When we start gathering in Denver next week for Creating Change 2015, I hope that one of the places we delegates visit and patronize is the
Azucar Bakery owned by Marjorie Silva.
Remember the ridiculous 'swastika cakes' line that Houston suburban hate preacher Steve Riggle uttered during our HERO fight last year?
It stems from a Colorado case in which a right wing leaning baker named Jack Phillips ran afoul of Colorado's anti-discrimination law for refusing to bake a weeding cake for a gay couple. Because white privilege addled right wingers wouldn't know discrimination if it slapped them in the face like it does non-whites, TBLG people and women on an almost daily basis, they have a loud and wrong conservainterpretation of it that is not based in reality.
They seem to think their religious beliefs trump human rights law. Um, no they don't.
And by the way Steve, Houston bakers still aren't being forced to bake swastika cakes. But Houstonians are still having to deal with discrimination inside our city limits because HERO hasn't been implemented because of your friends baseless anti-human rights lawsuit.
Okay, back to Ms Silva's story.
In their zeal to prove a false equivalency, right wing activist Bill Jack rolled over from Castle Rock, CO and trolled 40 year old Marjorie Silva's Denver bakery and asked her to make a Bible shaped cake, which she agreed to do.
But when they were about to complete the order, according to Silva, Jack then handed her a piece of paper with hateful words about gays that he wanted written on the cake. He also wanted the cake to have two men holding hands and an X on top of them.
"It's just horrible. It doesn't matter if, you know, if you're Catholic, or Jewish, or Christian, if I'm gay or not gay or whatever,"
said Silva to KUSA-TV, adding in the interview that she has made cakes regularly for all religious occasions. "We should all be loving each other. I mean there's no reason to discriminate."
Silva said she would bake the cake, but would give him a pastry bag and icing to write the hateful anti-gay words on the cake himself.
Jack didn't want that, claimed he'd been 'discriminated' against and subsequently filed a complaint against Azucar Bakery with the Colorado Civil Rights Division.
"There's no law that says that a cake-maker has to write obscenities in the cake just because the customer wants it," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Colorado.
And that's the key difference in the Silva and Phillips cases. She didn't refuse to bake the cake, she refused to write the offensive message on it. She offered a solution for the customer to do it himself that he rejected. That's a First Amendment free speech issue, not a public accommodations one
And I'm also not liking the racist fact the right wing christobigot chose a Latina owned bakery in Denver to attack.
Since Creating Change 2015 will be kicking off in Denver next week, why don't we show Ms. Silva some love and support and buy any baked goods needed at the conference from her Azucar Bakery while we're in the Mile High City?
There is also a
gofundme campaign that has been started to help defray her legal expenses from this right wing trolling of her.
And for you TBLG peeps and allies in the Denver metro area, may I suggest pre and post CC15 you put Ms. Silva's bakery on your support list when you need to purchase a cake or baked goods for your future rainbow community events.
This is also a golden opportunity to show the nation and the world that we TBLG folks stand by and with our community allies when they are unjustly attacked while sticking it to the right wing christobigots at the same time.
And I can't think of a more delicious way to fight anti-LGBT hatred.
