State Supreme Court handed hot-potato discrimination case

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission has determined that a bakery can refuse to design a cake celebrating a customer's religious beliefs about sex and marriage if it is willing to create other cakes for the customer.

Unless the baker is a Christian.

That's how a complaint filed with the Colorado Supreme Court by Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips describes the problem.

Phillips, in a brief by the Alliance Defending Freedom, is asking the high court to overturn a lower-court decision that concluded he can be coerced by the government to support a message that violates his religious beliefs.

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State agencies, commissions and courts have found that Phillips discriminated illegally by refusing to use his artistic talents to create a wedding cake celebrating a same-sex ceremony.

See the Big List of Christian Coercion compiled by WND, where officials, business owners and others have been bludgeoned by the law, activists – even judges – for their faith.

The brief by ADF noted that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission recently found that three bakeries whose operators "declined to design a cake celebrating a customer's religious beliefs about sex and marriage" were allowed to do so.

The commission "acquitted these bakeries because they were willing, like Phillips, to create any other cake for the customer and declined because the order offended their beliefs."

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"Yet the commission ruled Phillips violated [the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act], thereby compelling him to violate his conscience while allowing the other bakeries to exercise their right to decline to do so."

The filing argues the ruling amounts to the government forcing speech on Phillips, which is unconstitutional.

"The freedom to live and work consistently with one's faith is at the heart of what it means to be an American," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. "Jack simply exercised the long-cherished American freedom to decline to use his artistic talents to promote a message with which he disagrees. We are asking the Colorado Supreme Court to ensure that government understands that its duty is to protect the people's freedom to follow their beliefs personally and professionally, not force them to violate those beliefs as the price of earning a living."

The case is just one of many recently against Christian business owners who have been taken to court for refusing to endorse same-sex marriage. It's happened to wedding venues, photographers and florists as well as bakers.

In July 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins asked Phillips for a wedding cake to celebrate their same-sex ceremony.

ADF said that in an exchange lasting about 30 seconds, Phillips "politely declined, explaining that he would gladly make them any other type of baked item they wanted but that he could not make a cake promoting a same-sex ceremony because of his faith."

Craig and Mullins filed a complaint, and the American Civil Liberties Union joined in even though the duo got a cake from another baker.

State officials found Phillips had discriminated then turned around and ruled that Azucar Baker, Gateaux and Le Bakery Sensual did not discriminate when they refused to bake cakes in the shape of Bibles with Bible verses on them.

The bakeries alleged they refused the business because of the message, not the customer. And state officials cleared them.

However, when Phillips explained he refused business because of the message, not the customer, the state found he had discriminated, the brief explains.

"Phillips … honors God through his creative work by declining to use his artistic talents to design and create cakes that violate his religious beliefs," the petition states. "This includes cakes with offensive written messages and cakes celebrating events or ideas that violate his beliefs, including cakes celebrating Halloween, anti-American or anti-family themes, atheism, racism, or indecency.

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"He also will not create cakes with hateful, vulgar, or profane messages, or sell any products containing alcohol. … Consistent with this longtime practice, Phillips also will not create cakes celebrating any marriage that is contrary to biblical teaching."

Lead counsel Nicolle Martin, who is allied with the ADF, said every artist "must be free to create work that expresses what he or she believes and not be forced to express contrary views."

"Forcing people to promote ideas against their will is not an American concept," Martin said. 'It undermines our constitutionally protected freedom of expression and our right to live free."

WND reported when the three Colorado appeals-court judges affirmed the decision to force the Christian baker, already labeled by a state official as a Nazi, to violate his faith and provide wedding cakes to same-sex couples.

The state's plan also includes indoctrinating bakery workers regarding the treatment of homosexual customers.

That state Court of Appeals opinion by Judge Dan Taubman was joined by Alan Loeb and Mike Berger.

The state's antagonism to Christians was apparent when Diann Rice, a member of the state civil rights commission, said: "I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust, whether it be – I mean, we – we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to – to use their religion to hurt others."

Hear a recording of Rice's statement:

But the courts ignored a complaint about the bias that was exhibited.

See the Big List of Christian Coercion compiled by WND, where officials, business owners and others have been bludgeoned by the law, activists – even judges – for their faith.

The state admitted the case "juxtaposes" the rights of the homosexuals to those of Phillips, but it concluded that Phillips' rights are secondary to the rights of homosexuals to buy a wedding cake wherever they choose.