Colorado baker Jack Phillips is being targeted for his faith yet again – this time for refusing to bake a cake to celebrate a gender transition.
The Denver cake artist first came under fire for refusing to bake a same-sex wedding cake. But then the US Supreme Court ruled this summer on his behalf, chastising the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's treatment of Phillips which it said "showed elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs motivating his objection."
The Colorado Civil Rights Division had previously ruled in favor of bakers' rights in three other cases where customers ordered cakes that demeaned gay people or gay marriages and the bakers declined to make the cakes. It ruled against Phillips for refusing to bake a gay wedding cake.
Now, Phillips is filing a federal lawsuit after the state civil rights division determined in June that Phillips' Masterpiece Cakeshop discriminated against a customer who wanted a cake to celebrate her coming out as transgender. The woman requested a birthday cake that was pink on the inside and blue on the outside.
"Autumn Scardina" told the state that "she" requested the cake to celebrate "her" gender transition. "She" said, "When I explained I am a transsexual and that I wanted my birthday cake to celebrate my transition by having a blue exterior and a pink interior they told me they will not make the cake based on their religious beliefs."
The division said that Phillips contended that he won't support a message that "promotes the idea that a person's sex is anything other than an immutable God-given biological reality."
It ordered Phillips and Scardina to schedule a "compulsory mediation" with the agency.
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