Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jack Phillips The Cost Of My Faith 20220829

Joining us as well, jonathan scruggs. Welcome you guys. Thank you. Im honored to be here today. And just so my audience is aware, why is your lawyer with us on this interview . Well, we are still in court. We just finished in the end of march a trial, in our third lawsuit, so were currently waiting for the judge to announce his decision on that, and so my lawyer is here to help, you know, guide and protect me, make sure that i dont say anything right, okay good. Good. And so for those who dont remember kind of who are fuzzy on the details, tell us what remind us what happened on july 19, 2012, when two gay men walked into your cake shop and asked you to design their wedding cake. Yeah, it was a beautiful july afternoon, sunny and bright and a couple of girls working for me, they were business in the front they were busy in the front, so when these two gentlemen came into my shop, sat down at the wedding desk, since they were both occupied, it was my duty to go over and sit down and talk with them. We went over, made introductions. The one on the right, david, on my left, charlie, what can i do for you guys . Were here to look at wedding cakes. It is for our wedding. I said sorry guys i dont do cakes for same sex weddings. They looked at me and said what . I said i will make birthday cakes, cookies brownies but dont do cakes for same sex weddings. They stormed out of my storm. I didnt expect that. They stormed out of my store. I didnt expect that. Was that the first time like a gay person asked you to design wedding cake . No, it was actually the fourth or fifth time, and the other ones, we were always able to discuss it and make it clear that, you know, its not your sexual orientation. Its just the nature of the message of a wedding cake is pretty simply understood. I would create anything else but couldnt create that. You talk about this in the book, you say whatever kinds of cakes, for example, would you not design. Before we opened, my wife and i had many discussions about what the cake shop would look like, but we decided before we opened we wouldnt do cakes that would celebrate halloween, cakes that would be unamerican, racist, or degrade or denigrate other people, including people who identified as lgbt, and we had guidelines that we just couldnt wouldnt cross. And then after charlie and david kind of stormed out of your shop, you started getting basically Legal Notices where you found out that they were suing you; right . Right. They stormed out of my shop. I started getting hateful phone calls and emails within 20 minutes. By the time i came in the next morning, i had a couple hundred emails in my box, just all hateful, phone calls. Phones were ringing all day long. Im not sure how long it took before i got the notice from the state. I think it was october, from july to october. I was aware that there was something filed [inaudible]. Right. When did you realize that the legal troubles were getting really serious . Um right away. The two gentlemen came in on a thursday, and by the following tuesday, four days later, id been connected with attorneys from Alliance Defending freedom, and i knew that i wasnt going to have to hire my uncle to help me or anything like that. Alliance defending freedom, they are the best at this. They have been right beside me all the way through and guided me and coached me and advise me, and its been a wonderful relationship. Yeah, many people as you say in the book, many people have asked you why not just bake the cake . Because a lot of christians i feel like today in our culture would just kind of look the other way maybe and just make a confession and sort of just look, i dont want to get into a bunch of legal problems and trouble. Im just going to bake this cake, and it is not going to be a big deal, and i will look the other way. Why didnt you just bake the cake . Like i said, there were a number of different kinds of cakes that we knew we wouldnt create. Halloween cakes, that comes up every year, and we have to decline to create those because of my beliefs. That was actually a Good Practice when these other cake orders came up, that sh this is a line in the sand. I knew how to approach that line, and try to be as gracious and kind as i could. I couldnt cross the line is basically what it was. Yeah. You mention in the book. You talk about romans 13 in your decision to fight this in court. Romans i will remind our audience what romans 13 says. It says and this is taken from your book too. This translation, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which god has established. The authorities that exist have been established by god. