Black leaders: Declining to bake a gay ‘wedding’ cake isn’t same as racism

African-American leaders launched a new campaign expressing their support for Jack Phillips, the baker whose case of refusing to create a same-sex “wedding” cake has gone all the way to the Supreme Court and will be heard later this year.

The leaders spoke outside the Supreme Court on Monday in support of Phillips. They also launched a website to accompany their campaign, called “We Got Your Back, Jack.”

One of Monday’s speakers was Clarence Henderson, who participated in the Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins.

Another was Janet Boynes of Janet Boynes Ministries. She was active in homosexuality for 14 years and now helps “individuals who question their sexuality or who wish to leave homosexuality,” according to her website.

Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel also participated in the pro-Phillips event, which was sponsored by the Frederick Douglass Foundation.

“No person should be forced by the government to violate his or her conscience,” said Rev. Dean Nelson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation. No one should be forced out of business and have his livelihood destroyed because of what they believe.”

Rally speaker Patrina Mosley, assistant director of Family Research Council Action, told LifeSiteNews it’s important to note that creative artists aren’t declining to serve anyone because of who they’re attracted to sexually but rather because they don’t want to create art for a ceremony that goes against their beliefs.

Phillips “had served gays all the time,” she said, “but he has a moral code and a religious conviction to not do all kinds of cakes or all types of events.”

Phillips, a Christian, has declined to create cakes celebrating divorce, Halloween, and “cakes that even had really offensive” language from “people who wanted to abuse the LGBT community verbally,” said Mosley. “He wouldn’t do those cakes,” just as he wouldn't create a cake celebrating a same-sex “wedding.”

Because of his “deeply held religious convictions,” Phillips has “become the target of hateful, nasty, unsubstantiated attacks from the press and activists (who) are blinded by vengeful cause to destroy an honorable Christian man,” said Nelson. 

“Those in the LGBT community have always been served and never turned away simply because of their sexual orientation,” Mosley explained. This is different from people being “turned away simply because of their color.”

“There was systematic racism towards the color of their skin,” said Mosley. “They couldn’t eat at certain establishments, they couldn’t choose their seat on the bus, they had inequality in the school system and in the job sphere.”

The Radiance Foundation, led by Ryan Bomberger, is also part of the campaign backing Phillips. The Radiance Foundation released a graphic noting that people have never been relegated to certain water fountains because of their sexual proclivities, but African-Americans were because of their looks.

Patrina said some of her colleagues at the Supreme Court rally “did express that race is an immutable quality” whereas sexual orientation “is fluid” and something “that can change.”

“You see many people come out of the LGBTQ lifestyle” and no longer identify as gay or lesbian.

“A law would be no good if it’s based on such subjectivity,” said Mosley. “The law is made for objectivity and for immutable qualities such as race,” which is “something you cannot change.”

'The very nature of the First Amendment is the freedom to coexist'

One of the participants in the “We Got Your Back, Jack” campaign is Day Gardner, who was Miss Delaware in 1976. She shared how she received death threats for participating in the Miss America pageant.

Gardner, who now directs the National Black Pro-Life Union and other non-profits, shared how she paraded down the Atlantic City boardwalk with other contestants fearing for her life.

“A few nights before the pageant parade, I actually received a lot of mail and several of the letters – one in particular – said that I would not reach the end of the parade if I didn’t pull out,” she recalled.

“I’ve got Jack’s back,” she said after sharing her story.

“What the LGBTQ activists (are) failing to realize … is that the civil rights movement was born out of the very conscience that they’re trying to quench,” Mosley noted. “It was Martin Luther King’s appeal to conscience that gave rise to the civil rights movement.”

That conscientious belief was based on the notion that “all men are created equal” and the certain unalienable rights that come from their creator “include the free exercise and expression of religion,” she said.

“This right is guaranteed to every American,” she said. “The very nature of the First Amendment is the freedom to coexist.”

Mosley said she supports the freedom of conscience for everyone, not just Christians.

“I would hate for someone to force an LGBT member to do something that was against their conscience, or their faith,” she said. “I would hate for LGBT cake (bakers) to have to make a cake that said, ‘I hate gays.’ I don’t think that they should be forced to do that.”

Should the Supreme Court rule against Phillips, Mosley said Americans should still “cling to” the First Amendment and their basic freedom of religion.

“Like Martin Luther King, Jr. once said ... if there’s an unjust law, we are called to follow God and not man,” she said.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s niece, Dr. Alveda King, is also part of the “We Got Your Back, Jack” campaign.