America’s Example Shows Why We Need To Worry about Vexatious LGBT Lawsuits

Discrimination and prejudice cannot be abided. But it is also a fact that in pursuit of the worthy cause of eradicating them, there are forces that aim to recklessly destroy tradition or secure advantage. We cannot abide by these activists threatening the livelihoods of hard-working, sensible people.

On this point, we must be wary of LGBT bills that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity. The scope of discrimination is unclear. Their proponents say there is no cause for alarm over vexatious lawsuits or reverse discrimination around the LGBT problem (homosexuals and other sexual minorities), but will that be the case? Let’s look at the example of America, where the problem has long since been radicalized.

Around Wedding Cakes

In 2012, Jack Phillips, a baker in Colorado, turned down a wedding cake order from a gay couple due to his beliefs. At the time, he said that he would gladly sell ready-made goods or a birthday cake.

Phillips, who describes himself as a “cake artist,” found his joy in the process of listening to engaged couples’ stories of how they fell in love and their dreams for the future, then creating a singular work through artistic inspiration. According to his home page, “Masterpiece Cakeshop will happily create custom cakes for anyone. But … Jack … cannot create custom cakes… that conflict with his religious beliefs.”

It’s understandable for a first-class painter to reject an order for a portrait, but for a mere cake shop to say something so impertinent (leftists really made these kinds of criticisms) — that would be discrimination, prejudice.

The gay couple complained to the state civil rights commission, which found that Phillips’ rejection of their order qualified as “discrimination based on sexual orientation” and ordered him to make the cake. Furthermore, it implemented “comprehensive staff training” by LGBT experts and ordered quarterly reports on the situation.

Phillips refused and chose to withdraw from cake baking (his sales had declined by 40%). But when he couldn’t stop crying himself to sleep, he filed a lawsuit alleging that coercing congratulations for a gay wedding against his religious beliefs was unconstitutional.

1-Sided Hostility against a Baker

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Phillips. According to the court’s majority view, the civil rights commission ought to have weighed both the dignity of homosexuals and freedom of religion, but instead showed a one-sided hostility against Phillips. “The commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. … The record shows no objection to these comments from other commissioners.”

This kind of human rights advocacy civil rights commission can easily become a leftist stronghold. This sort of situation has already developed.

In conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch’s concurring opinion, “it is in protecting unpopular religious beliefs that we prove this country’s commitment to serving as a refuge for religious freedom.” Precisely because accepting gay marriage is fashionable, Phillips’ “unpopular religious beliefs” must be defended all the more.

Far-left Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg strongly dissented from the court’s opinion, insisting that any action that distinguished between gay and straight marriage could not be allowed. (She died last September in office. She was the second female Supreme Court justice in American history.)

Tomomi Inada, a Liberal Democratic member of Parliament passionate about the LGBT bills, has long expressed her admiration for Ginsburg. She has made sorrowful statements like: “Ms. Ginsburg has passed away. In an age when women were discriminated against, she was a great lawyer with conviction who realized the justice and impartiality of the law. I regret that I never got the chance to meet her.” Does Inada also support Ginsburg’s position on the LGBT issue?

Let’s Not Make This Japan’s Near Future

Although Phillips won his case, for six years he could not bake the cakes that he liked and had to cope with a drop in income. What’s more, he has been hit with another lawsuit — this time by a transgender woman (henceforth, “A”).

When Phillips rejected her order for a cake to celebrate her birthday and the seven-year anniversary of her gender transition, she pointed out the contradiction with his statement that wedding cakes were no good but birthday cakes were fine. A is an LGBT activist and a lawyer.

Phillips’ view is that he obviously cannot make a cake to celebrate a gender transition due to his religious beliefs, but then A and the legal association supporting her subtly changed the relevant law and pressed on with the lawsuit.

For them, the famed Phillips means a lot of publicity; he is an ideal target.

In Japan, if the LGBT Equality Act is given as a weapon to leftist activists, many of this sort of vexatious lawsuit will probably be brought against individuals and companies.

I described this, along with Chinese and North Korean policy, as the situation in America that could be Japan’s near future in my book “The Dissolution of America” (to be published in late August by Business Corp.). I would appreciate it if you consulted it.