Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jack Phillips The Cost Of My Faith 20220830

Why is your lawyer with us on this interview . Well, we are still in court. We just finished at the end of march our trial and third lawsuit, so we are currently waiting for the judge to announce his decision on that, and so my lawyer is here to help guide and protect me and make sure iy dont say anything and so, for those who dont remember kind of work are fuzzy on the details, remind us what happened on july 19th, 2012, when two gay men walked into your cake shop and asked you to design their wedding cake. It was a beautiful july afternoon, sunny and bright and a couple girls working for me. Nd they were busy in the front, so when these two gentlemen came into my shop and sat down at the wedding desk since they were both occupied, it was my duty to go over, sit down and talk with them. A so we went over, made introductions and the one on my right said im david, the one on my left, charlie. Said what can i do for you guys and they said we are here to look a for wedding cakes for our wedding. I said sorry, i dont do cakes sfor samesex weddings. I said i will make you birthday cakes but i dont do cakes for samesex weddings. They stomped out swearing at me, i wasnt expecting that. I said i would serve than anything else in the shop but i couldnt create that particular cake because the iconic nature of a wedding cake. Was that the first time that a gay person asked you to design a wedding cake . No, it was actually the second time. The others we were able to discuss it and make it clear its not your sexual orientation. Its just the nature of the cake, the message of a wedding cake is pretty simply understood. I could create anything else, but not that. You talk about this in the book. You say whatever kind of cakes, for example, would you not to design . Before we opened, my wife and i hadad many discussions about with thead cake shop would look like. Thats why we decided beforehand we wouldnt do cakes for instance to celebrate halloween or that would be unamerican or racist or would degrade or denigrate other people, including people who identify as lgbt. We had guidelines that we just couldnt cross. And then after charlie and david kind of stormed out of your shop, you started getting basically legal notices. You found out they were suing you, right . Right. They stormed out of my shop and i started getting hateful phone calls and emails in like 20 minutes. By the time i came in the next morning, i had a couple hundred emails in my box, all hateful. And phone calls, the phones ringing all day long. Not sure how long it took before i got the notice from the state i think it was july through october. But i was aware there was a complaint filed right at the beginning. Right. So when did you realize that the legal troubles were getting really serious . Right away. The two gentlemen came in on a thursday, and by the following tuesday, four days later, i had been connected with attorneys for Alliance Defending freedom, and i knew that i wasnt going to have to hire my own goal to help me defend myself or anything like that because Alliance Defending freedom are the best at this and theyve been right beside me all the way through. Theyve guided me and coached me and advised me. Its been a wonderful relationship. Many people, as you say in the book, many people have asked you why not just make the cake, because a lot of christians i feel like today in our culture would just kind of look the other way, maybe and make a confession and just sort of look i dont want to get into a bunch of legal problems into trouble. Im just going to make this cake and its not going to be a big deal and im going to look the other way. Why didnt you just make the cake . There were a number of different kind of cakes we knew we couldnt create. Halloween cakes, that comes up every year and we declined to create those because of my beliefs. So it was Good Practice when these other cases came up. The orders came up that it was a line in the sand and i knew how to approach that line and cross it and try to be as gracious and kind as i could, but i couldnt cross the line basically is what it was. And you mentioned in the book you talk about romans 13 and your decision to fight this in court. I will just reminder audience what romans 13 says. It says, and this is taken from your book, this translation. Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which god has established. The authorities thatth exist hae been established by god. Consequentially, 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, revenue, respect, then respect, its honor then honor. So tell us how your decision to fight this kind of comports with romans 13. The first places before, the government gives the option to go to court to defend these things. In our government we have a constitution that our government is supposed to protect our rights. Among them are the right to freedom of exercise of religion. Thats what this was. I didnt want to create that message, and its also the right to freely express my faith. So the government is supposed tp protect that right. And when they werent, theres also steps in the constitution, state constitution and u. S. Constitution, where we are able to go to the court system like this. I think in the book you said your Legal Defense was a, quote on quote, rights of conscience defense. Ns can you explain what that means . Rights of conscious is they are asking me to create a message, and thats part of speech, but its back to making me create a message in a cake and to me, the wedding cake is an iconic symbol and a message in and of itself. If you were to get a hotel and walk into a Conference Room and you were there for a business meeting and walk into the Conference Room and see a threetiered cake or something in the corner, you know its not a business meeting. You know without having to ask anybody its a wedding. So the wedding cake is a