LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo., on Tuesday filed another federal lawsuit claiming religious discrimination.
Phillips was the plantiff in the Supreme Court ruling this year that said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had shown anti-religious bias in their ruling over Phillips refusing to make a wedding cake for a same sex couple.
However, the Washington Post reported, the complaint wasn’t over a wedding cake. It was birthday cake for Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman who wanted to celebrate her birthday and anniversary of coming out as transgender. The bakery refused to make the cake on religious grounds.
“Phillips declined to create the cake with the blue-and-pink design because it would have celebrated messages contrary to his religious belief that sex — the status of being male or female — is given by God, is biologically determined, is not determined by perceptions or feelings, and cannot be chosen or changed,” the complaint stated.
In June of this year, the Post reported, the commission ruled there was probable cause that Phillips had discriminated against Scardina over gender identity. It was also only two weeks after the Supreme Court had ruled on the wedding cake lawsuit.
According to NBC OUT, the commission did cite the Supreme Court ruling in its decision. “As asserted by the Supreme Court, ‘It is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons, just as it can protect other classes of individuals, in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions are offered to other members of the public,’” the news site reported.
The Post reported that Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian group that had represented Phillips, accused the commission of “doubling down on their anti-religious hostility” against the baker. In fact, the group said the fact the order came in on top of the Supreme Court decision meant that Masterpiece Cakeshop had been targeted.
The commission told the Post it couldn’t comment on litigation.
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