Christian bigot cries foul after bakery refuses to print his message of hate: A Colorado bakery is under investigation for religious discrimination after a baker refused to write “God Hates Gays” on a cake for an obviously disturbed and mean-spirited Christian bigot.

Marjorie Silva, owner of Azucar Bakery, is facing a state discrimination investigation after refusing to make a cake with the ugly anti-gay message of Christian hate.

The problem began for the Denver bakery in March 2014, when customer Bill Jack requested a cake in the shape of a Bible and inscribed with the obnoxious phrase “God hates gays.”

Shop owner Marjorie Silva reports that Jack came into the bakery and pulled out a piece of paper with the phrase “God hates gays” and requested her to write it on his cake.

Silva said Jack wouldn’t let employees make a copy of the paper and would not read the words out loud.

To her credit, Bakery owner Silva rejected the Christian bigot’s request:

After I read it, I was like ‘No way. We’re not doing this. This is just very discriminatory and hateful.’

The source of the hateful Christian bigotry, Bill Jack, is a faculty member of Worldview Academy, a prominent non-denominational Christian organization based in Midland, Texas.

Recently Jack issued the following statement about his complaint:

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.

In a statement submitted to the state’s Department of Regulatory Agencies, Azucar owner Marjorie Silva said:

I would like to make it clear that we never refused service. We only refused to write and draw what we felt was discriminatory against gays. In the same manner we would not … make a discriminatory cake against Christians, we will not make one that discriminates against gays.

Jack has filed a complaint with the Civil Rights division of the Department of Regulatory Agencies. The bakery is now under investigation for religious discrimination, and if the agency feels discriminatory acts were committed, the case could move forward to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

In a press release issued today, Truth Wins Out attempts to point out the difference between a gay wedding cake, and anti-gay hate speech:

There is indeed a nuanced difference between a bakery’s refusal to make a cake for a wedding because the customers are gay and a refusal to participate in hate speech at a customer’s behest, hate speech which does not have anything to do with a person’s religious beliefs.

Thought experiment: Instead of gay marriage and anti-gay Christian bigotry, substitute mixed race marriage and the supposed sin of miscegenation (the interbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types).

Following this analogy, a bakery would be obligated to bake a wedding cake for the mixed race couple; however, it does not follow that the same bakery would be obligated to print a message of hate aimed at mixed race couples, a message like “God hates mixed race couples.”

As a public business, a bakery cannot discriminate against a class of people based on race or sexual orientation. However, this fact does not obligate a bakery to print messages of hate aimed at a particular class of people.

The distinction may be subtle and nuanced, but the subtlety and nuance does not negate the distinction.

Bottom line: Refusing to participate in hate speech is different from refusing to serve a customer because of that customer’s sexual or racial identity. Refusing to participate in hate speech is the moral and right thing to do, while discriminating against individuals based on race or sexual orientation is illegal and immoral.