Taken from the Washington Post web news - 26 Apr. 2018
Jack Phillips is the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo.
Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.
Many people have asked me how I’m feeling as I await the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in my case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. My answer changes moment by moment because my feelings are a whirlwind. More than anything, though, I wonder if there will be a place in the community for me when the dust settles. Will this big, diverse country of ours still have room for me and the millions of others who share my beliefs about marriage?
To answer Mr. Phillips' question – I sincerely hope not. I hope America will end and never tolerate again the beliefs of Mr. Phillips or those who share his beliefs. American society has fought, long difficult, and divisive struggle against those who feel that they have a religious right to discriminate. While the end is not yet in sight, acceptance and tolerance of those who would discriminate is a dead-end alley and not the way forward.
At times, my concerns are quite specific. I consider whether I’ll ever again get to do the wedding art that I loved. Will I get to see that gleam in a bride’s eye when my cake design captures her vision for the big day?
A: Mr. Phillips desire to see a gleam, regardless of creative skills, will never outweigh the bigotry that is the root most religious beliefs. Cloaking oneself in artistic creativity inspired by god, fails on one very important point – there is no god, which leaves the fountain for such inspiration coming from the worse part of mankind – the desire to divide the world into US vs. THEM.
Will my shop survive the 40 percent loss of business that we suffered when the government forced us to decide to stop designing wedding cakes? Or will everything that my wife and I worked for be gone?
A: If the past is predictive, prejudice dies hard in America, therefore, there is every reason to believe that the bigotry of Mr. Phillips will survive for quite some time and his shop will remain viable. Fortunately, the bigoted path to financial suggest is a tougher road than it used to be, for which I am grateful.
I also wonder whether the people who have taken an interest in my case truly understand who I am and how I operate. It’s really quite simple: I serve everyone, but I can’t create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events in conflict with my faith. That is why I told the gentlemen who are suing me that, even though I couldn’t design a custom cake to celebrate their same-sex marriage, I’d be happy to sell them anything else in my shop or create a cake for them for another occasion.
A: I suspect some people who follow Mr. Phillips case understand him for exactly what he is; while many others accept the "I have gay friends" apologetics offered above. The position is little different than the racist who claims to have a black friend or a black employee. Rational people see through such lies with ease and the folksy bigoty offered above provides no cover.
Everyone is welcome in my shop — be it homeless folks (many of whom I’ve befriended over coffee, cookies and conversation), the two men who are suing me, or anyone else who finds their way in. The God that I serve, whose arms are open to all, expects that of me, and it is my joy to obey Him. But creating a cake that celebrates a view of marriage in conflict with my faith is not something that I can do.
A: 'Welcome' is as much a state of mind of the receiver as the one who offers it. Clearly, there are people who Mr. Phillips made feel decidedly unwelcome, and this feeling was part of the original case. Mr. Phillips' belief system lowered them to a status so low and reprehensible that even making a cake for them became an insurmountable moral issue. The god that Mr. Phillips and many others obey, clearly, according to the above statements, is just as bigoted as those who would follow it. This is the nature of every god. Gods are racists when worshiped by racist, they are misogynists when worshiped by misogynists, and they are bigots when worshiped by bigots. God has always been one-size-fits-all, with a moral relativism that none can match.
It is troubling to imagine what the future looks like for me and the millions of others — whether Muslims, Orthodox Jews or fellow Christians — who believe as part of their faith that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. After years of my state telling me that I must hide, ignore or reject that belief, my sense is that we just don’t belong anymore.
A: The future for Mr. Phillips and his millions (or perhaps billions) of fellow bigots, misogynists, and racists, is not as bleak as one might think or as suggested above. There is power in numbers and currently those who prefer to draw upon the worst instincts of our species for their daily guidance should continue to have a pretty good run in America and around the globe.
The government’s hostility toward my beliefs has spread through pockets of my community. My life and the lives of my family have been threatened repeatedly. Last year, one man swore that he’d shoot me in the head, and another threatened to kill me with a machete — all for declining to create a wedding cake. The threats and harassment have been so bad at times that my wife has been too afraid to set foot in our shop.
A: As deplorable as Mr. Phillips' thinking might be, the above threats are unacceptable and reveals that vigilance against our base instincts must never fade because the darkest elements of humans sleep just below the surface and are easily reawakened.
If the Supreme Court rules against me, I fear it will only get worse. The law, I’ve come to learn, not only dictates what you may do, but it also teaches what you ought to do. If the highest court in the land banishes my beliefs from the marketplace, that will embolden others to continue treating me with scorn and contempt.
A: If the court rules against Mr. Phillips I will be both surprised and pleased. I certainly hope it will embolden others to fight against the reign of every version of the despotic gods that have and continue to cripple the progress of our species towards a better world with less discrimination.
That sort of ruling will also exclude people who share my beliefs from certain artistic work and creative professions. I shudder to think what I’d say if my granddaughter one day tells me that she wants to design wedding cakes like I did. I guess I’ll tell her that she must choose between the faith we taught her and the wedding-cake artistry I showed her.
A: That those who praise and worship the worst aspects of our species will be deprived of their artistic license to do so, is of little concern to me. I hope the granddaughter mentioned above does want to design wedding cakes when she grows up – I hope even more that she grows up in a society free of bigots, racists, and misogynists.
But if the court upholds my freedom to serve all people while declining to design cakes that celebrate certain events, that would welcome me back into the community from which I’ve been estranged. Those who are opposing me in court have compared me to racists and argued that I’m deserving of their fate — social marginalization. But a ruling for me would reject all that and declare to the world that my faith is not a scarlet letter.
A: It is a common wish among people like Mr. Phillips, they all seem to want to serve those in their own tribe while being free to discriminate against all those they identify as the "other." Racists want this, misogynists want this, and bigots want this. It is the universal want of many, if not most, of those who continue to worship gods that favor one group of humans over another. Since all gods discriminate, all those who follow god feel, more or less, free to also discriminate as well. There is no scarlet letter for the religions, but there should be one for the religiously motivated bigotry, racism, and misogyny.
We all want to belong. I’m no different. The Supreme Court’s decision in my case will say a lot about the First Amendment. But I sure hope the court makes it clear that I belong, too.
A: I am always amused by those whose are part of the majority religion in America playing the victim card. It just as amusing as when whites complain about how tough it is being white in America, or in particular, when white supremacists complain about how disadvantaged they feel being a white person in a majority white nation. Regardless of the court's decision, it will not exclude Mr. Phillips from America. Mr. Phillips will always be part of America – however, if we are lucky, the court decision might indicate that just like homosexuals buying a wedding cake in his bakery, Mr. Phillips' ideas are not welcome.
