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VietnameseGriffin: ‘Individuals can’t use the power of the state to compel others to profess something they do not believe.’
LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin today led a 22-state coalition filing an amicus brief with the Colorado Supreme Court arguing that the First Amendment protects Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop, Inc. from being required to create a cake expressing a message contrary to his beliefs. Griffin issued the following statement:
“For 11 years, Jack Phillips has been in court fighting for his right to speak consistent with his beliefs. The Supreme Court of the United States has already held that Colorado acted with hostility toward Phillips’ religious beliefs when it tried to force him to create a cake celebrating same-sex marriage. Yet on the same day the Supreme Court decided to hear that case, a transgender activist seeking to ‘correct’ the ‘errors of … Phillips’ thinking’ requested a cake celebrating gender transition—and hauled Phillips back into court when he refused to make it.
“Individuals can’t use the power of the state to compel others to profess something they do not believe. That is why I am proud to file this brief to protect all Americans’ religious liberty and free speech rights under the Constitution.”
Other states joining the brief include Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
To read Griffin’s filing, click here.
Background
In 2012, Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Inc., declined to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. When the couple complained, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission censured Phillips for discrimination. Later, the state court of appeals sided with the commission, concluding that Phillips’ custom cakes weren’t expressive and that the First Amendment did not apply to him.
The Supreme Court of the United States disagreed and reversed the Colorado Court of Appeals. Though it did not decide whether applying Colorado anti-discrimination law to Phillips restricted his free expression, it concluded that the Commission had acted with “hostility” to his “religious viewpoint.”
Unfortunately, Phillips’ victory in the Supreme Court of the United States did not end Colorado’s assault on his beliefs. The very day the Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ case, transgender activist and attorney Autumn Scardina contacted Philips and asked him to create “a birthday cake with a pink interior and a blue exterior” that would reflect Scardina’s “transition from male-to-female.” As Scardina later explained, the request was designed to “correct” the “errors of … Philips’ thinking.”
When Phillips refused the request, Scardina complained to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. But before the Commission could again censure Phillips, he sued in federal court. After the federal district court concluded that Phillips had plausibly pled that the Commission was once again targeting him in bad faith, the Commission closed its investigation.
Scardina then chose to sue Phillips in state court. Characterizing Phillips’ refusal to accept Scardina’s view of gender as intolerable, the trial court and court of appeals concluded that his cakes were not expressive and found him liable for discrimination.
The amicus brief filed today asks the Supreme Court of Colorado to take up Phillips’ challenge and conclude that he cannot be compelled to create custom cakes expressing a message contrary to his beliefs. The Supreme Court of the United States is currently considering a similar challenge to Colorado’s antidiscrimination laws brought by a website designer who does not want to create websites for same-sex weddings.
About Attorney General Tim Griffin
Tim Griffin was elected attorney general of Arkansas on November 8, 2022. He was elected lieutenant governor of Arkansas on November 4, 2014, and was re-elected for his second four-year term on November 6, 2018. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District. For the 113th Congress, he was a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority. In the 112th Congress, he served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway, and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He attended graduate school at Oxford University. Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for over 25 years and currently holds the rank of colonel. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault in Mosul, Iraq). He is currently serving as the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) for the 81st Readiness Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Prior to his current post, Griffin served as the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment (LOD) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and a senior legislative advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Griffin holds a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush. Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.
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