message. To create that wedding cake, it defines marriage as between a man and a woman, and so this would be a message that would go against my biblical beliefs. So its asking me to violate my conscience to create this cake and a message that i cant do. And what is the distinction between you talk about this the distinction between freedom of religion, because people confuse this a lot, and freedom of worship . It is the freedom of religion. A lot of what the freedom of worship is is defined at least promoted as what you do in church. Freedom of religion is what you do in your life. In my case, i want the government to protect my rights to freely exercise my faith when im at the cake shop, the grocery store, at the park, not just when im in the halls of worship in a church. Right. And so the colorado Civil Rights Commission, which is a panel of seven gubernatorial appointees, they ruled against you and then you chose to appeal to the Colorado Court of appeals. What was the crux of your appeal lacks. The same thing. The state was forcing me through the Civil Rights Commission to create cakes that went against my conscience. So asking the court of appeals to reverse that decision and allow me to obey my conscience and create cakes in line with that. And in the book you talk about there was a kind of double standard, becausee there was another denver bakery who did something almost identical to what you did, but they were not persecuted or in any way. So can you tell us why that happened . There was a gentle man here in denver who went to at least o create cakes shaped like a bible with a message like a red circle and annex through it for two men getting married and it was a message on a cake that said homosexual weddings is wrong. They declined because the message. And that is exactly what we were doing. We were going to serve these people [inaudible] the Civil Rights Commission said they are not turning you away, only the message and they have that right. But i did not have that right. Its a bizarre double standard. And the Commission Said some very hateful things about you, and you mentioned that one of the most painful things about it talk about this a little bit because your dad was in world war ii, correct . B and he was in the concentration camp, which is crazy. So tell us what was so painful about hearing what the commission was saying about you. One of the commissioners, we have this recorded on tape, that it was that religious freedom is a despicable piece of rhetoric and people used it to do all kinds of things like slavery and the holocaust. So they were comparing the decision not to create a cake to the holocaust. Ns i thought of this woman either doesnt know the holocaust is or is ignoring the facts on a basic level. But then again, like you say, my dad served in world war ii and he landed on normandy gets me every time. Hang on. He fought in the battle of the bulge and was wounded in a mortar attack with a scar across his back and a purple heart. They patched him back up and sent him to combat again and from there, he ended up being part of the a group that liberad the prison camp, concentration camp. He spoke of the horrors of that. But if you look it up, the pictures are horrific and for this commissioner to compare this decisionc to that was just ludicrous. Yes. Its very disturbing. And so, tell us what the outcome of that appeal was. The court of appeals ruled 3nothing in favor of the colorado Civil Rights Commission meaning i lost and those charges against me would stand meaning that i would need to retrain my staff, change my policies, start creating cakes that go against my faith and retrain my staff and report to the Commission Quarterly for two years. Its funny because its a very small shop. My wife and i own it, my daughter works for me, and my mom who is in her 80s. She walked up to me one day at a set of by the way, i wont be reeducated. So i said thank you mom. Appreciate that. So for them to do that, thats what the court of appeals initially came back and said, that those rulings now stand. So the next step would be to appeal to the colorado Supreme Court, state Supreme Court. Right. That sounds like cultural revolution in china, the reeducation camp. So, the government, you talk about this before, but the government was essentially ordering you to violate your conscience. Was there every moment through the kind of firsttier or secondtier of this where you were like sort of wavering in a kind of wondering if you should just give in and do what they said or just make the cake . No. I would close the cake shop down before i would start creating cakes like that. That was never a question. The question was how far can we go and would adf be able to take us to the next step. I learned of the Colorado State Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court had a discussion on which cases they take into the state Supreme Court declined to hear my case. So i thought that it was over. We were done and there was only one option left and that would be to appeal to the United States Supreme Court. So we were s willing to do that, but was the court willing to hear the case was the question. Apparently they were willing to hear your case. Tell us what the odds are of the u. S. Supreme Court Hearing your case. The odds are extremely small that you will be heard. They are petitioned with 800010000 cases every year and are only granted to 70 or 80 of them. Those cases have to be usually like to circuit courts, ninth circuit into Fourth Circuit ruled differently on twoui differenttl things, so they have to justify that. It cant mean one thing in california and another in florida. It has to mean the same thing all acrossif the board. So they are dealing with larger cases like that. And for my case, we came from multicircuit or District Court or any large thing. It was kind of a standalone case. Basically we were coming from a court of appeals. So we didnt make it to the state Supreme Court. But the odds