America’s favorite baker, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop, is back in front of the Colorado supreme court today for yet another round of state-sponsored persecution. The question before the court: Does the First Amendment apply in Colorado, or can the state continue to harass, target, and bully speakers who don’t ascend to the state’s view of cultural issues, in direct contradiction of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings?
That is not hyperbole. The Supreme Court already ruled once that Colorado unconstitutionally targeted Phillips for his religious beliefs. It also ruled a year ago that the application of Colorado law to compel speech violates the First Amendment. One might believe that Colorado didn’t get the message, but that’s false. It did — it simply chose to ignore it. A Colorado trial court already ruled that Phillips must bake a cake celebrating a “gender transition.” An appeals court agreed. Now, Colorado’s highest court — the same one that kicked Donald Trump off the state’s ballot before the Supreme Court unanimously reversed — will decide what comes next for Phillips.
Though the court heard oral arguments today, everyone with a modicum of intelligence knows what the constitutional answer is. Phillips knows that Colorado is acting illegally. The court knows that Colorado is acting illegally. The state itself knows that it is acting illegally. They all know that the Supreme Court will reverse a ruling against Phillips. They are all aware that basic constitutional principles and Supreme Court precedent are applicable. But as has become a new tradition in American life, the Left abuses, twists, and contorts the law to antagonize and punish religious conservatives.
Phillips case is also one of the best examples of why the left has absolutely no claim to the its often rhetorically exalted ideal of “tolerance.” Here, no one is fooled. We see plainly that the left seeks conformity of the type that offends any sensibility that can be rightfully called “liberal” or “American.” They seek openly to persecute dissenting citizens, not only for speaking wrongly, but merely for refraining to speak.
Phillips will win eventually once more, of course, but here the process is obviously the punishment — this legal battle is nearly a decade old. Conservatives can, and must, fight the battle in the courts. But only those leftists who style themselves “liberal,” in the traditional sense of the word, can stop these abuses from occurring in the first place. It is up to them to stand up to those in their coalition who seek to compel speech and thought. As long as that desire remains dominant in leftist circles, the Supreme Court can rule for Jack Phillips 100 times and it won’t matter — Colorado will go after him for attempt 101.