INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIEF FILED ON BEHALF OF JACK PHILLIPS

Jack Phillips’s love for art and design began at an early age. Discovering that he could blend his skills as a pastry chef, sculptor, and painter, he spent nearly two decades in bakeries owned by others before opening Masterpiece Cakeshop twenty-four years ago. Long before television shows like Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes, Phillips carefully chose Masterpiece’s name: it would not be just a bakery, but an art gallery of cakes. With this in mind, Phillips created a Masterpiece logo depicting an artist’s paint palate with a paintbrush and whisk. And for over a decade, a large picture has hung in the shop depicting Phillips painting at an easel. Since long before this case arose, Phillips has been an artist using cake as his canvas with Masterpiece as his studio.

Phillips is also a man of deep religious faith whose beliefs guide his work. Those beliefs inspire him to love and serve people from all walks of life, but he can only create cakes that are consistent with the tenets of his faith. His decisions on whether to design a specific custom cake have never focused on who the customer is, but on what the custom cake will express or celebrate.

At issue here is whether Phillips may decline requests for wedding cakes that celebrate marriages in conflict with his religious beliefs. The First Amendment guarantees him that freedom because his wedding cakes, each one custom-made, are his artistic expression. Much like an artist sketching on canvas or a sculptor using clay, Phillips meticulously crafts each wedding cake through hours of sketching, sculpting, and hand-painting. The cake, which serves as the iconic centerpiece of the marriage celebration, announces through Phillips’s voice that a marriage has occurred and should be celebrated. The government can no more force Phillips to speak those messages with his lips than to express them through his art.