then are incredibly against us. You have to have four justices agreed to take the case, so all four or at least for have to go over every aspect of the case to make sure its worth their time and effort and the energy that it would take to take the case to the court and we got that. And what was it like when you found out that you were going to the Supreme Court . What were you feeling . It was one of the craziest days of my life. Theres a website called scotus blog and you can follow any case. I followed mine for months. It means they had it in front of them and talked about it and decided it was put offnd until next week lets put it off. So i knew that it was being talked about every week and it was drawing to the end of the Court Session w to the summer. It was the last week of the court and i was watching my computer and i had scotus blog turned on, confident that we would get a decision whether we were denied or granted. When i saw on the screen Masterpiece Cake shop has been granted, it gets me still. Four years ago, five years ago, still i cant breathe. Ii had to text people. No one was in the shop but a homeless man. I turned to a him and said i get to go to the Supreme Court. He looked at me and said yeah, ive got to go to court on wednesday. [laughter] just to understand the gravity of the United States Supreme Court, people say you ought to take this to the Supreme Court, but they dont understand how it works. For them to grant it was t incredible. And i cant remember i think you mentioned in the book, was the essential point to take it to the Supreme Court, was it about freedom of speech . We asked them to reverse the case based on the speech and religious component of it. And then june 4th, 2018, you won at the Supreme Court and t was at the 7ruling. Obviously that was an amazing occasion. What was that like when you one . It was just as emotional a day as the day they granted. It was even more surprising because this was three weeks before the end of the session, and i was pretty confident they wouldnt make the announcement until the last day. But they granted before. [inaudible] 72. Looking at my computer like what just happened. The phone starts ringing and people are honking and waving. It was just an incredible day. Its like a david and goliath story. Amazing. And then 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 what we talked about before, the commissioner comparing my case to the holocaust. I forget how they phrased it, but inn permissible hostility, clear and in permissible hostility. The other component was the inequity that they wanted, that the commission would come after me for my case and leave these other bakeries for their denial to create cakes that went against their conscience. Of those two things were two of the keys to that whole decision. Right. And you mentioned that the commissions actions violated the free exercise clause. What does that mean again, the free exercise clause . That commerce shall pass no law by establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. So in essence, they were saying you can have your religion and do whatever you want to, you just cant exercise it in your cake shop. You can only do it in your church, so the establishment clause, they were not establishing the exercise clause. They were openly hostile to that. And then you had three weeks after you one you had three weeks of kind of calm normalcy again. S but then suddenly you are right back where you started because a local denver attorney named autumn, a transgender attorney, walked into your cake shop and ended up filing charges against you. What was that like . So this attorney called us. The first crazy day we went to court, the average day i would take 25 to 30 phone calls for cake orders. At that particular day im lookingal at records and we have adsomewhere around 300 phone cas into this attorney called us that today, the day the Court Granted the case, and requested another cake, which essentially was a message we couldnt create. It was a cake blue on the outsideul and pink on the inside and the colors were to celebrate this attorneys gender transition. As of againiner we told of the attorney we will create any other cake, custom work for you andnd you are welcome in the shp and all that but i cant create that cake. So fast forward to the day that the three weeks after the court ruledee in our favor, then we gt a notice that the Civil Rights Commission had taken up the complaint. This attorney filed a new report and said there was probable cause to pursue an almost identical case again. Thats what i dont get. And you talk about it in the book, but i still cant process it in my brain. If the Supreme Court ruledf in your favor, how could this happen again . Im not sure how good and an analogy if this is, john can correct me. But if i were speeding down my street and i getet a ticket ando to court and beat it, they are saying i was speeding again were ran a red light im going to get a new ticket. Im not able to base my new ticket, i already beat that a speeding ticket last year, well now you have a new one. So the cases were similar or identical in nature, but its two separate charges. So the courts duty is then to file a complaint, see if there is probable cause. The commission, like i said, it is an appointed body, appointed by the governor. They decided they had probable cause to pursue the case. And how did that first case with autumn and, how did that case and . In march we were ready to go enter a deposition and as we sat down at the conference table, our lawyers on the one side and their attorneys on the other hand Court Reporters and videographers ready to take down every word as the attorney tried to basically destroy me in the next six hours. They said we need to have a meeting and asked the reporter into the stenographer to leave it at the meeting never happened. They said this is the vehicle we want to use so we are willing to dismiss. There was a lawsuit against them in