layer cake. “
—
That would be racist. How do you think the
Chocolate City” crowd would feel?
.
I have an excellent recipe for X-lax cake to be used in such situations. Guaranteed to re-train ill mannered dead beat customers/moochers who are determined to make pigs out of themselves.
That would still be participating in a homosexual wedding albeit in a passive aggressive manner. Responding to a neurosis by being neurotic isn’t really a positive solution.
Well, at least this year!
They’d probably rule that sign making isn’t a public accommodation.
Administrative Law is unconstitutional. Leftists argue that it is simply an extension of the Legislatures delegation of powers in law writing. They also wholly accept the unconstitutional monstrosity that modern government is.
If that’s true then Congress can take these powers away. It should as they violate the basic right of a trial in a court of law, not an executive quasi court.
http://www.friesian.com/fiction.htm
Cato on the same subject: http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/administrative-law-unlawful
Look at the abrogation of rights and you’ll find Administrative, not Constitutional Law at its heart.
Here’s the typical law school belief about adminlaw:
http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/CompAdminLaw/Tom_Ginsburg_CompAdLaw_paper.pdf
The hardest place to find a Constitutionalist is a law school.
HERE ARE SIX CONUNDRUMS OF LIBERALISM:
1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized
2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.
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