Baker Jack Phillips’ business ruined by trolls after refusing to bake same-sex wedding cake

Among other outlandish requests, she was asked to create cakes celebrating divorce, promoting marijuana use, and insulting gays and transgender people.

Some orders were for cakes in “sexually explicit” shapes.

In 2015, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled that Mr. Phillips had violated a state law that prohibits business establishments from engaging in discriminatory practices.

Wedding cakes made up the bulk of Masterpiece Cakeshop’s work. But asked to conform to his customers’ requests rather than his religious beliefs, Mr Phillips felt obliged to stop baking wedding cakes.

“We were a very successful wedding cake business in Denver, well known throughout the city. And they took it away from us,” he said.

“We are still in business. But things are happening very differently from 12 years ago. »

Satan Smoking Marijuana

Wedding cakes were elaborate creations and required several people to put together.

Having been driven out of the wedding cake business, Mr Phillips had to cut his workforce in half.

On the same day that the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear Mr. Phillips’ case, a lawyer named Autumn Scardina asked him to create a blue and pink cake. Scardina had recently gone through a gender transition and requested that the cake celebrate the occasion.

Scardina then allegedly asked for another cake showing Satan smoking marijuana.

Mr. Phillips, who considers himself a “low-key pastry artist,” refused both times — prompting Scardina to file a complaint with the Colorado Division of Civil Rights, before launching a separate lawsuit against him in state court.

Earlier this month, it was decided that the case would no longer move forward for procedural reasons.

Initially, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission found that refusal of the order amounted to unlawful discrimination under state law and imposed a $500 fine.

Mr. Phillips appealed that decision, and in October 2023, the state Supreme Court said it would review the case.

The baker also sued the Civil Rights Commission, as well as the state Civil Rights Division, in federal court, alleging religious discrimination. The claim was settled in 2019.

On Tuesday, a court ruled against Scardina, whose complaint was dropped for procedural reasons.

Scardina has been contacted for comment by The Telegraph.

‘I’m going to blow your head off’

As the multiple court cases unfolded over the years, there was only one moment when Mr. Phillips was truly afraid.

One day in 2012, he happily greeted someone he thought was the next customer on the phone.

“Can I help you?” he remembers saying. The voice on the other end of the line told him it was about to kill him.

“I’m on my way to your store. I have a gun. I’m going to blow your head off,” the individual said. They called again and again, telling Mr. Phillips how close they were to his baking business, located in a quiet suburb of Denver.

“I’ll be there in 10 minutes. I’m on this road and I’m on this road.

The individual never showed up and was never found.

At another point, someone called to say he was coming with a machete. The threats were so violent that Mr. Phillips’ daughter and grandson were afraid to come to work.

The positive side for Mr. Phillips was that his legal costs were covered by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a lobby group that handles cases protecting the right to free speech. The baker readily admits that he can’t even afford to invite a lawyer to lunch.

“Jack has been dragged through the courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone,” said Jake Warner, senior attorney for the ADF. “Enough is enough.”

Today, after 12 years of struggle and with Scardina’s case finally dropped, Mr. Phillips’ legal difficulties appear to be over.

“It’s the lawyers who do all the work,” he said. “I just ran a bakery – that’s enough work in itself.”