Supreme Court Rules Web Designer Can Refuse Services To Same-Sex Weddings; Activists See Ruling As Setback To LGBTQ Rights
The Supreme Court ruled that a website designer could refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings, despite a Colorado non-discrimination law.
The court ruled that the designer was within First Amendment rights to refuse such services, but activists said the decision was a setback for LGBTQ rights.
“This is a dangerous step backward and gives some businesses the license to discriminate,” The Human Rights Campaign said in a statement.
In the ruling (read it here), the court was split 6-3 along ideological lines.
Related Story
Supreme Court Rules Race Can't Be A Factor In College Admissions In Decision That Sharply Limits Affirmative Action
The case involved a website designer, Lorie Smith, who wanted to expand her graphic design business to couples seeking wedding websites. Worried that she would be challenged if she refused to create sites for same-sex couples, she filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction to prevent Colorado from enforcing a statute barring discrimination in public accommodation, including discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The court’s majority said that if the state would have forced her to produce same-sex wedding website against her beliefs, it would violate her freedom of expression. Justice Neil Gorsuch, in the majority opinion, wrote, “In this case, 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.”
He added that “abiding the Constitution’s commitment to the freedom of speech means all of us will encounter ideas we consider ‘unattractive’ … ‘misguided, or even hurtful.’ But tolerance, not coercion, is our Nation’s answer. 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.”
In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “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.”
“Around the country, there has been a backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities. New forms of inclusion have been met with reactionary exclusion. This is heartbreaking. Sadly, it is also familiar. When the civil rights and women’s rights movements sought equality in public life, some public establishments refused. Some even claimed, based on sincere religious beliefs, constitutional rights to discriminate. The brave Justices who once sat on this Court decisively rejected those claims.”
She added that “the law in question targets conduct, not speech, for regulation, and the act of discrimination has never constituted protected expression under the First Amendment. Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.”
Smith, though, argued that she was willing to work with all people regardless of their race, creed or sexual orientation and gender, but would not produce expressive content that contradicted her religious beliefs that marriage was between a man and a woman.
Gorsuch wrote, “Doubtless, determining what qualifies as expressive activity protected by the First Amendment can sometimes raise difficult questions. But this case presents no complication of that kind.
The parties have stipulated that Ms. Smith seeks to engage in expressive activity. And the Tenth Circuit has recognized her services involve ‘pure speech.”
The decision was not a surprise, given the questions that justices posed in oral arguments.
Sotomayor wrote that the majority’s “logic cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation or gender identity. The decision threatens to balkanize the market and to allow the exclusion of other groups from many services.”
She wrote that “the reason for discrimination need not even be religious, as this case arises under the Free Speech Clause. A stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple because she opposes their having a child. A large retail store could reserve its family portrait services for ‘traditional’ families. And so on.”
More to come.
Must Read Stories
‘Dial Of Destiny’ Digs Up $7.2M On Thursday; ‘Barbie’ Set For $80M-$100M Bow
2-Time Oscar Winner Labeled “Sexual Bully” As Trial Begins In London
Talks Extension In Play As Deal Expires At Midnight Tonight; Picket Lines
Rules Web Designer Can Refuse Services To Same-Sex Weddings
Read More About:
Source: Read Full Article