What’s a simple definition of slavery?: “submission to a dominating influence.” If a person is forced to do work against his will, then that person is a slave. That’s certainly the case with Colorado baker Jack Phillips:

Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission on Friday ordered a baker to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples, finding his religious objections to the practice did not trump the state’s anti-discrimination statutes.

The unanimous ruling from the seven-member commission upheld an administrative law judge’s finding in December that Jack Phillips violated civil rights law when he refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple in 2012. The couple sued.

What if a panel of Nazis ordered a Jewish tailor to make patches for Jews to wear that identified them as Jews and there was an ordinance that declared that anyone refusing to help identify Jews would result in civil sanctions?

What if a government commission ordered a black printer to print signs for a KKK rally?

What if a government commission compelled a catering service owned by homosexuals to supply food and beverages for an anti-homosexual conference?

These new anti-discrimination laws are special rights laws. Not everyone is protected by them, only people who engage in a certain type of sexual behavior. This is insanity.

The wicked strut about on every side when vileness is exalted among the sons of men. (Psalm 12:8).

One of the commissioners said, in defense of the ruling, “I can believe anything I want, but if I’m going to do business here, I’d ought to not discriminate against people.” His grammar is as bad as his logic.

Phillips is not discriminating against people. He’s rationally and morally discriminating against behavior.

As the above examples show, such discrimination takes place every day in American business that we never hear about and almost no one would ever object to.

Mr. Phillips is now a slave to the state of Colorado and any customer who comes into his bakery. He is being compelled to do work for somebody whose actions he finds morally compromising.

Let’s say a homosexual group wants him to do a pornographic cake. Will he be able to refuse the order? And yet, if a heterosexual group ordered the same type of cake, and the bakery refused, no one’s rights would have been violated. Same type of cake, but one protected class of people makes all the difference in the world.

Phillips, a devout Christian who owns the Masterpiece Cakeshop in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, said the decision violates his First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of his religion. “I will stand by my convictions until somebody shuts me down,” he told reporters after the ruling.

He added his bakery has been so overwhelmed by supporters eager to buy cookies and brownies that he does not currently make wedding cakes.

Remember when we were told that laws protecting same-sex sexuality and legalizing homosexual marriage would have no effect on people who opposed such things? Live and let live, we were told. Yea, right.

The odd thing about this ruling is that same-sex marriage is not legal in Colorado. Of course, it won’t be long before some unelected judge changes that.

To show that Mr. Phillips is a slave to the state of Colorado, “The panel . . . ordered Phillips to stop discriminating against gay people and to report quarterly for two years on staff anti-discrimination training and any customers he refuses to serve.”

Not only is he a slave, but he has to go through re-education to force him to comply with what the state mandates.

“I’m not going to make cakes for same-sex weddings,” Phillips said. “That violates my First Amendment speech … and my duty as a Christian abiding by my savior.”

The Bible is on his side:

  •  “But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20).
  • “When they had brought them, they stood them before the Council. The high priest questioned them, saying, ‘We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.’ But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men’” (Acts 5:27-29).

It’s hard to imagine that someone is being forced to provide a nonessential service for someone who engages in explicitly immoral (and illegal) activity.