Jack Phillips asks Colorado officials to stop intolerance of his faith, asked to make transgender and a satanic cake
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Masterpiece Cakeshop and its owner, Jack Phillips, filed a motion in federal court Tuesday to stop Colorado officials from violating his constitutional rights while Phillips’ lawsuit against them proceeds. Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that Colorado cannot treat Phillips differently than other cake artists who decline custom projects based on the messages they convey, the state has continued to apply a double standard and demonstrate hostility toward him and his beliefs.

“Lesbian” wedding mock-cake at the Roma Gay Pride in 2008. Picture by Stefano Bolognini via wikimedia commons.
“The same agency that the Supreme Court just said is hostile to Jack Phillips remains committed to treating him unequally and forcing him to express messages that violate his religious beliefs,” said ADF Senior Vice President of U.S. Legal Division Kristen Waggoner, who argued on behalf of Phillips before the Supreme Court in his first case. “Jack serves all customers, and he is happy to serve the attorney who lodged the complaint against him. But Jack doesn’t create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events that contradict his deeply held beliefs. Apparently, that isn’t enough for the commission. It insists on forcing Jack to celebrate ideas and events that violate his faith.”
“Even though the state is refusing to respond to public-records requests and fighting to keep us from obtaining basic information about the commission, we have already discovered that a current commissioner has publicly referred to Jack as the ‘cake hater,’” added ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell, who along with Waggoner is representing Phillips in his recently filed federal lawsuit, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Elenis. “Jack has no chance of obtaining justice before people who say such things. That’s why we’re asking the federal court to put an end to the state’s efforts to punish him.”
In light of the commission’s continued bias against Phillips and his religious beliefs, the ADF brief argues that the state is violating his due-process rights, and that he cannot be guaranteed a fair hearing by the commission. The brief also notes that the commission’s adjudicative process is flawed because the same commissioners act as both accusers and adjudicators in the same case, an arrangement that the Supreme Court condemned in a 2016 decision.
Over his years as a cake artist, Phillips has declined to create cakes with diverse messages that violate his faith, including messages that demean LGBT people, express racism, celebrate Halloween, promote marijuana use, and celebrate or support Satan.