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what god has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. Give to everyone what is owed to them. If you owe taxes, pay taxes. If revenue, then revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor. So tell us how your decision to fight this kind of comports with romans 13. Ive been asked that before, the government gives us the option to go to court to defend these things, as well as the fact that in our government, we have a constitution that our government is supposed to protect and protect our rights. Among them are the right of the free exercise of religion. This is what that was. I didnt want to create that message of the wedding cake, and its also a right to freely express my faith, and so our government is supposed to protect that right. When they werent, theres also steps in our constitution, state constitution, and u. S. Constitution, where we are able to go to a court system like this and fight for these things. And i think in the book you said your Legal Defense was a quote unquote rights of conscience can you sort of explain what that means . Rights of conscience is they are asking me to create a message, again, thats part of the speech, but they are asking me to make me create a message on the cake, and to me a wedding cake is an iconic symbol. It is a message in and of itself. If you were going to go to a hotel, walk into a conference room, youre there for a business meeting and you walk into a conference room, and you see a cake or Something Like that in the corner, you know it is not a business meeting. You know without having to ask anybody its a wedding. That wedding cake is a message. To create that wedding cake, the bible defines a marriage is between a man and a woman, and so this cake would be a message that would go against my biblical belief, so its asking me to violate my conscience to create this cake and create a message that i cant do. they ruled against you and then you chose to appeal to the Colorado Court of appeals. What was the crux of your appeal . The same thing. The state was forcing me were the Civil Rights Commission that went against my conscience to we were asking to reverse that decision, allow me to obey my conscience and create cakes in line with them. You in the book you talk about double standard, another denver bakery who did something almost identical what you did but they were not persecuted. Can you tell us why that happens . Theres a general here in denver that went to at least three different bakeries and asked to create cakes shaped by a bible with a message on the, a red circle with an x through it, two men getting married in a message on the cake that said homosexuality or marriage is wrong so they asked the bakeries to create the cakes and they declined because they disagreed with the message of and thats exactly what we were doing. We were going to serve these people in the person cant create all cakes so the Civil Rights Commission said there not turn you away, just the message and they have that right and i did not have that right. Bizarre double standard. The Commission Said some hateful things about you and you said, you mentioned one of the most painful things about it was, talk about this because your dad was in world war ii, correct . He was in a concentration camp which is crazy. Tell us what was so painful hearing what the Commission Said about you. The board of commissioners recorded on tape that religious freedom is a despicable piece of rhetoric and people have used it to do all kinds of things like slavery and the holocaust so she was comparing this issue to not create a cake based on this to the holocaust and this woman either doesnt know what the holocaust is or is ignoring the facts of it. He served in normandy and it gets me every time. Hang on. He fought through germany, the battle of the bulge, he was wounded in an attack, hes got a scar across his back and the purple heart and they send it back into, i can and he ended up being part of the group that liberated them in the prison camp, concentration camp and he spoke of the horrors of the smell, but if you look at buchenwald, the pictures are horrific. To compare this to do that is despicable. Ive been to buchenwald and its very disturbing. Tell us the outcome of that appeal. The court of appeals ruled three to nothing in the favor of the commission meaning i lost in the ruling against me would stand. Part of which would be a need to retrain my staff and policies create cakes that go against my faith and retrain my staff and report to the commission poorly for two years. The retraining, its funny because its a small shop in my wife and i own it and my daughter works for me, relatives including my mom and her 80s and she walked up to me one day and said by the way, i will not be reeducated. Thank you mama, i love you. Appreciate that. For them to do that, thats with the court of appeals initially came back to say, the rulings now stand so the next step would be to appeal to the colorado bring court state Supreme Court. That sounds like culture revolution. The reeducation camp. Government, we talked about it before, the government was essentially ordering you to violate your conscience. Was there ever a moment through this first or second tier where you were sort of wavering wondering if you should just given and do what they said or just say bake the cake . I would close the cake shop down before i would create cakes like that. That was never in question. It was just how far would we go . With they take us to the next step . The Colorado State Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court in which case they declined to hear my case so that was over and done but there was only one option left and that would be to appeal to the United States Supreme Court and we were willing to do that and that was the question. Apparently the court was willing to hear the case. Tell