The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Friday that Colorado could not force website designer Lorie Smith to serve LGBTQ+ couples seeking wedding websites.
The ruling in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis has massive implications for LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination protections and other civil rights laws, as legal experts say those policies are now vulnerable to reinterpretation by courts.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court’s conservative majority, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. The justices ruled that the First Amendment shielded business owners from speaking against their conscience. Smith claimed that it was a violation of her religious beliefs to make wedding websites for same-sex couples.
“Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance,” wrote Gorsuch.
In her dissent, Sotomayor called the majority’s interpretation of the First Amendment “profoundly wrong.”
“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,” Sotomayor wrote.
LGBTQ+ legal experts said the ruling does not grant businesses a widespread license to turn away LGBTQ+ couples. Instead, it creates a carve-out for business owners creating and selling art to reject specific commissions against their conscience.
Jenny Pizer, chief legal officer at Lambda Legal, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ legal group, said that in this case, the court viewed Smith as a fine artist, similar to an oil painter. A sketch artist working at a popular pier likely…
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