Christian bakers who are awaiting an upcoming Supreme Court Case revolving around same-sex wedding cakes will soon face a new kind of customer — from The Satanic Temple.
The Supreme Court plans to hear a First Amendment case this fall related to Jack Phillips, the Christian baker who made national headlines when he was ordered by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples. Members of The Satanic Temple, however, will add pressure on like-minded business owners in the meantime with a campaign that co-founder Lucien Greaves says is about religious freedom.
“The Satanic Temple (TST) has announced a plan for those who feel alienated or oppressed by the privileged status that religion holds over sexual orientation: Request your homophobic baker make a cake for Satan,” a press release provided to The Daily Caller on Thursday reads.
“Because religion is a protected class, a baker may refuse service to LGBTQ people, but they may not refuse service based upon someone’s religion. If they aren’t willing to make a cake for same-sex unions, let’s have them make a cake to honor Satan instead,” the statement continues.
Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Mr. Phillips, has said that forcing Christian bakers to provide custom-made LGBT wedding cakes is no different than if government bodies forced them “to speak those messages with [their] lips.”
Mr. Greaves objects, telling The Daily Caller that Christians seek “a type of super status” over others.
SEE ALSO: Jack Phillips, Christian baker, files Supreme Court brief ahead of hearing this fall
“If evangelical theocratic nationalists want to deny LGBTQ community services, then other people should be allowed to deny them services as well,” Mr. Greaves said. “I think that’s a legally tenable option. It’s not a very socially tenable option. We’ve already gone over this in the Jim Crow era, I think we came up with a kind of social contract that if you’re going to run a business and provide services to the public that you need to act within the boundaries of what is within accepted social behavior, regardless of your own religion or whatever else.”
The activist added that “a lot” of TST’s members come from the LGBT community.
“I feel like there’s obvious reasons for that,” Mr. Greaves said. “You know, we’re very into that kind of thing. There’s no issue of tolerance with us. And a lot of people who have grown up gay feel very alienated from traditional religion. So we have a very high population of LGBTQ community also as membership of the Satanic Temple.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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