The Cost of My Faith: How a Decision in My Cake Shop Took Me to the Supreme Court

This was the story of the cake maker (artist) who refused to bake a designed cake celebrating a gay wedding. He offered the couple any of the other cakes in the store, he offered to bake the cake and give them the icing so they could decorate it as they wished. His argument: it went against the tenets of his religion to celebrate what he considered a sin. He also had also refused to design a cake in red & black with a picture of the devil on it and also refused to bake a cake with a pink center and a blue outside to celebrate a gender conversion. This case went to the Supreme Court. The court ruled that as a private business, and as a committed Christian with many years in the church, he could not be forced to make a cake which would show more violate his religion. The court said he must be able to practice his religion freely. Nor can he be impelled to make a statement, vis a vis his cake design. I will say that this book, IMHO, spent too much time on Jack's view of religion (almost sermon-like) and not enough time on the legal specifics. Mr. Phillips continually maintains that the denial of a cake is not because of the man, but because of the message. He was sued 3 times and spent over 20 years in court. The third suit has not yet been adjudicated. It seems the State of Colorado, specifically The Civil Rights Commission, has really gone after Phillips, publicly calling him a Nazi. The hostility toward Jack’s faith was so obvious that the United States Supreme Court rebuked the commission. In a 7-2 decision, the high court condemned Colorado’s “clear and impermissible hostility toward Jack’s sincere religious beliefs.” The State of Colorado absolutely ignored this warning and are going after him a 3rd time. The local Stonewall Union has also vowed to see him out of business. (256 pages) show less

I wasn't interested in Jack Phillips's personal story, just in the history of the actual court cases. So the book wasn't right for me. Glad he keeps not making that cake, though. There continue to be more similar cases, see the recent "303 Creative vs. Elenis" which is not cake decorating but website design, but nothing useful in LibraryThing Recommendations about the legal issues taken broadly.