Thanks for publishing my photograph, @CoIndependent, and for the helpful analysis, Mike Littwin (@mike_littwin).
Clearly, there is a lot more to this than other publications want to acknowledge. One of the other publications that used this same photo for their story had their license to use it revoked (Thanks for removing my photo from your website, TechCrunch, and what a tyrant doesn’t look like).
Colorado Independent gets to keep using the photo 🙂 .
They didn’t discuss a design. It wasn’t about what message would be on the cake. There could have been no message on the cake. It was simply that Phillips wouldn’t make any cake, with any design, for a same-sex wedding because he was religiously opposed.
Phillips says he is an artist, like, say, Picasso. And therefore his freedom of expression is protected. In my view, baking a cake is, well, baking a cake. I’m sure it’s hard. I once made a cake for my wife’s birthday from scratch, and it was a disaster, and I only tried two layers. But artistry? Let’s just say in most museums, the only place to find a cake is in the cafeteria.