Remember Masterpiece Cakeshop? The Owner Is in Court Again.
The anti-LGBTQ owner of Colorado's Masterpiece Cakeshop is in court yet again, this time for allegedly discriminating against a transgender customer.
Conservative baker Jack Phillips, who infamously claimed in 2012 that baking a wedding cake for a same-sex couple violated his religious beliefs, is making headlines anew for refusing service to Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman who tried to order a trans flag-themed birthday cake celebrating her transition.
Scardina's allegations aren't new: NewNowNext actually reported on the incident in 2018 after Scardina, an activist and attorney, filed a discrimination complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC).
Following Scardina's initial complaint, Phillips filed a countersuit against the CCRC. He settled last March with the CCRC, but Scardina refused to let the incident go, filing a separate lawsuit in 2019 that claimed Phillips violated Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act and the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.
As a result, the case has now escalated to the U.S. District Court level, NBC News reported Thursday.
In a Thursday hearing, attorneys with the vehemently anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom—the ultra-conservative legal group that is representing Phillips—claimed the baker is being harassed by Scardina for his religious beliefs.
Meanwhile, Scardina and her lawyers maintain that they simply want to hold Phillips accountable to LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws.
Phillips won the first anti-LGBTQ discrimination lawsuit involving the aforementioned same-sex couple, a six-year legal battle NewNowNext covered at length in 2017 and 2018, when the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 ruling in his favor.