After a Denver bakery refused to make Colorado resident Bill Jack a cake with an anti-gay message, Jack filed a discrimination complaint with the state Department of Regulatory Agencies’ Civil Rights division, according to Colorado television station KUSA.
Marjorie Silva (pictured above), the owner of Azucar Bakery, said Jack asked her to write phrases like “God hates gays” on a cake in March 2014, according to KUSA. He also wanted an image of two men holding hands with an “X” through them on the cake.
“After I read it, I was like ‘No way,'” Silva told KUSA. “‘We’re not doing this. This is just very discriminatory and hateful.'”
She told FOX31 Denver that she did offer to make Jack a cake with a blank bible, on which he could write in the phrases himself. Silva said he refused that option and told her to consult with an attorney.
Jack filed a discrimination complaint against the bakery, and Silva then received a notice that the Department of Regulatory Affairs was investigating the complaint, KUSA reported on Tuesday.
In a statement, Jack said the bakery discriminated against him due to his religious beliefs.
“I believe I was discriminated against by the bakery based on my creed. As a result, I filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights division. Out of respect for the process, I will wait for the director to release his findings before making further comments,” he said, according to KUSA.
Jack is the founder of the Worldview Academy a camp “to train Christians to think and live in accord with a biblical worldview.”
Republican state lawmaker Gordon Klingenschmitt, the anti-gay former Navy chaplain who once tried to perform an exorcism on President Obama, has gotten involved in the case.
He told FOX31 Denver that he supports Silva’s right “not print the Bible on her cakes.”
Klingenschmitt is working on a bill to “repair” the state’s nondiscrimination statute.
“These laws have no religious or free speech exemptions,” he told FOX31. “So right now there’s a loophole that’s allowing these bakers to be brought up on charges of discrimination. I think the loophole ought to be fixed so that every baker, every artist, every person in Colorado is not compelled by the government to produced anything they personally disagree with.”
