Colorado baker fighting ruling over gender transition cake

[brooklynite]

Source: Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado baker who won a partial Supreme Court victory after refusing on religious grounds to make a gay couple’s wedding cake a decade ago is challenging a separate ruling he violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by refusing to make a cake celebrating a gender transition.

A lawyer for Jack Phillips on Wednesday urged Colorado’s appeals court — largely on procedural grounds — to overturn last year’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by a transgender woman.

The woman, Autumn Scardina, called Phillips’ suburban Denver cake shop in 2017 requesting a birthday cake that had blue frosting on the outside and was pink inside to celebrate her gender transition. At trial last year, Phillips, a Christian, testified he did not think someone could change genders and he would not celebrate “somebody who thinks that they can.”

Jake Warner, an attorney representing Phillips from the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, said the ruling was wrong. He said requiring Phillips to create a cake with a message contrary to his religious beliefs amounts to forcing him to say something he does not believe, violating his right to free speech.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/religion-lawsuits-colorado-discrimination-deaccfb6277ac8671726398f0e40b761

[OnlinePoker]

1. Why would you knowingly go to someone who has spewed hate in the past?

It seems to me the woman who wanted the cake was hoping for this outcome.

[Sympthsical]

2. She's an attorney and an activist

And very much ordered the cake precisely so it would go through the court system.

[BradAllison]

12. I'm glad she pays attention

Alito, Thomas and Conehead were probably looking for a case that ends up in the execution of a transgender person for appearing before them.

[NullTuples]

17. Third paragraph. It was in 2017.

In 2017 this was the US Supreme Court:
John G. Roberts, Jr.
Anthony M. Kennedy
Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen G. Breyer
Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
Sonia Sotomayor
Elena Kagan

Masterpiece Cakeshop wasn't even argued until December of that same year. In a 7–2 decision, the Court ruled on narrow grounds that the Commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips's rights to free exercise, and reversed the Commission's decision. The Court did not rule on the broader intersection of anti-discrimination laws, free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech, due to the complications of the Commission's lack of religious neutrality.

As I understand it, hers was to be the follow up case.

[Polybius]

20. Does she like to lose?

Because she will, and probably 7-2.

[flashman13]

3. No one is asking this stupid motherfucker to celebrate anything! Bake the fucking cake you

sanctimonious asshole.

[truthisfreedom]

4. It seems reasonable that anyone who engages in artistic work of any kind

could put up a sign in their premises warning that they retain the right to refuse service for any reason.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. It's not his cake! He's just baking it for someone else. When they pay for it, he doesn't own it.

Why is this so complex all the time?

[Slammer]

14. wedding vs transition

Well, the wedding cake thing is often more extensive of a service than the "bake a cake for someone to pick up for the gender transition" thing.

Things go wrong with those multi-tier wedding cakes so many (most?) people who do wedding cakes actually attend the ceremony and reception to fix whatever goes wrong with it.

Like for my brother's wedding, the top two tiers of the cake collapsed and fell off twenty feet away from us a few minutes before the groom and groomsmen were supposed to step out for the ceremony.

My brother knew the bride was already freaking out so he told us to keep quiet and act like nothing happened so as to not freak her or her bridesmaids out more. And he sent out to the audience for the wedding cake person who spent the whole ceremony fixing the cake to make it look like the top two tiers hadn't fallen off.

So I could see someone who's a complete full-service on-site wedding cake person being uncomfortable attending some sorts of ceremonies whether gay, looking down off of a dizzying cliffside, a full-on completely naked authentic Star Trek Betazoid wedding ceremony, and asking the couple (or more people than a couple) to find someone else to make the cake and show up for cake duties.

The courts don't agree with me, so whatever.

But not making a gender transition cake for someone to pick up, that's just the guy being a jerk since he's not being asked to show up at their event for hours. He's just being asked to make a pink cake with blue frosting.

Of course the client was being a jerk as well for hunting down this one baker who would have a problem baking the cake then deliberately telling him why he would have problems baking it.

But at least the client isn't a legally guilty jerk.

[bucolic_frolic]

16. There's a lot of things I don't like. I suck it up, go stoically onward, put on a poker face.

Uncomfortable? You just got paid hundreds of dollars to bake a cake. You attend to its presentation. You don't have to marry them, you're not the one getting hitched. In my view, your religious beliefs belong in church, not in your business. These people have difficulties with boundaries. They're always encroaching on others' territory.

[Polybius]

21. How far should it go?

Should a liberal baker be forced to make a GOP cake if a customer wants it? An NRA cake? I don't believe they should, and the last ruling was 7-2.