us the odds of the u. S. Supreme Court Hearing your case. The odds are extremely small that they would be heard petitions with 8000 to 10000 cases every year and those cases have to be usually two Circuit Courts, ninth Circuit Court circuit on two Different Things so that have a split so they have to justify that, constitution can be one in california and another in florida. It has to be the same across the board so they are dealing with larger cases. For my case, we came from not the Circuit Court or District Court or any large thing, as a standalone case and we were basically coming from the court of appeals but the odds than our incredibly against us. Your to have four justices to take your case in the have to go every every aspect and take the case to court. We got that. And what was it like when you find out youre going to Supreme Court, what were you feeling . Thats one of the craziest days of my life. This website standing for scotus Supreme Court, you can follow the case you want but they are looking at and i followed my case for months which means they have it and talked about. So i knew it was talked about each week and was coming to the end of the Court Session through the summer and it was the last week of court and i was watching the computer and i had the log turned on. We get a decision whether denied or if it was granted, it was on the screen, the cake shop has been granted. It hit me still, four or five years ago, i couldnt agree. I text people and had to talk to a homeless man who was the only guy to talk to and i said hey, i get to go to the Supreme Court and he looked at me and said yeah, i got to go to court on wednesday. Just to understand the gravity, im going to sue them to the Supreme Court, i dont understand how it works it was just incredible. I cant remember, was that the essential piece to take it to the Supreme Court, was about freedom of speech . We asked to reverse the case based on both the speech and religious components. Then june 4, 2018, you one at the Supreme Court and it was seven to two ruling, ginsburg and sotomayor dissented of course but obviously that was an amazing occasion, what was it like when you one . The day they granted, even more surprised because this was three weeks before the end of the session and i was covid it wouldnt make the announcement until the last day. We have masterpiece. It looks like you win. Seven to two. What does happen . The phone starts ringing and people driving by my shop honking and waving and its incredible. Its like a david and goliath story. You mentioned in the book this was interesting, what was one of the keys to winning the case according to the Supreme Court . Why did they rule in your favor . One of the key factors was hostility we talked about before the commission comparing the case to the holocaust. I forget how they phrased it. Impermissible hostility or whatever. The other component was the inequity the commission would come after me for my case and these other three bakeries, they were creating kicks against their consciences and those were two keys to that decision. And you mentioned it violated the free exercise clause, what does that mean again . Free exercise clause . Congress shall pass no law establishing religion prohibiting the free exercise so in essence, they were saying you can have your religion and do what you want, you just cant exercise it in your cake shop. The establishment clause, they werent establishing exercise clause but i cant exercise that from a they were openly hostile to the. You have three weeks after you one, three weeks of kind of calm normalcy again but suddenly you are back to where you started because a local denver attorney named autumn gardena, a transgender attorney walked into your cake shop and filing charges against you, what was that like . On the time line, this attorney gardena called us, the first crazy day, my average day of a take 25 30 phone calls for cake owners, that particular day looking at records we had somewhere around 300 phone calls. Ms. Gardena attorney call us that day, the Court Granted our case that they and requested on the cake which essentially was a message that we couldnt create, blue on the outside and pink on the inside and the colors to celebrate this attorneys gender transition changing man to woman so we told the attorney we create any other cake you like not any other cake but we will create custom work for you and youre welcome in the shop so we cant create that cake. Fast forward then to three weeks after the court ruled in our favor, we got notice the Civil Rights Commission had taken up complaints and the attorney had filed the year before and said there was probable cause to pursue an almost identical case again. Thats what i dont get any talk about in the book but i still cant process it. If the Supreme Court ruled in your favor, how could this happen again . Are not sure how good an analogy is but if i were speeding down my street and get a ticket and go to court to beat it, they are saying i am speeding down the street and ran a red light, i get a new ticket. Im not able to base my new ticket from last year, now you have a new one so cases were similar or identical in nature but to separate charges so its to file a complete and see if there is probable cause, the commission appointed by the