(The Lion) — Who ever thought desserts could become political weapons?

Certainly not Jack Phillips, the Colorado artist who refused in 2012 to create a custom cake with a same-sex marriage theme violating his Christian beliefs.

“We serve everybody, but we just can’t create every cake and express every message with our custom cakes,” he told Megyn Kelly in a recent interview.

What seemed like common sense escalated into a courtroom saga of three lawsuits challenging Phillips’ right “to express what he believes without fear of government punishment,” according to the Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

“Through it all, Jack endured the spotlight of the national media, lost a big part of his business, and had to let several employees go,” the law firm explains on its website. “He’s received angry phone calls, letters, and even death threats. Yet he never lost faith in God and continued to stand for the freedom of all Americans.”

Targeted for ‘living out his Christian faith’

Christians nationwide have benefited from the legal decisions handed down to Phillips over the past decade, said Kristen Waggoner, Phillips’ attorney and the firm’s CEO, president and general counsel.

“He was one of the first where government was trying to weaponize the law to silence, censor and punish people because they disagreed with the government’s view,” she said on Kelly’s show. “Because of Jack’s stand, it didn’t just lead to one decision that protected religious freedom. It led to the 303 Creative decision that protects his speech, as well as all of our speech.”

Regarding his first lawsuit, Phillips had offered to design a cake for another event or sell anything else in his shop to his customers. He only refused to create a cake with a message he didn’t believe in.

“We don’t want God to be part of our lives on just Sundays,” he said. “We want Him to be part of our lives every day.”

This stance caused Phillips’ home state of Colorado to begin targeting him “for living out his Christian faith,” according to ADF.

“It allowed other Colorado cake artists – but not Jack – to decline to create custom cakes that expressed messages that the artists considered objectionable. And it was even clearer when some members of the Commission made hostile statements about Jack. One called his religious-liberty defense ‘a despicable piece of rhetoric’ and compared him to perpetrators of the Holocaust.”

While Phillips was awaiting resolution on the first lawsuit, his shop received another controversial order from a local attorney named Autumn Scardina in June 2017.

“The attorney demanded a cake that would be blue on the outside and pink on the inside to symbolize and celebrate that attorney’s so-called ‘transition’ from male to female,” the law firm explained, adding the attorney later ordered another cake featuring a marijuana-smoking Satan.

When this demand was declined, Scardina filed a complaint using “the same Colorado agency that had prosecuted” Phillips beforehand.

In June 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Phillips’ favor, condemning the “clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection.”

However, less than a month after this decision, “the state agency made its first finding against Jack in this new case,” the law firm noted.

“This time, we didn’t sit back and watch the state sue Jack. We filed a lawsuit against the relevant state officials.”

Colorado dismissed this second case in March 2019, but a few months later, Scardina filed a third lawsuit against Phillips “for the same expressive blue and pink cake Masterpiece Cakeshop had declined to create before.”

‘Business in service to his ultimate Master’

While Phillips awaited the outcome of this third trial, ADF was fighting another lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Lorie Smith.

Smith, a graphic artist whose 303 Creative design studio was also based in Colorado, faced similar discrimination on religious grounds.

“When she wanted to expand her portfolio to create custom websites that celebrate marriage between a man and a woman, Colorado made clear she wasn’t welcome in that space,” the ADF website noted.

“Lorie decided to file a lawsuit because she knew that the same Colorado law used to target Jack was also threatening her. It would censor what she wanted to say and require her to create designs that violate her beliefs about marriage.”

The Supreme Court ruled in Smith’s favor in June 2023, causing ADF attorneys to request Colorado’s Supreme Court to apply this ruling to the third lawsuit against Phillips.

Ultimately the state decided to dismiss the case in October, but not in a way that upheld religious freedoms.

“Essentially what the Colorado Court did – which is about as far left of a court as you can find – is they tried to not follow the 303 Creative decision because it protects Jack, and kick the case on procedural grounds,” Waggoner said.

Regardless of the reasons for dismissing the case, Phillips expressed his gratitude for being able to return to work.

“After 12 years plus, it’s over, and I can go back to my baking and the things that I love this business for,” he told Kelly.

His attorneys at ADF agree.

“The very name of Jack’s shop – Masterpiece Cakeshop – not only reflects that Jack designs artistic cakes but is also a constant reminder that he operates his business in service to his ultimate Master – Jesus Christ.”