federal court. Its based on the fact that we got the recording of the same commission, the new commission saying that the endres to the hostility of the first commission. So, if they were to go forward, they wouldnt be successful. They knew they would lose so they would rather drop the case then go ahead and lose. But its still not over because on june fifth, 2019, autumn filed a new case againste you, and i dont know how mucht you can talk about. But why did that happen, and where are you on that case . So this attorney had an option of appealing the commissions decision to dismiss the case, but rather than appealing that, waited whatever the time period was, over 90 days and filed a civil lawsuit against me. So now its not the state is suing me, the attorney personally, and just this past march a few weeks ago, we were in court. The judge was in his chambers in denver and i was in the offices there in scottsdale with Alliance Defending freedom. We were put on the witness stand, my wife, myne daughter ad myself and the attorney with a couple other people. So we had that trial, direct examination, crossexamination, all those things and were waiting for the judge to announcehe that decision. And how soon will you know that decision . Theres not a timeline. It couldld be this afternoon, nt week or july. We are just waiting. And are you, in the meantime, are you still able to create custom cakes . We are. We just decided do all this until it is fully resolved. We want create a wedding or anniversary cakes in that field for practical reasons as well as emotional and logical reasons. Until those are resolved, this is our biggest time of year with graduation cakes and birthday cakes, shower cakes, all those. We do those all the time. You mentioned to daniel and exile in babylon. I do a whole chapter in my book. But you mentioned, how did you draw inspiration from this story . In a couple of ways. For one,th they were not in ther home village. The whole nation had been captured and carried off to babylon. They were slaves and they had to do with the king wanted them to do. If you didnt do exactly what he wanted, you were dead. It wouldnt be a sleeping pill or anything like that, it would be a gruesome death. But they were willing to stand and do what god wanted them to do. They knew what was expected of them, to obey and honor. They basically, and i say this in my book, they refused to bow down to culture basically is what they were doing. Right. And they were willing to go to a Fiery Furnace rather than compromise the conviction, just like you did. There was no Fiery Furnace, but they also said [inaudible] we are going to the court and if we win, great. If not, we will still do our best. And you talk about also, just on a personal level, you talk about 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 really that close with him and there was kind of a distance, but the cake shop brought you closer. To tell us how that happened. It seemed like i never saw my dad. He never came to baseball games. I didnt play anyways, but we would be out in the field and he would take me fishing. He had a job to do and i had friends, so we didnt have an opportunity. But i loved my dad agreed to dealing and he left me. But when wee opened the shop, i was nervous actually to tell him that i was going to go into business for myself, because he was a meat cutter and he hated working with of the public. He said i dont care what you do for a living, just dont work in the public. So working at a bakery is fine, i am in the back. D but when i decided its time to open my own cake shop, how am i going to tell my dad im going to do this and im going to be working not only with the public but im going w to be the one in charge of everything. So when i told him he said thats great. When, where, how do we get going . He came in the 31st day and was here every day since then. See how many phone calls i get. Here for a halfhour. Those days it was like ringing and hang up. But anyway, my dad then came down and helped me do the remodel. He was here virtually every day. We opened and 93 and he passed away in 96, so those three years were valuablee to me because he would come every day and have muffins and coffee. Though he said he would never work with the public, there wasnt anybody that would come into the shop that he wouldnt try to be friends with right off the bat. How, in all of this drama for the last nine plus years, i guess nine almost how has this been on your family . Its been good. Its brought us closer together. I have a sister in indianapolis and i talked to her regularly. Another sister down here i see two or three times a week. We are grateful, they support us. P my mom passed away in november, but she was here working until she was 88 or 89yearsold. The last three or four years. But its been great. My daughter works for me and its helped her, this whole case, to wake up. The bible talks about, tells a parable about ten virgins that were waiting for a wedding feast and it happens in the middle of the night and their culture. All ten wake up and five of them are prepared for the ceremony and five of them are not. Its a great parable but also in my mind spoke to me that i was asleep just like all ten of them were asleep. Five of them were prepared but until that day came, i was asleep and talked this over with my daughter and she said at the same thing. She had a wakeup call and it changed, the whole thing has changed her life spiritually. Though she was a follower before that, she is a dedicated follower. Thats amazing. And this is an interesting fact from your book. How did you come up with the name Masterpiece Cake shop . It goes back when i graduated high school i needed a job. A man that lived across the street from me owned a large bakery like 100 employees and conveyor belts. He was gracious enough to hire me and i fell in love with baking. It took a little while to get acclimated because they worked a pizza parlor in school. But