Christian web designer prevails in high court gay discrimination case

WASHINGTON (CN) — A Christian website designer should not be forced to serve same-sex couples, the Supreme Court ruled Friday, split on party lines.

"The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the 6-3 majority.

It's a ruling that marks a first in American history, according to the dissenting justices.

“Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. “The Supreme Court of the United States declares that a particular kind of business, though open to the public, has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”

Reading her lengthy opinion from the bench, Sotomayor said the majority has authorized the right to discriminate.

“By issuing this new license to discriminate in a case brought by a company that seeks to deny same-sex couples the full and equal enjoyment of its services, the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status,” Sotomayor wrote.

Sotomayor said the decision is a notice that says: “Some services may be denied to same-sex couples.”

Highlighting the timing of the ruling — Friday is also the last day of Pride month — President Joe Biden said he was concerned it would lead to more discrimination against the LGBTQ community.

“In America, no person should face discrimination simply because of who they are or who they love,” Biden said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis undermines that basic truth, and painfully it comes during Pride month when millions of Americans across the country join together to celebrate the contributions, resilience, and strength of the LGBTQI+ community.”

Biden called on Congress to protect the rights of LGBTQ Americans by passing the Equality Act.

Lorie Smith runs a wedding website design business in Colorado, but, as a Christian, she claims it would violate her religious beliefs to make these websites for LGBTQ couples getting married.

Public accommodation laws state that if Smith offers her services to the public, she has to offer them to everyone, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation. Smith is now challenging Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws, claiming they force her to choose between her religious beliefs and following state law.

Smith’s case builds off a 2018 dispute involving LGBTQ couples and wedding cakes also out of Colorado. Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission involved a baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The state’s civil rights commission charged the artisan with discrimination, leading to a suit that would end up on the high court steps.

While it had the makings of a blockbuster case, it turned into somewhat of a dud when the court passed on an essential question at the case's heart. The justices said the commission’s actions did violate the baker's rights, but the court lacked a majority to rule on if his rights were violated by a requirement to make a cake for a same-sex couple.

In this case, it's not even clear if any same-sex couple asked Smith to build them a wedding website. She nevertheless filed a suit with the assumption that the state’s laws would force her to comply with such a hypothetical request. A federal judge dismissed the suit and the 10th Circuit found the state had a compelling interest in ensuring public access to Smith’s services.

At the Supreme Court in December, Smith argued that Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws conflicted with her free speech rights.

“Lorie Smith blends art with technology to create custom messages using words and graphics,” her attorney, Kristen Waggoner with the Alliance Defending Freedom, said during oral arguments. “She serves all people, deciding what to create based on the message, not who requests it. But Colorado declares her speech a public accommodation and insists that she create and speak messages that violate her conscience.”

Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson said a ruling against the state’s public accommodation laws could create a license to discriminate.

“The company can choose to sell websites that only feature biblical quotes describing a marriage as between a man and a woman, just like a Christmas store can choose to sell only Christmas-related items,” Olson said during oral arguments. “The company just cannot refuse to serve gay couples, as it seeks to do here, just as a Christmas store can not announce no Jews allowed.”

Gorsuch said anti-discrimination laws had helped secure the civil rights of all Americans but Colorado’s law does not inhibit the sale of goods and services on equal terms.

“It seeks to use its law to compel an individual to create speech she does not believe,” the Trump appointee wrote.

The First Amendment, under Gorsuch’s reading, protects the rights of individuals to speak their minds regardless of the government’s thoughts on what they say. The government can also not force an individual to speak a certain message.

Just as the First Amendment cannot force schoolchildren to recite a pledge, Gorsuch said Colorado cannot force Smith to make websites for gay couples.

“If she wishes to speak, she must either speak as the State demands or face sanctions for expressing her own beliefs, sanctions that may include compulsory participation in ‘remedial … training,’ filing periodic compliance reports as officials deem necessary, and paying monetary fines,” Gorsuch wrote. “Under our precedents, that ‘is enough,’ more than enough, to represent an impermissible abridgment of the First Amendment’s right to speak freely.”

If the opposite were true, Gorsuch contends, the government could force all kinds of violations on individuals.

“Equally, the government could force a male website designer married to another man to design websites for an organization that advocates against same-sex marriage,” Gorsuch wrote. “Countless other creative professionals, too, could be forced to choose between remaining silent, producing speech that violates their beliefs, or speaking their minds and incurring sanctions for doing so.”

The dissenting justices disagreed. Sotomayor said Smith should not get an exemption from state law.

Pointing to attacks on the LGBTQ community over the last few years, the Obama appointee argued that progress for the group has been met with reactionary exclusion.

“This is heartbreaking,” Sotomayor wrote. “Sadly, it is also familiar. When the civil rights and women’s rights movements sought equality in public life, some public establishments refused.”

Sotomayor said the courts faced a similar test as they did back then today, but that this time, the court failed.

“Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group,” Sotomayor said.

She emphasized as well that public accommodation laws serve to make sure everyone can receive the same services without discrimination.

“LGBT people do not seek any special treatment,” Sotomayor wrote. “All they seek is to exist in public. To inhabit public spaces on the same terms and conditions as everyone else.”

Smith said she faced death threats for her beliefs but the high court’s ruling affirms her rights to only make websites with messages she supports.

“I’m incredibly grateful for the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, which says I am free to create art consistent with my beliefs without fear of Colorado punishing me,” the website designer reacted Friday.

Follow @KelseyReichmann

Categories / Appeals, Arts, Civil Rights, Religion

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Christian web designer prevails in high court gay discrimination case

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