RELIGION
Masterpiece Co-Founders Challenged Divorce Rules
Relatives of Jack Phillips cited hypocrisy of some Christian teachings
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
While an evangelical
baker in Colorado
who was at the center
of legal disputes
over religious liberty drew a hard
biblical line in his refusal to make a
wedding cake for a gay couple, two
evangelical co-founders and apparently
the sole funders of that bakery
published a book that argued that
the biblical rules on divorce resulted
from misinterpretations of the
Bible and needed to be rethought.
“Some teach that good Christians
must not consider divorce
and must not even mention the
word divorce,” says “Rethinking
Biblical Divorce: Let Scripture Be
Your Guide,” a 2017 book. “This
may sound wise, but it is not a biblical
teaching. Not only is this unbiblical,
it can also lead to much
hypocrisy.”
The book was authored by James
Sander, his wife Linda Sander, and
apparently one of their fi ve children.
James is the brother-in-law
of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker
who cited his religious views in
refusing to make a wedding cake
for a gay couple in 2012. The couple
fi led an ultimately successful
discrimination complaint against
Phillips with the Colorado Human
Rights Commission and that
launched a case that eventually
arrived at the US Supreme Court
in 2017. In 2018, the court issued
a narrow opinion that struck down
the judgment against Phillips saying
the commission had shown
anti-religious bias against him.
Phillips, who is an evangelical
Christian, and other right wingers
wanted a broader ruling that
limited or perhaps even eliminated
the reach of anti-discrimination
laws as they might apply to religious
conservatives who claim a
religious exemption in refusing to
employ, rent, sell to, or otherwise
serve LGBTQ people.
Sander and his wife, Phillips’ sister,
are listed as two of the four members
of the board of directors of Masterpiece
Cakeshop, Phillips’ bakery, in
the 1992 incorporation documents.
A book authored by relatives of Masterpiece Cakeshop baker Jack Phillips said biblical rules on divorce
need to be rethought.
The other two board members are
Phillips and his wife Debra. James
and Jack are listed as the two incorporators
in those documents.
Phillips published “The Cost of
My Faith: How a Decision in My
Cake Shop Took Me to the Supreme
Court” in May of this year.
In the acknowledgments, Phillips
wrote “Linda and Jim, when
I didn’t have the money to match
my dreams, you’ve been there, not
only with physical, tangible help,
but also with the spiritual example
of what God has designed us to do
for brothers in Christ.”
In response to a July 6 email to
Jack and James asking a number
of questions, including if Sander
and his wife were still legally involved
in the business and if Jack
believed that the Bible is the inerrant
word of God, Jack wrote “I
forwarded your questions to my
attorney.” Other than that July 6
response, Gay City News had not
received a response as of July 12.
Evangelicals cite multiple verses
in the Bible to argue that divorce
should be strictly limited to those
instances in which a spouse engages
in sexual immorality. Some Christian
denominations bar divorce
entirely or will not marry people
who have previously divorced. The
Sander book argues that there are
instances, such as when a spouse
abuses the other spouse, in which
REUTERS/RICK WILKING
divorce is the correct and only remedy
and that doctrinal and social
sanctions should not be applied.
Evangelicals have long carved
out exceptions to biblical rules for
themselves even as they condemn
others for violating those rules or
insist that others must follow other
rules to the letter. In response to
the July 6 email, Phillips did not
explain how his absolute line on
baking a wedding cake for a gay
couple could exist with an argument
that says that many evangelicals
do not understand the
Bible’s view on divorce made by a
co-founder of his business.
The push for exemptions from
anti-discrimination laws for religious
conservatives is a recent
phenomenon, though this is a
movement without a cause. While
there were religious conservatives
who claimed such exemptions prior
to 2004 when Massachusetts allowed
same-sex couples to marry,
the wider effort to effectively gut
anti-discrimination laws began in
earnest after 2004 with a conference
on same-sex marriage and
religious liberty sponsored by the
Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
In friend of the court briefs fi led
in US Supreme Court cases in
2013, the Becket Fund opposed
overturning California’s Prop. 8, a
2008 ballot initiative that banned
same-sex marriage in that state,
and the Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA), a 1996 federal law that
barred federal recognition of samesex
marriages and allowed states
to refuse to recognize same-sex
marriages. The Becket Fund also
supported Prop. 8 in 2008.
In 2008, the Becket Fund published
“Same Sex Marriage and
Religious Liberty: Emerging Confl
icts” with chapters from six attorneys.
The book was edited by Anthony
Picarello, the general counsel
at the US Conference of Catholic
Bishops; Douglas Laycock, a law
professor at the University of Virginia
who has consistently argued
for creating exceptions for religious
liberty to state and federal laws;
and Robin Fretwell Wilson, a law
professor at the University of Illinois
and a leading proponent of
carving out religious exceptions to
state and federal laws.
Some authors made shrill predictions
about the clashes that
they claimed were coming and the
harm that religious liberty would
endure due to same-sex marriage,
but pointed to no confl icts. Wilson
cited just three commitment ceremonies
that resulted in disputes.
One author, Charles Reid, a law
professor at the University of St.
Thomas, said that same-sex marriage
“miseducates the public”
about the meaning of marriage,
but concluded that “this miseducation
has — at least thus far —
had a relatively minor impact on
the broader understanding on the
broader historical and cultural
understanding of the meaning of
marriage” in the US.
In 2018, Wilson and William Eskridge,
an out gay law professor at
Yale, edited “Religious Freedom,
LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for
Common Ground.” One contributor,
Ryan Anderson, now the president of
the right wing Ethics & Public Policy
Center, wrote that the confl icts “involve
an astonishingly small number
of business owners who cannot
in good conscience support samesex
wedding celebrations.”
In 1982, Wisconsin became the
➤ MASTERPIECE, continued on p.23
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