The Crusade to Destroy Jack Phillips Continues

I’ve been writing about Colorado cakemaker Jack Phillips’ fight against cultural authoritarians for a long time. This past March, I noted that Phillips would probably be badgered into the grave. And this week, Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones again found that the state could compel speech, claiming that Phillips had acted unlawfully when refusing to create a cake that celebrated the alleged gender transition of a Colorado activist.

When Phillips declined to participate in the wedding of David Mullins and Charlie Craig back in the summer of 2012—this was before Obergefell v. Hodges and before gay marriage was even legalized in Colorado—he made himself the target of harassment by activists and “civil rights” commissions that set out to destroy his business over a thought crime; by courts that set out to corrode religious liberty and free-speech protections; and by media that either don’t understand or don’t value free expression anymore.

Journalists have been misleading their audiences about this case for nearly a decade. So, it needs to be repeated that Phillips never turned a gay couple away from his shop. He never “refused” to sell a gay couple his products. Mullins and Craig were free to buy anything they desired from Masterpiece Cakeshop.

They weren’t free, however, to force Phillips to create something that conflicted with his long-held religious beliefs. One of the most basic ideals of liberty is that we don’t coerce individuals to say things—or refrain from saying things—in ways that violate their conscience.

What is certain is that the crusade to destroy Phillips—and many others like him—will continue until the Supreme Court upholds the clear language and intent of the First Amendment.

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