[NullTuples]

26. Public accommodations either protect everyone or they protect no one

It's a wonderful seeming sentiment, but the devil is in the details.

Most public accommodations laws already include protection exemptions for things like hate speech. And for the most part people cannot be discriminated against for intrinsic traits such as race. But then it gets messy. Sex/gender is not universally protected. Discrimination against other people based on one's religious opinions however, is usually protected because, America.

The underlying idea is - or at least should be - that intrinsic traits should be protected against discrimination, but differing opinions should not be enough to grant the right to discriminate. From the inception of the Civil Rights Act, we sorta turned part of that on its head.

[Warpy]

6. Oh, just make him change his business name to Phobe Patries

or Bigotland Bakery, so people know better than to ask him to produce anything that isn't white, Christian, cis-gendered, and straigjt.

A little truth in advertising will clear up all misunderstandings and his legal problems with it.

[Initech]

7. Is there only one cake maker in all of Colorado?

[JohnnyRingo]

10. hahaha That's the 1st thing I thought of.

Of course it's probably a matter of principle, but you'd think he made the best cakes in the state. Meanwhile, his stubborn bigotry is making his lawyers quite wealthy.

[Evolve Dammit]

8. Just get another baker that's not a total asshole....

[OtterDave]

11. Exactly

What if it was a different baker and someone wanted a cake shaped in a hate symbol? Or words that you don't agree with?

[keithbvadu2]

9. Would he bake a cake for a divorced person getting remarried while ex-spouse is still alive?

Would he bake a cake for a divorced person getting remarried while ex-spouse is still alive?

The sanctity of Holy matrimony for conservative Christians - Kim Davis

[NullTuples]

18. Does she express hatred for LGBTQ people? Then yes, yes he would...

Religious beliefs - even "sincerely held" religious beliefs - are opinions. They are how someone feels about something, sometimes based on what they were taught, sometimes on what they've worked out for themselves, and sometimes just to provide them with whatever emotional need they have. In the case of Republican Christians that means having power over someone else b/c their god told them they need to do so.

This is why granting religious opinions - beliefs, whatever - a status equal to or greater than intrinsic traits is so dangerous. It's also why granting someone the power to enforce their opinions on others is so dangerous.

[keithbvadu2]

19. 'the power to enforce their opinions on others'

[azureblue]

23. would he bake a cake

for a person who eats pork? Who has tattoos? Who wears glasses to church? These bigots are very selective about which Bible rules they want to obey. Could I say my religion forbids paying businesses that employ bacon eaters?

[bahboo]

13. Jesus, who gives a fuck... bake the fucking cake...

asshole...

[Conjuay]

29. right?

there is RED food coloring and there is BLUE food coloring. they want part of it light red and part of it blue.

This ain’t rocket surgery, for krisakes.

[Hekate]

15. Is he the only baker in the county? Really & truly, would you want someone that poisonous ....

… to make a cake for you?

Find someone else and get all your friends to boycott this bozo.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

22. If you want publicity, to make a political point, then this is the baker for you.

I'm sure the fracas is getting plenty of hits on social media.

If you just want a nice, quiet birthday party, just grab an off-the-shelf chocolate cake and some candles.



Now, about your idea of boycotting people named "Bozo" ...

[malthaussen]

25. Surprised he's still in business, actually.

That would indicate that there are enough people in the locale who don't care that he's an asshole, which is kind of sad.

-- Mal

[JI7]

27. He probably gets people from all across the country

that agree with his views.

[DoUListenWhenUHear]

28. Both sides just looking for a reason to have a lawsuit

If you own a bakery and do not want to make a cake for members of the LGBTQ+ community, all you need to do is say that you won't be able to make them a cake during that time period due to prior arrangements. That's it! No need to tell them that you believe they are evil. No need to be rude. Just say that you are booked up and leave it at that!

One of the earlier cases where a baker did not want to make a wedding cake involving a gay couple, the baker did not tell them she was NOT going to make their cake until they showed up the day of the wedding to pick it up for their ceremony...giving them only a few hours to scramble and find a cake. This also occurred with a wedding photographer with another couple. The problem with these stories was that it wasn't about religious convictions; it was about being cruel! The baker and the photographer agreed to take the jobs knowing full well that they had no real intention of doing them. And if they did have a change of heart at some point after agreeing to do the job, they should have immediately contacted the gay couples and notified them of their cancellation!

[ripcord]

30. I have concerns about forcing people to do things they are against

I always wonder if we would force professional artists to take commissions for projects they are opposed to. Should a feminist artist have to do work for an anti abortion group, should an artist who supports banning firearms be forced to work for the NRA?