Is Jack Phillips really finally free from LGBT lawfare after 12 years?

For over a decade, Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, has been embroiled in a relentless legal battle that illuminates, with the power of a million suns, the irreconcilable clash between Christian sexual ethics and our American First Amendment religious freedoms and the aggressive efforts of the radical LGBT lobby to conquer, subjugate, and humiliate Christians in the West.

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Colorado Supreme Court has dismissed a suit that was just one part of an interminable lawfare harassment campaign waged against the cake maker. “Jack Phillips won another legal victory for religious liberty,” the publication noted. “But when will the progressive cultural police finally leave him alone?”

It’s been 12 years now since LGBT bullies first walked into Masterpiece Cakeshop and demanded that Jack Phillips bake them a cake celebrating their lifestyle or else be branded a bigot.

It’s been 12 years now that Jack Phillips has been politely but firmly telling these Rainbow Flag jihadists, “No.”

And it’s been 12 years that Jack has been made a slave to life-destroying lawfare that is nothing other than harassment, persecution, and anti-Christian discrimination.

Maybe, just maybe, Jack Phillips has now been set free from this bondage.

The editorial board at National Review put it well:

“Few living Americans have stood longer against government persecution for their freedoms than Colorado baker Jack Phillips. He has been repeatedly targeted under Colorado anti-discrimination law for adhering to his Christian faith. At long last, his third legal saga is over after the Colorado supreme court on Tuesday rejected the latest lawsuit against him on procedural grounds. After 12 years, Phillips is free of the courts. We can only hope he stays free — and that his fellow citizens will, too.

The end of the current round of persecution of Phillips is cause for celebration but not for unbridled joy. This is America. It is a scandal that any of the lawsuits against Phillips were brought, and it is a scandal that the courts have not rejected them squarely on the merits, in terms that made plain that this must not happen here again.”

They’re right; this is a scandal. And it’s been over a decade in the making.

Jack Phillips never sought this out. He didn’t want to be the face of the Christian resistance to the rainbow tyranny, and he didn’t want to be an activist.

All he wanted to do was operate his business according to his values and beliefs as a faithful Christian in America — a freedom and right that he most certainly has under the First Amendment.

None of these lawsuits should have ever advanced on the merits. But this is what we get — this is what Jack gets — in a nation that invented the “constitutional right” to homosexual “marriage” out of thin air.

This is what we get in a country that has biological amnesia, all of a sudden forgetting that men are men and women are women and that little boys cannot become little girls and vice versa.

This is what we get — what Jack gets — in a world where such perversions and evil are not banished from the public square but instead commemorated and celebrated with a cake.

But throughout this entire saga, Jack never broke. He never quit. He never surrendered. Kirsten Waggoner, the president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, who has represented Jack during this battle, had this to say after his latest legal victory:

“Jack Phillips has been in litigation for over 12 years. He’s lost employees and business. He’s even faced threats. All he wants is to live, speak, and work according to his Christian beliefs.

But radical activists and gov’t officials in Colorado won’t allow it. They’ve targeted Jack because he refuses to use his artistic talents to express messages that violate his religious convictions — like creating custom cake designs celebrating gender ideology and Satan.

It has been an honor for our team to represent Jack in court over the past decade. He’s one of the kindest and most gracious people you’ll meet, and we’ll stand with him for as long as it takes. Justice for Jack means justice for all.”

The saga began when Phillips politely declined to design a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple in 2012, citing his Christian beliefs. This refusal led to a lawsuit, with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission initially ruling against him. However, in a narrow victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, the decision was overturned not on free speech or religious freedom grounds but because the Commission displayed clear hostility towards Phillips based on his religion.

On the very day the Supreme Court agreed to hear his case in 2017, another attack came when Autumn Scardina, a transgender lawyer, requested a cake celebrating a gender transition. When Phillips declined, another lawsuit ensued. This case was not just about a cake; it was a calculated move to corner Phillips into either violating his beliefs or face legal action.

In what might hopefully be the closing chapter of this ordeal, the Colorado Supreme Court decided not to uphold the lawsuit against Phillips for the gender transition cake. The ADF argued compellingly that artists, or in this case, a baker, cannot be forced to express messages against their beliefs, echoing the sentiments of the recent Supreme Court ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis.

Those suing Phillips should be seen as nothing less than wicked bullies, using lawfare to enforce their worldview. They used “legal measures” in an attempt to enslave a freethinking, honest Christian to do their bidding.

They carefully picked their battles, targeting a small business owner whose faith was known, aiming not for coexistence but submission. Their actions reveal a troubling trend where legal systems are weaponized to harass individuals into abandoning their principles.

Jack Phillips’ 12-year legal odyssey highlights a profound narrative of Christian perseverance. His story is not just about defending a right not to bake a cake but about upholding the principle of living one’s faith in all aspects of life, as instructed in Colossians 3:23:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

Phillips stands as a testament to those who refuse to bend their knee to anyone but God. He echoes the resolve of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3, who faced the furnace rather than compromise their faith.

Lord willing, his battle is over. But the fight against LGBT bullies continues. We can give them no quarter. Christians need to understand this: There can be no “compromise” with a group that will spend 12 years destroying your life because you refuse to celebrate their sexual perversion.

We are already seeing this in Europe, where grandmothers and Lutheran bishops aren’t just civilly harassed but criminally charged for the simple act of sharing Bible verses on social media about biblical marriage and where Christian teachers are illegally fired by “Christian” schools for refusing to lie to a child by using their preferred pronouns.

Yes, Jack is a source of great inspiration, but his ordeal is a cautionary tale. If the legal framework for allowing Christians to live freely in America is not shored up, and if the LGBT lobby gets its way, it won’t be just Jack Phillips that they enslave for 12 years in legal battles like this — it will be all of us.

Originally published at the Standing for Freedom Center.