governor, they decided they have probable cause to pursue. And how to that first case with autumn gardena and . Had at the end . Two years ago in march we were ready to go into deposition and as we sat down at the table with lawyers on one side and our attorneys on the other end reporters and videographers ready to take down every word as the attorney tries to basically destroy me in the next six hours, they said we need to have a meeting and is the recorder and stenographer leave, whos to say this is a vehicle we want to use, willing to dismiss charges, a lawsuit against him also in federal court then he got the suit. Its really based on the fact that we had a recording of the same commission, this new commission think they embraced hostility of First Commission so if they were to go forward they would not be successful, they knew they would lose so they would rather drop the case and go ahead. But its still not over because june 5, 2019 autumn gardena filed a new case against you and i dont know how much you can talk about it but why did that happen and where are you in that case . This attorney have the option of taking the decision to dismiss the case but rather waited over 90 days and filed a civil lawsuit against mixon asset the state suing, this was me personally. This past march a few weeks ago we were in court and the judge was in his chambers denver and i was in scottsdale. So we were put on the witness stand, my wife and daughter and myself and the attorneys gardena in a couple of other people and we had that trial direct contamination, cross examination and now we are waiting for the judge and theres that. How soon will you know that decision . Is not a timeline, it could be this afternoon or next week or july so we are waiting and waiting. In the meantime, are you able to create custom cakes . We just decided until it is resolved we will create wedding cakes or anniversary cakes or anything in that field and there are practical reasons for that as well as emotional and logical reasons but until those are resolved, this is our biggest time of year with graduation cakes, shower cakes and all those. You mentioned shadrach, the check and a bendigo and daniel and being in exile in babylon. I mentioned them and i do a whole chapter in my book on them but you mentioned in your book, how did you draw inspiration from this story . In a couple of ways. One, they werent in their home village jerusalem the whole nation captured, they were slaves and they had to do with the king wanted them to do and king can is or was evil and wicked. There would be a sleeping pill or anything but they were willing to stand and do what god wanted them to do and to obey and honor the lord god jehovah. They refused to bow down to culture basically essentially what they were doing and willing to go into a Fiery Furnace rather than economize their convictions just like you did. There was no Fiery Furnace but basically they also said our god is able to deliver us but if he doesnt, still we obey him and we are going to the courts and it we went, great. If not, we are going to do our best to obey. And you talk about on a personal level how the cake shop over the years brought you and your father closer together because i think you said when you were young you werent that close with him and there was a distance but the cake shop brought you close, tell us how that happened. It wasnt like i never saw my dad, he never came to baseball games, i never played baseball anyway but he would take me fishing, he had a job to do and i have friends so we just didnt have the opportunity. I love my dad a great deal and he loves me but when we opened the shop i was nervous to tell him is going into business myself because he was a meat cutter and hated working with the public and said i dont care what you do for a living, just dont work in the public so working a bakery is fine. When i decided time to open my own cake shop, how do i tell my dad i will do this and will work early with the public i will be the one in charge of everything . When i finally told him he said thats great, when, how do we get going . He came in the first day and was here every day since then. Let me hang this up. They got the phone upstairs. You see how many phone calls i get . [laughter] the day gardena calls to the day the court grants it was like ring, hang up. Drink, hang up but anyway. My dad came down and helped me do the remodel was here virtually every day. We opened and the three, he passed away and 96. Those three years were valuable because he would come in every day and he said hed never work with the public, there was anybody who he wouldnt try to be friends with off about. How has all of this drama for the last nine or plus years, almost nine, how has this been on your family . Its been good. It brought us closer together. I have a sister in indianapolis and i talked to her regularly and another sister across town and they support us my mom just passed away in november. She was here working up until i think she was 88, 89 years old the last three or four years but its been great. My daughter works for me helped her on this case, to wake up. She talks of a parable about ten virgins waiting for a wedding feast and they were asleep because it happened in the middle of the night. They said hes coming. All of them wake up, five