October 2021 Persecution Magazine

Regulation of Religion
Baker Back in Court
In July, the French Parliament passed a law giving the government more control over religious
organizations and their activities. The new legislation grants the government the power to
close any houses of worship and dissolve any religious organizations it deems are provoking
violence or inciting hatred. Additionally, religious organizations are now required under the law
to obtain a government permit every five years to operate.
The new bill comes at a time when the French government is pushing France toward its model
of secularism to unify the French people. French politicians began a more concerted effort to
make this push following a series of terrorist attacks driven by religious extremism last year.
Although freedom of conscience and freedom to practice religion are enshrined in French
law, President Macron and his allies have increasingly emphasized that this freedom only exists
within the bounds of “public order.” As a result, the French government continues its attempts
to reign in religious groups into a mold of French secularism—a move that many are calling a
drastic overstep into individual freedoms of the French people.
ack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, gained national attention in 2018 when Phillips
J was sued by a gay couple for discrimination in a case that went all the way to the Supreme
Court. He is now being sued again for refusing to bake a cake for a transgender woman.
Autumn Scardina, the plaintiff in this year’s case, called Masterpiece Cakeshop and
specifically requested a pink and blue “birthday” cake to symbolize her transition in response
to the comments made by Phillips in the prior case. After the bakery declined to bake the cake
because of the message, Scardina filed a discrimination suit and won in a Colorado trial court.
Kristen Waggoner, General Counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) who is defending
Jack in court, said, “Radical activists and government officials are targeting artists like Jack
because they won’t promote messages on marriage and sexuality that violate their core
convictions. This case and others… represent a disturbing trend: the weaponization of our
justice system to ruin those with whom the activists disagree.”
ADF intends to appeal the trial court’s decision, potentially laying the groundwork for a
second appeal to the Supreme Court for Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop.
Defending Their Evangelical Identity
Cornerstone Adoption and Fostering Service, a Christian adoption agency based in England,
continues to defend its decision in Britain’s courts to place children exclusively with
heterosexual couples.
Aidan O’Neill, Cornerstone’s attorney, recently told the court that there is an “intimate link
between evangelical identity and an acknowledgement that sexual intimacy is to be enjoyed
exclusively within a marriage between two persons of the opposite sex.”
In 2019, the UK’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted)
downgraded Cornerstone’s former official “good” status to “requires improvement” due to
unlawful discrimination against same-sex couples and non-Christians. In 2020, a British trial
court heard Cornerstone’s case and the judge ruled that the agency was not allowed to require
all of its foster couples to be straight.
This case comes on the heels of a similar case in the United States. Over the summer, in Fulton
v. Philadelphia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Catholic adoption agency that had its
license revoked by the City of Philadelphia for only placing children with heterosexual couples.
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