Colorado baker Jack Phillips went on trial Monday in another lawsuit centered around a birthday cake and a transgender woman, The Associated Press reports.
Details
Autumn Scardina tried to order a cake in 2017 on the same day the Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillip’s appeal in the wedding cake case.
- Scardina ordered “a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside in honor of her gender transition,” per The Associated Press.
During a hearing Monday, Scardina said Phillips said that as a Christian “he would sell any other type of product but opposed making the gay couple’s wedding cake because it involved a religious ceremony,” according to The Associated Press.
- Scardina said she called the Masterpiece Cakeshop to order a cake to see if he really meant what he said, The Associated Press reports.
- Scardina’s lawyer, Paul Greisen, said the call wasn’t a setup and “more of calling someone’s bluff,” she said, according to The Associated Press.
A lawyer representing Phillips, Sean Gates, said the refusal was about the rejecting message — not Scardina.
Context
Phillips won a partial victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 after he refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, according to The Associated Press.
In that case, Phillips refused to make a cake for the wedding reception of a same-sex couple’s wedding reception in 2012. The couple planned to get married in Massachusetts, according to the Deseret News.
- That couple — Charlie Craig and David Mullins — pursued discrimination charges against Phillips. The couple won before a civil rights commission and in the courts. But Phillips then appealed the decision. The Supreme Court agreed in 2017 to hear the case, which led to Phillips’ partial victory.
The Supreme Court agreed to consider his free speech and religious exercise claims, as the Deseret News reported.