For more than 10 years, a Colorado law has been misused to punish me for something I didn’t do. For more than 30 years, my family and I have quietly operated Masterpiece Cakeshop, baking treats and specializing in custom-designed cakes to celebrate special occasions. I welcome everyone into my shop, treat them with respect, and if they ask for a particular kind of custom cake, do my best to create something beautiful and memorable.
Like most of us, I too have sincere beliefs that guide and inspire my life, so I can only create custom cakes that will express or symbolize a message consistent with my beliefs.
My creativity is inseparable from my convictions, and both run deep in my soul.But this desire to create art that is consistent with who I am is what has brought me into conflict with state officials who have tried to force me to say something I don’t believe. The Colorado government, and then an activist attorney, have misused state law for over a decade now, trying to harass and punish me until I express messages against my beliefs — or go out of business. This relentless prosecution violates both my religious freedom and my free speech.
I had to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court with the help of my attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom in 2017, where a 7-2 majority determined that state officials had shown impermissible hostility toward me and my religious beliefs. That went a long way toward shoring up my religious freedom, and I’m grateful. But sadly, the court’s ruling didn’t address how state law was misused to violate my free speech — as it continues to be today.
The newest lawsuit seeks to force me to create a custom cake celebrating a gender transition, and now I’m before the Colorado Supreme Court in that case — with the support of a remarkable 22 states — after the Court of Appeals ruled that the law can be used to force me to express things I don’t believe.
I am asking the Colorado Supreme Court, which agreed on Oct. 3 to take my appeal, to respect my freedom in the same way that the U.S. Supreme Court respected Lorie’s. I serve everyone. I don’t press my views or demand that everyone agree with me. I run my business, grateful for the opportunity to create one-of-a-kind masterpieces that celebrate important events. I always decide whether to create a custom cake based on the message the cake will express, never on the person asking. When someone requests a design communicating or symbolizing a message inconsistent with who I am, I politely decline because of the message I cannot express. Justice Neil Gorsuch described it well at oral argument in Lorie’s case: “It’s about the what, not the who.”
But for what I thought was a decision that artists across the country were able to freely make every day, my family has received over 10 years of hateful e-mails, phone calls, letters, and even death threats. I’ve lost years to litigation, many of my employees, and all of my wedding business.
I’ve even been branded a pariah. Officials and activists are trying to make me an example — “Stand up for your beliefs, and this is what happens” — all because some government officials and free-speech opponents don’t like what I believe.You might think, “That’s too bad,” believing you’re immune to all this — that your beliefs will never be disfavored by those currently in power.
But cultural winds shift quickly. What is considered popular one day may be deemed unpopular or even offensive the next. That’s why all of us should stand together — regardless of whether we agree or disagree on important issues.I hope the Colorado Supreme Court will uphold in my case what the U.S. Supreme Court held in Lorie’s — that government officials shouldn’t determine what is orthodox.
Whether you’re an LGBT artist, a Republican artist, or an atheist artist — every photographer, filmmaker, speechwriter, cake artist, and calligrapher should never know what it’s like to face government-compelled speech.
Jack Phillips is the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood.