The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, the Christian baker at Masterpiece Cake Shop in Colorado who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding because of his religious beliefs. This is a big victory for Jack Phillips and a victory for religious liberty. But we have to be prepared for the gay lobby to go after him again.
00:00:00.000I'm sure yesterday you heard that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, the Christian baker at Masterpiece Cake Shop in Colorado who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding.
00:00:11.520They ruled in favor of him. It was a big victory for him, Jack Phillips specifically, personally, which is great because he's a good and decent man.
00:00:20.240He was being persecuted by this government agency that the Supreme Court determined, the government agency being the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Supreme Court determined that they were just openly hostile and prejudiced against Jack Phillips.
00:00:36.760And so that's essentially what the Supreme Court decided, that he personally was being victimized by this government agency that could not disguise its contempt for Phillips and his religious beliefs.
00:00:53.260As far as the broader questions of the First Amendment and religious liberty, they sort of left that alone and didn't touch it.
00:01:02.020So that's it's I don't think we get the big victory for religious liberty that we wanted, although we could still celebrate that this this man who had been unfairly targeted has been vindicated.
00:01:17.240And this government agency has been rebuked by the Supreme Court and humiliated and embarrassed.
00:01:23.000So that's that's good. That's justice. And we can also celebrate the fact that the other set of bullies in this case, that being the gay couple themselves, they also lost and have now been humiliated in front of the world.
00:01:36.840Which is what they really, which is what they richly deserve, because they really, their behavior in this case has been just utterly despicable, just awful.
00:01:50.220And let's start with the fact that the gay couple very clearly targeted Jack Phillips because of his religious beliefs.
00:01:57.840I simply don't believe that in a in a state, in one of the most gay friendly, most liberal states in the union, where there are hundreds of bakeries and other stores to choose from where you might find a wedding cake.
00:02:16.120I don't believe that they just so happened coincidentally to walk in the door of the one bakery in the whole state run by a guy who is so orthodox and conservative in his Christian faith that he won't even make Halloween cakes.
00:02:32.960I don't believe that's a coincidence. And if I were inclined to believe that it is a coincidence, it would become clear that it's not coincidental.
00:02:41.020When you look at how they reacted, what their response was, when Jack Phillips explained that he could not make them a customized gay wedding cake.
00:02:50.940After being told that, you know, they could have responded a number of different ways.
00:02:55.460They could have said, OK, you won't make a customized cake. I understand that. I respect your beliefs.
00:03:00.820So instead, we'll just buy a regular wedding cake and we'll customize it ourselves or we'll get someone else to decorate it, whatever.
00:03:07.140Or they could have done what would probably be the most logical thing to do, and that is to just leave the store and go somewhere else, go anywhere else.
00:03:18.060And if they really feel personally offended, then they'd be perfectly free to tell their friends that Jack Phillips at Masterpiece Cake Shop won't make gay weddings because he disapproves of gay marriage.
00:03:31.700And, you know, they'd be perfectly free to do that. And, you know, they'd be perfectly free to do that. That would also be reasonable.
00:03:37.800But they didn't choose either of those options.
00:03:41.120Either a decent, reasonable person would choose either option.
00:03:46.180But these are indecent people. These are bullies.
00:03:49.720And so they went with option three, and that is they responded to Jack Phillips not making a cake.
00:03:56.900They responded to that by embarking on a five-year mission to ruin his business, destroy him personally, and impoverish his family.
00:04:17.600But we have to be prepared for the fact that the fascist bullies on the left and in the gay lobby, they're going to come back and try it again.
00:04:26.800They might not try it again with Jack Phillips after they just lost that.
00:04:29.660But I think, in fact, they're going to double their efforts now to punish Christian business owners for being Christian.
00:04:36.900And you're going to find even more Christian business owners targeted.
00:04:39.780First, because for retribution and, you know, the gay lobby is very vengeful, very spiteful, hateful, and vengeful.
00:04:51.800And on the rare occasion that they suffer a loss, they're going to find they're going to make you pay for it.
00:04:59.500So that's what's going to happen here out of vengeance.
00:05:02.400And also because they want the Supreme Court to basically overturn the First Amendment.
00:05:08.040That's the that's the result they were looking for.
00:05:11.640They wanted the Supreme Court to come out and say to Christian business owners, you do not have the right to decide how you do business and who you do business with.
00:05:23.260You don't have the right to decide that you don't want to participate in or promote or celebrate an event that you find morally problematic.
00:05:31.780So they were looking for the overturning of the First Amendment, and they're going to keep going at it until until they achieve that that result.
00:05:42.400So I think that means that we can't just, you know, rest on our laurels here and kick back and say, well, this is over.
00:05:51.840And that's why I think it's important to make very clear what exactly as Christians and conservatives, as constitutionalists, as people who believe in freedom, we need to make clear what our point is exactly when it comes to these kinds of cases.
00:06:07.820And so that's why we have to stipulate, because there seems to be a lot of confusion in this regard.
00:06:15.240This is not a question of whether or not a business owner has the right to refuse service to anybody.
00:06:57.320Now, that's not how the laws in our country are actually written right now.
00:07:01.420But as the laws are currently written, you don't have the right to refuse service to anyone,
00:07:06.880and you don't have the right to discriminate based on who somebody is, even if I think that you should have that right.
00:07:14.200Now, and I know, of course, what people will say is, well, what if a business owner refuses service to somebody because they're black?
00:07:23.660Now, I think that would be morally wrong for a business owner to do that.
00:07:28.380It would also be financially suicidal.
00:07:31.540But yes, I think you should have that right.
00:07:33.840And if the government were to come out tomorrow and declare to all business owners, hey, you guys can do what you want, refuse service to anybody.
00:07:41.160If they were to say that, I don't think you're going to have hundreds of businesses who say, oh, finally, now we can discriminate against black people like we've always wanted to do.
00:07:52.500No, I don't think that's going to happen.
00:07:54.060I mean, and if you did have like two or three businesses in the entire country that said, okay, we're going to be segregated based on race now.
00:08:03.340So, fine, let them come out and announce that policy and their businesses will be, they'll be out of business by the next day.
00:08:12.340I mean, I give them about a 24 hour lifespan because they're going to lose all, only the most dedicated and hardcore racists would still patronize a business like that.
00:08:25.360And there just aren't enough people like that to keep a business going.
00:08:30.380If there is, in my local community, if there's a business owner out there who is so brimming with racism that he would deny service to black people if given the ability to do so, I say, yes, let him come out and announce himself.
00:08:46.340Let him expose himself so that I can stop giving him my money.
00:08:49.560Hey, if like a coffee shop down the street is run by a despicable, horrible racist, I'd prefer it if he announced it to everyone so that I can stop going there and giving him my money.
00:09:03.320Anyway, these are all interesting questions, but they're actually irrelevant to the Masterpiece Cake Shop case or to any of these Christian business owner cases, you know, when it comes to gay weddings and so forth.
00:09:17.660They're actually completely irrelevant because the question is not, it's not a question of can a business owner refuse service to someone based on who they are?
00:09:31.800The question is, can a business owner refuse to participate in or promote or celebrate an event that they think is morally wrong?
00:09:47.540So, Jack Phillips, he did not refuse service to gay people.
00:10:21.540He simply said, I cannot participate in this particular event.
00:10:26.820Now, if you want to buy a cake that you're going to just go home and eat yourself or you want to buy a birthday cake, you want to buy a cake for anything, whatever you want, you can have it.
00:10:37.420I just cannot make a special customized cake for a gay wedding.
00:10:44.540It's relevant to note that Jack Phillips in the past had many times in the past refused to make customized cakes for events that he thought were morally problematic.
00:10:59.380He refused to make Halloween cakes, as I mentioned.
00:11:02.760He refused to make lewd bachelor party cakes.
00:11:08.440He refused to make cakes for divorce parties.
