Transgender lawsuit against Christian baker dropped
The Colorado Supreme Court has dismissed a case against a Christian baker who had been sued for refusing to make a cake for a transgender woman.
Jack Phillips was sued by attorney Autumn Scardina in 2017 after his Lakewood-based Masterpiece Cakeshop refused to make a pink cake with blue frosting to celebrate the would-be customer’s gender transition.
On Tuesday, Colorado justices said in a 6-3 ruling that Scardina had not exhausted options to seek redress through another court before filing a lawsuit with the Supreme Court. They did not, however, comment on Phillips’s free speech rights.
“We express no view on the merits of these claims,” Justice Melissa Hart said, representing the majority.
Meanwhile, the other three justices claimed that Phillips’ conduct had violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act and raised concerns that he would interpret the court’s ruling as a vindication of his actions.
Scardina’s attorney John McHugh also expressed disappointment with the decision and said he would evaluate if there are any other legal options left to pursue.
Phillips’ legal representative Jake Werner, however, welcomed the court’s verdict, stressing that “enough is enough” and that his client had been “dragged through courts for over a decade” and that “it’s time to leave him alone.”
Throughout the trial, Werner, who is with the Arizona-based Alliance for Defending Freedom law firm, has argued that the baker’s actions were protected free speech and that he did not refuse service to Scardina because of the trans-woman’s gender identity but because of the message the cake expressed.
Phillips has claimed that making a gender transition cake conflicted with his religious beliefs and that if Scardina had ordered another cake or baked goods that did not go against his values, then he would have obliged the request.
