The Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a website designer who wants to deny her services for same-sex weddings, though no one is asking her to provide such a service.
Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the decision on behalf of the Republican appointees, over dissent from the Democratic appointees. The First Amendment prohibits the state of Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees, the majority held.
“Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
It’s the latest high-court dispute over whether people can use the First Amendment to avoid complying with anti-discrimination laws. Recall the 2018 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop, where the court ruled for a baker who, citing his Christian beliefs, didn’t want to make a cake for a same-sex couple (in that case, unlike here, the couple actually sought a cake from the baker).
The case the court decided Friday, also from Colorado, involved Lorie Smith, who said she doesn’t want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples due to her religious beliefs as a Christian. She was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the same legal group that argued for the baker in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jack Phillips, and is arguing against the abortion pill in the ongoing mifepristone litigation.
You may remember Smith’s case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, as the one where, at the December argument, Justice Samuel Alito mused about Black shopping mall Santas and kids in Ku Klux Klan outfits.
Read the full text of the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis opinion below.
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