In Masterpiece, gay couple wants to have their cake, and have you eat it

Phillips creates his art at the Masterpiece Cakeshop

The Masterpiece Cakeshop is a small bakery located in a shopping center in Lakewood, Colorado, just west of Denver. The proprietor is Jack Phillips, and he is not simply a baker. Phillips is an artist.

The business website proclaims that for your wedding, birthday, or special occasion, "Phillips creates a masterpiece. Custom designs are his specialty: If you can think it up, Jack can make it into a cake!"

For more than two decades, Phillips grew his business into an award winner, one of the most popular of its kind in the Denver area. But now, despite it being one of their most popular services, the shop is no longer accepting custom wedding cake requests.

Masterpiece and Phillips are embroiled in a highly controversial and public battle that has wound its way to the United States Supreme Court. There will be no wedding cakes, at least until the court makes their ruling.

It all began more than five years ago. In the summer of 2012, a gay couple was planning to get married. Charlie Craig and David Mullins, that couple, wanted their cake designed by Masterpiece. 

However, Phillips wouldn't do it, claiming that his religious beliefs kept him from creating designer cakes for same-sex celebrations. He would, however, sell the couple other baked goods. Craig and Mullins, with the ACLU of Colorado in their corner, decided to literally make a court case out of the refusal. 

According to a timeline of the events provided by Kaitlyn Schallhorn for Fox News, in May 2014: "The Colorado Civil Rights Commission decided at a public hearing that Masterpiece had violated Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act, or CADA. Phillips was ordered to change its company policies as well as offer “comprehensive staff training” to employees. The cake shop was also required to provide quarterly reports about how it handled prospective customers."

That ruling was just one in a series of court decisions in the five years since the original complaint. The current SCOTUS case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission will finally settle that legal battle once and for all.

At issue is a clear attack on individual freedoms. Does the government have the right and ability to force a business owner to create a product that is against their legitimately held personal and/or professional beliefs?

The clear answer for anyone who cares about freedom would be: no, the government has no such right.

The couple wants you to believe that this is a case about gay rights. That is a farce. Phillips was not denying sales to Craig and Mullins. They were free to choose from any number of items available at the shop.

This is about freedom of expression for the artist. Do the research and take a look at Phillips' specialty work. That is exactly what he is, an artist. To force him to make a gay wedding cake against his legitimately held Christian religious beliefs would actually violate his own rights.

Michael Farriss leads the Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization representing Phillips and Masterpiece in this case. He recently stated the following in a Fox News piece:

"Since the dawn of the republic, our constitutional order has honored individual freedom of mind and accorded citizens the corresponding liberty to speak and refrain from speaking as their conscience directs. Yet this formerly prized feature of our legal system devoted to individual freedom now faces growing opposition."

That growing opposition largely comes from liberal progressives such as Craig and Mullins. There was a much more appropriate course for the couple. Simply take your business elsewhere. Then ensure that the gay community learned of the Phillips position at the Masterpiece Bakeshop. 

Why SCOTUS Pick Should Be Pryor

It has been announced that President Donald Trump is going to publicly announce his nominee for the opening in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on Monday evening.

The announcement is to take place during a live television broadcast at 8:00pm EST. This is a high profile time slot, and is entirely befitting the important nature of this vital nomination.

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court in our nation. Established in 1789 by our original U.S. Constitution, the SCOTUS has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all courts in the land. 

Thus, SCOTUS is the final arbiter on nearly all court cases of vital national interest. Decisions are rendered by a majority vote of the Chief Justice and eight associate justices, all of whom serve a lifetime term.

That last part is vitally important. Once a justice is appointed to the SCOTUS, they serve until they either die, retire, resign, or are impeached and convicted by the U.S. Congress. Since no SCOTUS justice has ever been successfully impeached and convicted, appointees are almost certainly going to serve as long as they wish.

The only U.S. President to serve a full term in office and not have the opportunity to appoint a justice to the SCOTUS was Jimmy Carter. Now, less than two weeks into his first term in office, President Trump gets that opportunity.

Trump's pick is vitally important for a number of reasons, but primarily because the court vacancy that he is filling has been open for nearly a year. Last February 13, longtime noted SCOTUS justice Antonin Scalia passed away suddenly in his sleep at age 79.

Supremes Loose Leviathan to Become Master of All

On Thursday the United States Supreme Court handed down a ruling in the case of Susette Kelo (left) et al v. City of New London, 04-108 that stated in it’s simplest explanation “If the government wants your property, it can come and take it, no matter what you want. Period.”

In what is becoming typical of most of the court’s controversial rulings, the vote was by just a 5-4 margin.

Voting to allow local government’s increased powers to take your land, home and business were the four usual liberal suspects: Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer and Stevens. Siding with them, as he has done increasingly over years, was Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy.

The Great Communicator must be rolling over in his grave these days about that appointment. Caving in to the political pressures against outstanding dream nominee Robert Bork was one thing. But compromising with the increasingly nightmarish Kennedy has to be considered a whole other matter entirely. The liberals fretted all those years with Reagan, and ended up with one of their own on the top bench anyway.

But back to the matter at hand. The case that the court was deciding involved the small Connecticut town of New London. A few years back, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Corporation decided that it wanted to locate a facility in the town.

Good news for local business, right? Everyone in the community on board. The trouble started when the commission formed to evaluate the plans for the Pfizer development decided to get ambitious.

Plans began to expand in city officials’ minds for an entire waterfront business park initiative. They foresaw hotels, clubs, restaurants, even a new Coast Guard Museum, all attached to the Pfizer property and aimed at bringing tourists to the area.

Problem was, some folks, including Kelo (pictured) owned houses in the development area, and they didn’t want to sell.