DENVER (AP) — A Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple on religious grounds — a stance partially upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — has sued the state over its opposition to his refusal to bake a cake celebrating a gender transition, his attorneys said Wednesday.
Jack Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver, claimed that Colorado officials are on a “crusade to crush” him and force him into mediation over the gender transition cake because of his religious beliefs, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Phillips is seeking to overturn a Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruling that he discriminated against a transgender person by refusing to make a cake celebrating that person’s transition from male to female.
His lawsuit came after the Supreme Court ruled in June that Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission displayed anti-religious bias when it sanctioned Phillips for refusing to make a wedding cake in 2012 for Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins, a same-sex couple.
The justices voted 7-2 that the commission violated Phillips’ rights under the First Amendment. But the court did not rule on the larger issue of whether businesses can invoke religious objections to refuse service to gays and lesbians.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit law firm, represented Phillips in the case and filed the new lawsuit.
Phillips operates a small, family-run bakery located in a strip mall in the southwest Denver suburb of Lakewood.
