A baker has been fined $500 after refusing to make a blue and pink cake for a transgender woman.
Jack Phillips is a Colorado baker who first went viral in 2018 after refusing to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding due to his religious beliefs. While the baker won the case against him at the Supreme Court, he was now once again targeted by an LGBT activist.
According to the reports, transgender woman Autumn Scardina, who is a lawyer, sued Phillips after he refused to make a gender transition cake that was supposed to be used during her birthday party.
As Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled on Tuesday, the baker unlawfully discriminated against Scardina by denying her a product simply because of her gender transition.
“The anti-discrimination laws are intended to ensure that members of our society who have historically been treated unfairly, who have been deprived of even the every-day right to access businesses to buy products, are no longer treated as ‘others,’” the judge wrote.
Phillips, however, argues that he doesn’t believe that a person can change their gender and therefore can’t celebrate “somebody who thinks that they can.”
Alliance Defending Freedom, the group representing the baker, also insisted that Phillips is being targeted by LGBT activists because of his religious views and his prior refusal to serve an LGBT couple.
“In this case, an activist attorney demanded Jack create custom cakes in order to ‘test’ Jack and ‘correct the errors’ of his thinking, and the activist even threatened to sue Jack again if the case is dismissed for any reason,” Kristen Waggoner of ADF said.
In the statement, she added: “Radical activists and government officials are targeting artists like Jack because they won’t promote messages on marriage and sexuality that violate their core convictions.”
As the group revealed this week, Phillips was ordered to pay a $500 fine for allegedly violating the state’s anti-discrimination law. They are determined, however, to appeal and fight the ruling at all costs.
“We will appeal this decision and continue to defend the freedom of all Americans to peacefully live and work according to their deeply held beliefs without fear of punishment,” Waggoner added.
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