Baker Jack Phillips’ business ruined by trolls after he refused to bake a same-sex wedding cake

Among other strange requests, he was asked to create cakes to celebrate divorce, promote marijuana use and insult gay and transgender people.

Some orders were for cakes with “sexually explicit” shapes.

In 2015, Colorado’s civil rights commission ruled that Mr. Phillips had violated a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminatory practices.

Wedding cakes had been the bulk of Masterpiece Cakeshop’s work. But told to meet the demands of his customers rather than his religious beliefs, Mr Phillips felt compelled to stop making wedding cakes.

“We were a very successful wedding cake business in Denver, known throughout the city. And they took that away from us,” he said.

“We are still in business. It’s just happened a lot differently than it was 12 years ago.”

Satan smoking weed

Wedding cakes were elaborate creations and took several people to assemble.

Being forced out of the wedding cake business meant Mr Phillips had to cut his workforce by half.

On the same day that the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Mr. Phillips’ case, a lawyer named Autumn Scardina asked him to create a blue and pink cake. Scardina had recently gone through a gender transition and asked for the cake to celebrate the occasion.

Scardina allegedly ordered another cake that showed Satan smoking marijuana.

Mr Phillips, who sees himself as a “quiet cake artist”, refused both times, prompting Scardina to file a complaint with the Colorado Division of Civil Rights, before launching a separate lawsuit against him in state court.

Earlier this month it was determined that the case would not move forward due to procedural reasons.

Colorado’s civil rights commission initially found the refusal of the order to amount to illegal discrimination under state law and issued a $500 fine.

Phillips appealed that decision, and in October 2023, the state Supreme Court said it would hear the case.

The baker also sued the civil rights commission, as well as the state’s civil rights division, in federal court alleging religious discrimination. The claim was settled in 2019.

On Tuesday, a court ruled against Scardina, whose complaint was withdrawn for procedural reasons.

The Telegraph has approached Scardina for comment.

“I’ll blow your head off”

As the multiple legal cases unfolded over the years, there was only one moment when Mr. Phillips was truly afraid.

One day in 2012, he cheerfully greeted someone he assumed would be the next customer on the phone.

“Can I help you?” he remembered saying. The voice on the line told him he was going to kill him.

“I’m on my way to your store. I’ve got a gun. I’m going to blow your head off,” the individual said. They called again and again, telling Mr. Phillips how close they were to his pie business, located in a quiet suburb of Denver.

“I’ll be there in 10 minutes. I’m on this way and I’m on that way.”

The individual never appeared and was never located.

At another time, someone called to say he was coming with a machete. The threats were so violent that Mr Phillips’ daughter and grandson were afraid to go to work.

Phillips’ advantage was that his legal costs were covered by the Alliance for the Defense of Freedom (ADF), a lobby group that takes on cases protecting free speech rights. The baker freely admits that he can’t even afford to take a lawyer to lunch.

“Jack has been dragged through the courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone,” said Jake Warner, the ADF’s senior lawyer. “That’s enough.”

Now, after 12 years of fighting and with Scardina’s case finally dropped, Mr Phillips’ legal troubles appear to be over.

“It’s the lawyers who do all the hard work,” he said. “I just ran a bakery; that’s enough work in itself.”