Colorado Cake Maker Believes His Cakes Are "Speech" - Why He Merits Another Lawsuit to Dispel His Delusions

 Who can forget Colorado cake maker Jack Phillips?  This is the character who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop  in Lakewood, Colorado and believes his artistic cakes are really "speech".    Thus, he has refused to bake any cakes that he believes will feature speech that goes against his Christian beliefs.

In his latest court case which began Monday, we learn ('The Christian Baker Who Said 'No'', WSJ, March 23, p. A13)   Phillips is being countersued by one transgender person - Autumn Scardina - who wanted Phillips to bake a simple custom cake that was pink on the inside and blue on the outside.  This was to "reflect her gender transition".  Phillips refused, filing a federal lawsuit against the state civil rights commission - which then dropped the case- after which Ms.Scardina then filed her own suit.

According to WSJ's William McGurn, poor Mr. Phillips is "being harassed into submission" by the lawsuit given "he has already lost 40 percent of his business because he's stopped making his custom cakes".  Well, that was HIS choice.  Besides, it's because prospective customers seem to always want special designs with which he doesn't agree, based on "speech" that offends his beliefs.   But those designs are only speech in his own mind, not objectively so.

Let's back up and apply some rational perspective.  Is a blue and pink cake really speech?  Is it conveying a "message"?  If I see a blue and pink cake just sitting on a table my answer is certainly 'No' it's just a blue and pink cake. Cakes like Phillips makes are artistic confections, but not speech - any more than money is speech.   

What if the customer who wants the cake says the colors will represent a certain thing- like a gender transition? That is a subjective meaning she is imposing on the confection- but it is not what any wording says on the cake. In other words, there is no speech involved, given no words to that effect appear on the cake..  Phillips therefore is creating a phantom, an objection in his own mind and is liable for non-compliance so long as he works in the public commercial sphere. 

The principle at work here shouldn't take a Mensa IQ to process or parse.  At issue then, is whether the cake maker has entered into a commercial business or not. If not, if they simply follow their art or self-expression - with NO public sales or commerce- then they are not obliged to do anyone's bidding. They are not in the commercial marketplace but operating in their own private (e.g. hobby) domain.

If, however, they are businesses and operating in the public, commercial sphere, then no such rights apply. That's why this ought to be a no brainer for anyone considering  going into the custom cake business- Christian, Muslim or atheist.  Consider the consequences if Phillips' arguments were extended willy-nilly so that anyone could apply them. Pharmacies could refuse serving people they regarded as "violating God's  laws"   - say denying birth control pills to young, single women.

Owners of football teams could decide that they want no Jews, blacks, or gays entering their stadiums and they might put that into place. Private Catholic hospitals -operating as businesses - might decide that they want no Muslims, atheists, Wiccans or gays on their premises either. Restaurants would feel free to bar anyone they think is marginal, including those who look like 'thugs' - or  whoever doesn't fit flitty criteria like hair length, or quality of dress.

In other words, you'd invite a society bordering on chaos.  Thus, rulings in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop would open the door for widespread discrimination — starting with weddings and spiraling outward- as I described above. In the words of one of the lawyers for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce back in 2017 when two gays brought a case against Phillips for non-complianece.:

"It is not hard to imagine the claims that will follow this case: A jeweler may argue that his religion forbids him from selling wedding rings to an interfaith couple; a shop owner may refuse service to women customers to avoid contact prohibited by his religion,” 

The whole problem then is that in a putatively business sphere- cake making- which ought to be secular only,  religious beliefs have been interjected. This is what clutters the legal landscape and raises specious concerns that Phillips'  "Christian speech" is being "violated", which is nonsense. Cakes are not speech, and they bear no objective messages, hence however they are made they can't violate a person's religious beliefs.

McGurn in his column complains about Ms. Scardina telling the court in her filing she "just wanted  a birthday cake"  but this was having been changed from earlier saying it "was to celebrate her transition from male to female".  But again, there is no fault here, no foul.  Whether she said she just wanted a birthday cake, or said the meaning was of her transition, the difference is between tweedledee and tweedledum.  Since the cake bears no words of any gender transition it doesn't matter what she says it means, objectively it's just a cake- with no speech attached. For the preservation of general sanity we do not read "speech"  into inanimate entities which themselves bear no words, no messages. 

Subjective impositions of meaning do not count as speech if not actually articulated or manifested in a created artifact.  So basically any offense is in Phillips' head. So yeah, he needs to face a lawsuit to comply - or else let cake making just be his hobby. 

Meanwhile McGurn is perversely elated that "there are some encouraging recent precedents from the Supreme Court.", i.e. which would work in Phillips' favor.   Well, for rational citizens that isn't encouraging because we are faced with a court that will then allow religious (or rather, anti-religious)  speech to be imposed onto Phillips' prospective customers' cakes where none exists.  

But why be surprised when the same court ruled money is speech.  All of which shows the court really needs to be expanded and balanced to remove the conservatives' 6-3  advantage.  

Update:   6/22:

On June 14, Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones said Autumn Scardina was denied a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside to celebrate her gender transition on her birthday because of her transgender status in violation of the law. While Jack Phillips said he could not make the cake because of its message, Jones said the case was about a refusal to sell a product, not compelled speech.