Though a Colorado government commission got a beat down from the U.S. Supreme Court, they came right back to hit their victim again. And again there’s a case in federal court.
The ruling Friday Jan. 4, of Senior U.S. District Judge Wiley Y. Daniel allows advance of cake shop owner Jack Phillips’ new complaint against a Colorado state civil rights commission on grounds of religious liberty violations.
Masterpiece Cakeshop and Phillips, according to Daniel’s ruling, made a sufficient case for the complaint of injurious denial of religious liberty and unequal treatment.
The case is to proceed to further steps in federal courts, possibly landing again at the Supreme Court level.
The details that emerged from the documents caused shock and dismay from Christian Action Network President Martin Mawyer, who said he could not believe the temerity of the liberal activist members of the Colorado board.
“I can’t remember anything like this,” Mawyer said. “They sure do want all of us to fall in line and obey any ruling they like. This just shows the absolutely depraved frame of mind that we are dealing with from the left these days.
A Scardina Law website screenshot demonstrates their expertise as “family law.” The sibling-run law firm is at the center of a second, and possibly better aimed, legal campaign against Phillips for his Christian principles. (Website screen shot)“When has there ever been,” he continued, “a government authority rebuked by the U.S. Supreme Court for an unconstitutional act that pivoted from it and directly struck the same guy with the same act again, right away?”
The Daniel ruling documents note as a matter of record that within weeks of the Supreme Court’s ruling for Phillips, the commission issued a new probable cause determination against him, accusing him again of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
“The Commission also claimed Phillips discriminated against the customer and filed a formal complaint against him,” Judge Daniel stated in his 53-page ruling.
“Tired of Colorado’s ‘continuing efforts to target Phillips’ and ‘unconstitutional bullying,’ Phillips filed this suit against Defendants.”
Daniel noted further as a matter of record that the focus of the commission’s probable cause claim is a so-called transgender female attorney named Autumn Scardina who called Masterpiece Cakeshop on June 26, 2017.
this was no coincidence, not at all
That was “the same day the United States Supreme Court granted Phillips’ writ of certiorari to review the Colorado Court of Appeals’ decision in Masterpiece I,” Judge Daniel observed.
“Scardina, an attorney, called Masterpiece to request a cake with a blue exterior and pink interior to celebrate [his] transition from male to female,” he added.
[Daniel referred to Scardina as if female, using pronouns for female case]
Mawyer said the case notes reveal collusive intent to wage more legal campaigns against Phillips, and it could cause any decent person to fume nearly to a rage just to see it.
“This was no coincidence, not at all,” Mawyer said. “An activist transgender attorney sees the possibility for one case to fail, and he manufactures another one, thinking – calculating it to be a better one.”
Relevant further on in Judge Daniel’s case ruling document is the fact that Scardina clearly and repeatedly announced the purpose for the cake.
The order of an otherwise unremarkable blue exterior frosting and pink interior was repeatedly explained as a way to celebrate a transgender decision the man made on his birthday.
The impact of this strategy and how it was sorted out will be reviewed in detail in a second installment for this developing story.