00:11:13.100Now, we happen to live in a society, unfortunately, where divorce parties are a thing, where a couple gets divorced and sometimes they'll throw a party, kind of like they'll throw an anti-wedding reception or an unwedding reception or something, where they'll go out and they'll get a wedding-style cake, but they'll customize it and decorate it specially for divorce, and then they'll celebrate their divorce.
00:11:38.000Now, it just so happens that a few years ago, a guy went into Masterpiece Cake Shop, and he asked for a divorce party cake.
00:11:49.220He wanted a wedding cake that was split in half and decorated specially for divorce, and Jack Phillips refused him.
00:11:58.340Jack Phillips said, I can't make that cake.
00:12:00.480Now, does that mean that Phillips was refusing to serve a divorced person, or was he refusing to make something for a divorced party?
00:12:24.880Because when you're a master baker like Jack Phillips, when you're a brilliant baker, when this is your craft, this is what you do for a living, then for you, cake is a work of art.
00:12:40.220Now, you and I, when we make a cake from like a mix, from a box or something that we bought from the grocery store, that's not a work of art for us.
00:12:49.580But for Jack Phillips, it's a work of art.
00:12:52.100And so for him to make a piece of art that is specially designed to celebrate a certain kind of occasion, well, in his mind, he can't do that and use his creative powers to make this thing, to celebrate an occasion, if he thinks that the occasion itself is morally disordered.
00:13:37.420He should have the right to decide how he expends it and to what end.
00:13:42.480So the precedent that the court could set, but didn't, but the precedent they could have set, I think is really clear.
00:13:52.100And it's a precedent that would give rights and freedoms to guys like Jack Phillips, but would not allow a business owner to refuse service to someone based on their race.
00:14:03.200You know, there is, it is possible to draw a line there of distinction.
00:14:08.620Even though I happen to think that the easiest and simplest and most correct thing is just to give business owners the right to refuse service to anyone, that we don't even really need to go that far.
00:14:17.520What the Supreme Court could say is, you can refuse to participate in or promote or celebrate or provide a good or service to an event or activity that contradicts your moral or religious beliefs.
00:14:31.900So a black person who just wants to go in and buy a cake to refuse service to him, that doesn't, that doesn't qualify.
00:14:42.340That doesn't fall under the parameters here.
00:14:44.260And that also doesn't really fall under the parameters of the First Amendment.
00:14:49.220And if a gay person walked in the store and wanted to buy something, and you said, no, I don't, I'm not going to serve you because you're gay and I hate gay people.
00:14:58.400That doesn't fall under the parameters.
00:15:00.640And that also isn't really covered by the First Amendment.
00:15:02.980But if a person comes in, no matter who they are, and they say, hey, I've got this event coming up, and I want, and I, you know, it's, and I want to celebrate the event, and I want you to make something special for that event.
00:15:17.360Well, then a business owner has the right to decide whether or not that's the kind of event they want to be involved in, whether it's the kind of event that they want to dedicate their labor and their creative energies to celebrate.
00:15:36.420So, as this controversy continues, and we see more and more cases like this, it's really important for those of us who understand what these cases are really about, it's very important for us to correct people.
00:15:48.060Anytime you hear someone say, oh, it's, you know, they just want to refuse service to gay people, wrong.
00:15:57.220We are simply saying that a business owner has the right to discriminate against certain events, not people, events, occasions, activities.
00:16:11.540And I think on some level, we all must agree with that.
00:16:16.220Now, you might not think that a gay wedding should be one of those occasions, but I'm sure, just to use a classic example that people like to use,
00:16:24.200because I'm sure you would agree that if you had a black business owner, or really any kind of business owner of any race, and somebody walks in from the Klan and says,
00:16:35.180we're throwing a big bash for the 70th anniversary of our Klan chapter, and we want you to make a special cake for that occasion,
00:16:42.800the business owner should have the right to say, no, I'm not going to make a cake for that,
00:16:47.280because I happen to think that that event is morally wrong and terrible, and I don't want to be involved in it in any way, shape, or form.
00:16:54.200So, we all believe that there are lines that are drawn, which means that we have to give business owners the power and the right and the ability to make these determinations.