after i got acclimated to that i felt i could do this long term and later on i thought i would like to have my own bakery. Then one day i found out that the other is the owner of the bakery bought another and brought in cake decorators and ive never seen that. Rather than making 100 at a time, they were making one cake at a time, one custom cake at a time and theres an artistic background i go through in the book. I knew at that point when he brought them and thats what i was going to do with my future. I was going to open my own bakery one day and its where i would use the canvas of the cake and turn it into art to help people celebrate. And i came up with the name almost immediately. Im not generally that creative with words. Im creative with other media, sculpting and painting, those kind of things. But it came to me right away. Masterpiece in my mind said cake shops have cake. Youre not going to walk in thinking youre getting a loaf of bread or pie, youre going to get an artistic cake. The masterpiece also in my mind, the first part of the phrase, master, reminds me of jesus and no one can serve two masters. When i come into the shop i think who am i going to serve today. And as i write masterpiece on any piece of paper to this day i think master. I see that word and who am i going to serve. I want to run my life and my shop in a way that honors jesus. That is a great name. And so, you mentioned that in the book part of the reason you did all this fighting and that you fought in i court part of it is for future generations. What do you mean by that . One of the main reasons i wrote cost of my faith, is i wanted to put down the writing of the story, the details of what happened especially for my kids. I have three kids. My daughter works for me. I have a son in california and a daughter in canada. I wanted them to know exactly what happened. And further than that, i wanted my grandkids to have an account of it because sure you can find any version you want online but i wanted them to have mine. And also realize three, four, five years ago, that this isnt about Jack Phillips to start making cakes again. This is for every american to be able to live and work freely according to their conscience without fear of punishment from the government. So, we were hoping to continue to fight for everybodys defense. The people even suing us. We wonder what might happen to them. In the last chapter of your book, lessons learned. What was one of the most important things you learned through all of this . Thats one of the most important things. This isnt about me. Its about everybody. One of the most important things for me was i needed to remember who the master is and who i served every day as i go to every day of my life whether im mowing my yard, whatever. Christ is my lord and savior and god is in control of everything and the decisions. The way he runs the universe is good. And i know im sure i kw the answer to this question but im going to ask. Knowing all that you know now and all youve gone through the last almost nine years, would you still make the same decision back in 2012 . Absolutely. If i sat down with those two men in 2012 knowing this was ahead of me, i would have said everything i said a word for word. I wish i would have had more time to talk with them to explain, but what i said to them in the 19 words in 20 seconds, i cant create every cake people asked me to create because of the message thats involved, but i would be more than willing to fight for this for their sake and for my sakeor and my kids sake. Sake. And whats it like to be you mentioned this in the book, you are mentioned as the guy that wouldnt bake the cake. What is it like to have that out there . I wish i was the guy that wouldnt make the cake, that would serve everybody t but cant create that cake becauseha the message. Sometimes people recognize me in public like your that guy. And it gives me the opportunity not only to explain the case but quite often to share my faith. Well, i highly recommend this book. The book is the cost of my face howw a decision in my cake shop took me to the Supreme Court, with Jack Phillips. Ll jack, thank you so much for being on the show. Its so encouraging. I really recommend this book because its so encouraging. I think it will edify peoples faith as it did your faith and this will experience you and your daughters faith and i thino it will encourage people. I think it will help people strengthen their own convictions about certain issues of the Christian Faith and so god bless you. Youre a trooper. Thanks for being on the show. I am excited to, i look forward to hearing the outcome of the latest case. It is such an honor to be on the show today. Thank you, jack and thank you, jonathan. Thank you so much. Have a great day. At least six president s recorded conversations while in office. Here many of the conversations during season two of the podcast president ial recordings. The nixon tapes. Part private conversations, parts deliberations and 100 unfiltered. Let me say that the man thing is it will pass and my heart goes out to those people who with the best intentions as im sure you know, i tell you if i could have spent a little more time being a politician and less time being a president i would kick them out but i didnt know what they were doing. Season two on the mobile lab or wherever you get your podcast. The world has changed. Today, fast reliable Internet Connection is something no one can live without, so we are there for our customers with speed, reliability, value and choice. Now more than ever it all starts with great internet. Today we are going to be talking with professor carol anderson, who has been the chair of africanamerican studies at Emory University and also the author of many wonderful books. Im sure many of you have read wide rage which won the National Book critics circle award; a perfect vote, the one we should be talking about right now with all of the Voter Suppression and all these