The Colorado supreme court announced Tuesday its seven justices will hear the case of Christian baker Jack Phillips over his refusal to make gender transition cakes.
In the past decade, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver, Colo., has been the target of three LGBT-related lawsuits, one of which was prompted by his refusal to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in 2012. Phillips won that free-speech case before the U.S. Supreme Court six years later.
However, his dispute over the transgender-themed cake remains. Plaintiff Autumn Scardina tried to order a pink cake with blue frosting to honor Scardina’s gender transition on the same day in 2017 that the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’s appeal in the wedding-cake case. Scardina later sued the baker.
However, Phillips has a legal precedent for challenging Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis ruling, which disregarded the same law. In June, the high court decided that Lorie Smith, a Christian web designer also based in Colorado, could not be forced to create a wedding website for a same-sex couple that would violate her deeply-held religious beliefs.
Since both Smith’s and Phillips’s cases bear close resemblance, an Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney who represents Phillips said the 303 Creative decision could strengthen their argument for free speech rights protected under the First Amendment.
“Free speech is for everyone. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in 303 Creative, the government can’t force artists to express messages they don’t believe,” ADF senior counsel Jake Warner said in a statement Tuesday. “Because the attorney asked Jack to create a custom cake that would celebrate and symbolize a transition from male to female, the requested cake is speech under the First Amendment. The Colorado Supreme Court should apply 303 Creative to reverse the appeals court’s decision punishing Jack. You don’t need to agree with Jack’s views to agree that Americans shouldn’t be compelled to express what they don’t believe.”
In January, a Colorado court of appeals three-judge panel upheld a lower court decision requiring Phillips to bake the cake. ADF attorneys for Phillips said at the time they planned to appeal the ruling, an effort that came through this week.
“We are grateful that the Colorado Supreme Court will hear Jack Phillips’s case to hopefully uphold every Coloradan’s freedom to express what they believe,” said Warner, according to NBC News. “Jack has been targeted for years by opponents of free speech, and as the U.S. Supreme Court recently held in 303 Creative v. Elenis, no one should be forced to express messages they disagree with.”
The hearing before Colorado’s high court has no date yet, but the case’s prosecution and defense will have to submit their legal arguments before then.