Colorado's second case against Masterpiece Cakeshop and Jack Phillips crumbles
By Kristen Waggoner
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/colo...llips-crumbles
Shortly after Jack Phillips' victory at the Supreme Court, the state of Colorado embarked on a second campaign to crush the Colorado cake artist and his small family business,
Masterpiece Cakeshop. By seeking yet again to punish Jack for living out his faith, Colorado left little doubt that it harbored
hostility toward religious people like Jack.
Throughout its second legal battle,
evidence emerged that removed all doubt of that continued hostility. And on March 5, Colorado quit its second, ill-advised crusade against Jack.
Colorado commissioners have every incentive to minimize their defeat or to describe it as a legal truce, but it
isn't. Colorado has relentlessly pursued Jack for
over six-and-a-half years, stripping him of 40 percent of his business and the wedding work he loves. But, now, the state's harassment has come to an end.
As Jack's attorneys, we're delighted that he gets to go back to focusing on his cake art. And as advocates for religious liberty,
we're hopeful that Colorado's failed crusades serve as warnings to other government officials hostile toward religious freedom.
The first time Colorado officials came after Jack, they ordered him to create cakes celebrating a view of marriage that conflicts with his faith. That six-year ordeal was laced with government actions disparaging Jack's religious beliefs. It also included unequal treatment: Colorado punished Jack for declining to create cakes with messages that he cannot in good conscience express, while allowing other cake artists—those whose views the state likes—to do the very same thing....
....But shortly after Jack's win, Colorado officials
came after him again, seeking to force him to create a custom pink-and-blue cake celebrating a gender transition. The request for that cake came from a Colorado
lawyer, and it came
on the very same day that the Supreme Court announced it would hear Jack's case during a phone call where
the lawyer told the shop's representative that another person was listening via speaker phone. It wasn't what you would consider an ordinary request. Our legal team eventually proved that
this same attorney called Jack at least one other time and
requested a cake celebrating Satan's birthday with an image of Satan smoking marijuana....
...Through it all, Jack remains the same. He
continues to be the mild-mannered cake artist who serves everyone but declines to create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events in violation of his faith. That includes cakes celebrating Halloween, glorifying divorce, or denigrating our country.
And he
continues to befriend the homeless folks who wander into his shop, sharing a brownie and cup of coffee with them. This, after all, is the same man who offered free cookies to people who came out to protest him....
...That's right—
after the Supreme Court's ruling, two of the current commissioners
said publicly that they agree with a former commissioner's comments declaring that
religious freedom is a "despicable piece of rhetoric." Once our legal team secured
audio recordings of those statements (and added those to the Twitter post of another commissioner calling Jack a "hater"),
Colorado's legal attack fell apart.
With that, the government's most recent crusade against Jack ends,
not with a bang, but a whimper. We're hopeful that this signals an end to state-sponsored hostility toward religion in Colorado and a new era of tolerance and respect toward people of faith.