Jack Phillips must be the best — and worst — baker in America. Never before have we seen a cake baker so high in demand and yet excoriated in the courts for being such a bigot. Last Thursday, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Phillips violated Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act, or CADA, by refusing to bake a cake for a person celebrating their transgender transition, upholding an earlier district court decision. 

When will Colorado’s courts leave Jack Phillips alone? Just as soon as he dampens his sincerely held religious beliefs?

This case is so obviously intended to make an example against people of faith. The same day the Supreme Court said it would hear his first legal case about his expert cake-baking business, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which Phillips won, an attorney celebrating transgender status called and requested a custom cake from the now world-renowned custom cake baker. No kidding. Out of all the cake bakers around Denver, Colorado — there were dozens in 2017 — only Jack Phillips could make Autumn Scardina’s cake, a pink one with blue frosting. Phillips must be incredible; Scardina should feel so fortunate.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Phillips's cake-baking prowess Scardina was after. It was his religious beliefs. Upon hearing about the purpose of the cake, the message, as it were, Phillips refused, as Scardina knew he would, because the concept of celebrating a person’s gender fluidity violates his religious beliefs. Scardina sued, arguing he violated the precious CADA, and has won in courts ever since. 

Phillips has now spent a decade battling this and the prior case. If you can't convert them, you can bludgeon them into submission in court.

In the appeals ruling , the court essentially argues that under CADA, Phillips can be forced to express a message via his cake baking that violates his religious beliefs or face punitive measures. "The division concludes that the act of baking a pink cake with blue frosting does not constitute protected speech under the First Amendment," the ruling states. Later, "CADA’s prohibition against discrimination based on a person’s transgender status does not violate a proprietor’s right to freely exercise or express their religion." CADA was intended to protect classes prone to discrimination; it’s not supposed to be used as a weapon against people of faith. Or is it?

Phillips argued he did not refuse to make the cake for Scardina because of her status but, rather, because of the message conveyed by its intended use to celebrate such status. Sexual orientation and gender identity are now codified into law as protected classes, so it’s easy to see how the appeals court got to its decision that Phillips was being discriminatory. A transgender person’s status and conduct, or behavior, cannot be differentiated. Therefore, to hold to the orthodox belief that gender fluidity contradicts God’s design or ancient religious traditions or belief systems is to be discriminatory. There is no provision or allowance for traditional beliefs.

Still, no one should be forced to express a message within their business that violates their conscience or religious beliefs. This should apply to everyone. So far, it seems only to apply to people who are not satisfied with legal equality but will only be content when people who hold orthodox beliefs give those up and replace them with theirs. Unfortunately for Jack Phillips, that could mean another decade of targeted lawsuits such as this. When will it be enough? 

Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She is an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.