are prepared for the wedding ceremony and five or not. Thats a great parable but also in my mind spoke to me that i was asleep, too. Just like all ten of them were asleep, five were prepared for the battle. Until that day came, i was asleep and talked it over with my daughter and she said the same thing, she had a wakeup call and this whole thing has changed her life spiritually. She was a follower of jesus before that and now shes a dedicated follower of jesus. Thats amazing. This was an interesting factoid from your book, how did you come up with the name Masterpiece Cake shop . That was back when i graduated high school and needed a job in a man across the street from me, wholesale bakery 100 employees and he was gracious enough to hire me and i fell in love and it took a while to get admitted, the pizza parler but after i got acclimated thought this is a job i can book also. I knew when they brought them in are going to open my own bakery and it would turn into people celebrating. I came up with the name almost medially and generally i create with the other media scoping and those kinds of things but the name came to me by the way, Masterpiece Cake shop and masterpiece in my mind says art, cake shop test cake. He wont walk in and get a loaf of bread or pie, just cake. Part of the masterpiece also in my mind, reminds me of jesus on the mound, no man can serve two masters. As they come into the shop, i think who am i going to serve today . As i write out masterpiece to this day i pretty much always think master, i see that word in there, who am i going to serve, whos going to run my life and my shop . That is a great name. So you mentioned in the book part of the reason we did the biting you got in court is part of it for future generations, what you mean by that . One of the main reasons i wrote this when i first approached the idea, i wanted to put down writing a story, details of what happened especially for my kids. I have three kids, my daughter works for me, a son in california and a another daughter in california canada. I wanted them to know what happened and further than that, when my grandkids, i wanted my grandkids to have an account. I didnt find any version online. Also realizing four or five years ago, how long ago this is not about jack phillips, he can start making cakes again. This is for every american to be able to with live and work freely according to the conscious without fear of punishment of the government so we were hoping to continue to write for everybody, the rights of the people suing us because they may not value those rights, its important they might they wonder what happened to them to lets fight for them now. Exactly. The last chapter of the book is called lessons learned. It was one of the most import things you learned through all of this . Thats one of the most important things, its not about me but one of the most important things for me is i need to remember who the master is to i serve everyday as i go through every phase of my life, my lord and savior and god is in control over everything, decisions. I know the answer to this but im going to ask, knowing all you know now and all youve gone through almost the last nine years, would you take the same decision in 2012x. Absolutely. If i sat down with us to then knowing this was ahead of me, i would have said everything i said word for word, i wish i had more time to explain to them but what i said in 19 words and 20 seconds was i cant create every cake people asked me to create because of the message involved and i would be more than willing to fight for this for their psaki, my psaki and my kids psaki. Whats it like, he mentioned this is the book, your known as the guy who wouldnt bake the cake, what is it like to have that out there . I wish it was the guy who wouldnt bake the cake but he wouldnt serve everybody because of that message but it is what it is. People sometimes recognize me when im in public and say you are that guy. It gives me the opportunity not only to explain the case but quite often to share my faith. Guys, i highly recommend the book. The cost of my faith, how a decision in my cake shop took me to the Supreme Court jack phillips. Jack, thank you for being on the show. It is so encouraging, i recommend the book because it is so encouraging, i think it will edify peoples faith as it did your faith in the experience and your daughters faith. I think it will encourage people and help people strengthen their own convictions about certain issues of the Christian Faith so god bless you, you are a trooper, thank you for being on the show. I am excited, i look forward to hearing the outcome of this. Case. Thank you. And thank you, jonathan. Elko weekends on cspan2 are intellectual feasts. Every saturday American History tv document stories and on sunday book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan2 companies Television Companies and more. Including cox. Quicksilver can be hard. Squatting in a diner for internetwork is even harder. Medicine we are providing lower income students access to affordable internet so homework and just be homework. Cox connect to compete. Cox along with these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. Today at it we are going to be talking with professor Carol Anderson with sissy chair of africanamerican studies at