Colorado baker Jack Phillips refused to make a cake to celebrate a customer’s gender transition. DENVER — The Colorado baker who won a partial Supreme Court victory after refusing to make a gay couple’s wedding cake because of his Christian faith lost an appeal Thursday in his latest legal fight, which involved his rejection of a request for a birthday cake celebrating a gender transition. The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that the cake Autumn Scardina requested from Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop, which was to be pink with blue frosting, was not a form of speech. The court also found that the state law making it illegal to refuse services to people based on protected characteristics such as race, religion or sexual orientation does not violate business owners’ right to practice or express their religion. Relying on the findings of a Denver judge in a 2021 trial in the dispute, the appeals court said Phillips’ shop initially agreed to make the cake but then refused after Scardina explained that she was going to use it to celebrate her transition from male to female. “We conclude that creating a pink cake with blue frosting is not inherently expressive and […]
