Amicus Brief: Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina

This brief was filed in the Colorado Supreme Court in the latest persecution of Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, this time over a request to make a cake celebrating a gender transition. An activist named Autumn Scardina called to order such a cake right after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Phillips’s favor back in 2018. The lower Colorado courts eventually ruled against Phillips.

Now, before the state high court, the Manhattan Institute joins the Mountain States Legal Foundation, Southeastern Legal Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity Foundation in focusing on the First Amendment violation inherent in compelling speech and adherence to a particular state ideology. Notably, I am one of only three lawyers in the country who's filed briefs supporting both Phillips and Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the case that legalized same-sex marriage.

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.

Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post via Getty Images