Jack Phillips took the first case against him and his Masterpiece Cakeshop business all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won, and this week he can declare victory once again.

The Denver Post reports:

More than six years of legal battles between Lakewood’s Masterpiece Cakeshop and the state will end after baker Jack Phillips agreed to drop his lawsuit alleging the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was harassing him for refusing to make LGBTQ-themed cakes, in exchange for the commission halting its own actions against him.

“After careful consideration of the facts, both sides agreed it was not in anyone’s best interest to move forward with these cases,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a news release Tuesday announcing the agreement. “The larger constitutional issues might well be decided down the road, but these cases will not be the vehicle for resolving them.”

Phillips said in a statement that he will continue to follow his religious beliefs when it comes to what he bakes.

The second case had been initiated by a Denver attorney who went to the cake shop the day of the 7-2 Supreme Court ruling and asked for a cake celebrating her gender transition:

The attorney, Autumn Scardina, told the commission that Phillips refused last year to make a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside for a celebration of her transition from male to female.

She asked for the cake on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would consider Phillips’ appeal of a previous commission ruling against him. In that 2012 case, he refused to make a wedding cake for same-sex couple Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins.

There is no word as of yet on whether or not Scardina still plans to pursue action against the cake baker.

The Daily Signal provides a refresher on just how badly he was treated by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission:

Colorado Civil Rights Commissioner Diann Rice compared Phillips to those who supported slavery and the Holocaust. She said in 2014:

“I would also like to reiterate what we said in … the last meeting [concerning Jack Phillips]. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust … I mean, we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination.”

[…]

After the high court ruling, Jessica Pocock, a member of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, later called Phillips a “hater.” Commission members Rita Lewis and Carol Fabrizio agreed with the Rice comparison in 2018, according to Alliance Defending Freedom.

Their hostility against Phillips’s religious beliefs was something Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy noted in his opinion regarding the first case (h/t David French):

To describe a man’s faith as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use” is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical — something insubstantial and even insincere. . . . This sentiment is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s antidiscrimination law — a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.

Watch the video below, made by the Alliance Defending Freedom, in which Phillips talks about religious freedom and his love for baking and art.

In light of the news this week of each side dropping their cases against each other, hopefully the nearly 7 years of targeted attacks against Jack Phillips will end for good so he can get back to doing what he loves to do and is so passionate about doing.

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—Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter.–