Baker Jack Phillips Wins at Colorado Supreme Court After 12 Years of Battling for Christian Beliefs

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of long-embattled Christian baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop on Tuesday.

The state's high court dismissed the case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina because the attorney who was targeting Phillips did not follow the correct process in suing him, according to his attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

"This win ends 12+ years of harassment, and the SCOTUS decision in 303 Creative protects Jack going forward," ADF stated online.

In this latest case against Phillips, he had declined to make a cake celebrating a gender transition. 

It started in 2017 when Autumn Scardina called Phillips' suburban Denver cake shop requesting a cake that had blue frosting on the outside and was pink inside to celebrate a gender transition. Jack said he couldn't bake the cake due to his religious convictions, so Scardina sued him. 

This case came after he had already been fighting another case in court to defend his First Amendment freedoms, to ensure that he does not have to express messages that violate his Christian beliefs.

"Enough is enough. Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It's time to leave him alone," said ADF Senior Counsel Jake Warner. "Free speech is for everyone. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in 303 Creative, the government cannot force artists to express messages they don't believe. In this case, an attorney demanded that Jack create a custom cake that would celebrate and symbolize a transition from male to female. Because that cake admittedly expresses a message, and because Jack cannot express that message for anyone, the government cannot punish Jack for declining to express it. The First Amendment protects that decision."

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That reference to 303 Creative was a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of Colorado graphic artist Lorie Smith who had declined to design wedding websites for same-sex couples because it violated her religious beliefs.

In 2023, the U.S. high court ruled in Smith's favor and the ADF filed a supplemental notice with the Colorado Supreme Court, asking it to apply that ruling and similarly affirm Phillips' free-speech rights in this case. 

The ADF claims activists and Colorado officials have misused the same state law that was at issue in 303 Creative to punish Phillips for more than a decade.

Since 2012, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop has been targeted nonstop and has continually found himself in court defending his religious beliefs. 

In 2018, Phillips won a partial victory at the U.S. Supreme Court after declining to make a cake celebrating a gay wedding because of his religious beliefs.

"No American should be bullied or banished from the marketplace simply for living and working consistently with their faith," said the ADF in a previous statement. "Opponents of religious freedom want to strip away our freedom to live and work consistently with our deeply held beliefs. And they're going to extreme lengths to punish those—like Jack—who are willing to stand for their faith."