Jack Phillips Appears before Colorado Supreme Court for Transgender-Cake Lawsuit: ‘This Case Is about Free Speech for Everyone’

Attorneys for Christian baker Jack Phillips, whose First Amendment rights have been challenged in LGBT civil-rights cases over the past decade, argued their client should not be forced to make a cake that violates his deeply held religious beliefs in their Tuesday appearance before the Colorado supreme court.

Since 2012, Phillips has constantly been caught in the middle of legal battles for refusing to create custom cakes that express messages he disagrees with — the latest case revolving around a transgender-themed cake.

In June 2017, a man claiming to be a woman, Autumn Scardina, asked Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop for a gender-transition cake: blue on the outside and pink on the inside. The request was made on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’ first case involving a same-sex wedding cake. The cakeshop owner ultimately prevailed in that case a year later, but he would soon face a separate legal complaint for similar reasons.

Scardina, an attorney, also asked for a custom-designed cake depicting Satan smoking marijuana at a later date. After both of his requests were denied, Scardina pursued legal action.

The transgender woman first filed a civil lawsuit, which Colorado officials abandoned after Phillips sued the state government for continuing to target him. But Scardina sued the baker again over the gender-transition cake request — this time in state court. This marks the third lawsuit against Phillips and his business.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) counsel presented oral arguments on behalf of Phillips in front of the state high court’s seven justices, asserting that Phillips decided not to bake the cake because of the message it expressed — not because of the person making the request.

Scardina alleges Phillips discriminated against him as a transgender woman. Phillips maintains that if Scardina asked for a different cake or other baked good that didn’t conflict with his religious convictions, he would have made it.

The Colorado supreme court took up the case last October after a state trial court and appeals court agreed that Phillips should bake a cake celebrating a gender transition.

“We conclude that creating a pink cake with blue frosting is not inherently expressive and any message or symbolism it provides to an observer would not be attributed to the baker,” the three-judge appeals court wrote in the unanimous ruling last year.

ADF lawyers representing Phillips urged the high court’s justices to apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis to reverse the lower appeals court’s decision. In that case, Colorado graphic designer Lorie Smith, also a Christian, fought for her free-speech rights after refusing to create websites for same-sex weddings in a similar predicament to the Masterpiece Cakeshop owner’s situation. She ultimately won.

In a 6–3 majority decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Colorado cannot misuse its public-accommodation law forcing people to express messages they don’t agree with or believe in.

Scardina’s lawyers are invoking the same state law, which prohibits viewpoint discrimination in places of public accommodation, in Phillips’ latest case.

In addition to addressing constitutional questions, ADF attorneys made a procedural argument that Scardina did not exhaust all administrative remedies before suing Phillips.

ADF senior counsel Jake Warner is confident in his team’s case and hopeful that Phillips will get the justice he deserves after spending the last 12 years in court.

“This case is about free speech for everyone,” Warner told National Review prior to Tuesday’s oral arguments. “It’s not just about protecting artists like Jack Phillips. It’s about protecting the LGBT web designer who doesn’t want to create custom websites criticizing same-sex marriage. It’s about protecting all kinds of artists who want to express views consistent with what they believe.”

“So even if you disagree with Jack on the definition of marriage, or whether someone can transition from male to female, we should all agree that the government shouldn’t force anyone to express a message they don’t believe,” Warner added. “A win for Jack is really a win for everyone, regardless of your viewpoint on this issue.”