Supreme Court supports web designer against same-sex marriage

The Supreme Court side on Friday with a web designer in Colorado saying she had a First Amendment right to refuse to design wedding websites for same-sex couples despite a state law prohibiting discrimination against gays.

Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for the majority by a 6-3 vote, said the First Amendment protected the designer, Lorie Smith, from being forced to express an opinion she opposed.

“A hundred years ago, Mrs. Smith might have provided her services with pen and paper,” he wrote. “Those services are no less protected speech today, because they are conveyed with a ‘voice that resonates farther than a soapbox could.'”

The case, while presented as a clash between free speech and gay rights, was the latest in a series of decisions in favor of religious people and groups, particularly conservative Christians.

The decision also seemed to suggest that LGBTQ people’s rights, including same-sex marriage, have a more fragile legal basis, especially when they conflict with claims of religious freedom. At the same time, the ruling limits governments’ ability to enforce anti-discrimination laws.

The judges split along ideological lines and the two sides seemed to be talking past each other. The majority saw the decision as a victory that secured First Amendment artists’ right to express themselves. The liberal justices saw it as something quite different — a dispute that threatened societal protections for gay rights and reversed some recent advances.

In an impassioned dissenting opinion, Judge Sonia Sotomayor warned that the outcome marked a return to a time when people of color and other minority groups faced open discrimination. It was the second time this week that the judge summed up her dissent to the bench, a rare move that hints at deep disagreement. Judge Sotomayor appeared appalled and spoke for more than 20 minutes.

“This case cannot be understood outside the context in which it occurs. In that context, the outcome is even more troubling,” she wrote in her dissenting opinion. “The LGBT rights movement has made historic strides and I am proud of the role this court has recently played in that history. Today, however, we are taking steps backwards.”

President Biden called the court’s decision “disappointing”. a statement released Friday.

“I am deeply concerned that the decision could lead to more discrimination against LGBTQI+ Americans,” Biden said in the statement. “More broadly, today’s decision weakens long-standing laws that protect all Americans from discrimination in public accommodations — including people of color, people with disabilities, people of faith and women.”

A law in Colorado prohibits discrimination against gay people by businesses open to the public, as well as statements announcing such discrimination. Ms. Smith, who has said her Christian faith requires her to reject same-sex couples seeking website design services, has not yet started her marriage business. Nor has she posted a proposed statement on her current website about her policies and beliefs for fear, she said, of breaking the law.

So she sued it, saying it violated her right to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser warned of the ruling’s implications, saying it would pave the way for businesses of all kinds to turn away LGBTQ customers.

“This deeply troubling opinion is far from being in line with the will of the American people and American values,” Mr. Weiser said in a statement.

At a press conference shortly after the ruling was made, Ms Smith, her voice cracking with emotion, described the outcome as a “victory, not just for me but for all of us”.

The court “confirmed today that Colorado cannot compel me or anyone else to say something we don’t believe,” she said.

According to the majority opinion, Judge Gorsuch wrote that the administration cannot compel people who speak on a subject for pay to accept commissions on that subject in cases where they disagree with the underlying message.

Such an approach, he said, could lead to bizarre results. He cited the example of a Muslim film director forced to “make a film with a Zionist message”, or an atheist forced to accept a commission to create a mural “celebrating evangelical zeal”.

“If that principle is taken seriously, the government could force all sorts of artists, speechwriters and others involved in speech to say what they do not believe, under penalty of punishment,” Judge Gorsuch wrote. Countless other creative professionals could also be forced to choose between remaining silent, producing speech that conflicts with their beliefs, or expressing their views and being penalized for doing so.

He added that states should not use public accommodation laws to deny speakers the right to choose the content of their posts. Otherwise, he wrote, “the better the performer, the finer the writer, the more unique his talent, the more easily his voice can be called upon to spread the government’s preferred messages.” That wouldn’t honor the First Amendment; in fact, it would mean his downfall.

In her dissenting opinion, Judge Sotomayor described the public housing laws as intended to ensure “equal dignity in the common market”. She cited a landmark 1964 Supreme Court case, Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States, in which the court ruled that hotels had no right to discriminate against black guests.

“If you have ever benefited from a public company without being denied service because of who you are, you enjoy the dignity and freedom that this principle protects,” she wrote. “Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, no less than anyone else, deserve that dignity and freedom.”

Judge Gorsuch responded directly to the disagreements in the majority opinion, writing that the two sides were looking at the same case and seeing completely different issues.

“It is difficult to read the disagreements and conclude that we are looking at the same case,” he wrote. The dissenting justices, he wrote, focused on “the steps gay Americans have taken to ensure equal justice under the law.”

But the conservative justices didn’t see the case through that lens, he said, writing that “none of these answers answer the question we face today: Can a state compel someone who is providing its own expressive services to surrender its conscience and into speak her preferred message instead?” ?”

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, No. 21-476, it agreed to decide only one question: “Whether applying a public housing law to an artist to force to speak or remain silent, violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment.”

A divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, had applied the most demanding form of judicial inquiry to Colorado law, but maintained it.

“Colorado has a compelling interest in protecting both the dignity interests of members of marginalized groups and their material interests in accessing the commercial marketplace,” Judge Mary Beck Briscoe wrote for the majority, adding that the law is narrowly tailored to that interest.

“To be sure,” Judge Briscoe wrote, “LGBT consumers may be able to get wedding website design services from other companies; yet LGBT consumers will never be able to get marriage-related services of the same quality and nature as those offered by petitioners.”

Judge Briscoe added that “Colorado may prohibit speech that promotes unlawful activity, including unlawful discrimination.”

in dissent, Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovichquoting the writer George Orwell, said that “the majority take the remarkable—and novel—stance that the Government can compel Mrs. Smith to produce reports which violate her conscience.”

This theme seemed to tie in with Judge Gorsuch, who, in his view, adopted George Orwell’s language.

He wrote that the court’s liberal justices had waived “what the cases of this court have recognized time and again: an obligation to speak for only a few posts and some persons is no obligation at all.”

He added, quoting Orwell from “The Freedom of the Press,” an essay he wrote in 1945 as the intended foreword to “Animal Farm,” but was not published until 1972 by The Times Literary Supplement: “If freedom means anything , then it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”

Judge Sotomayor said in her dissenting opinion that the conservative justices had misinterpreted the issue: “The majority’s repeated appeal to these Orwellian thought police shows how much it misunderstands this case.”

The Supreme Court heard a similar dispute in 2018 after a Colorado baker refused to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex wedding. But that case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commissiondid not lead to a final decision.

Judge Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in the 7-to-2 decision in 2018, seemed unable to choose between two of his core commitments. He was the author of all major Supreme Court decisions protecting gay rights under the Constitution. But he was also the court’s most staunch defender of free speech.

Instead of choosing between those values, Judge Kennedy chose an exit that not everyone found convincing. He wrote that the baker, Jack Phillips, should win because he had been treated unfairly by members of a civil rights committee who had made religiously hostile comments.

The membership of the court has since changed, with the retirement of Judge Kennedy and the death of Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their successors, Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, moved the court to the right.

Lower courts have generally sided with gay and lesbian couples deprived of service by bakeries, florists and others, ruling that potential customers are entitled to equal treatment, at least in parts of the country with laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. prohibit sexual orientation.

The business owners challenging these laws have argued that the government should not force them to choose between the requirements of their faith and their livelihood. Their detractors say companies that are open to the public should treat potential customers equally.

Zach Montague contributed reporting.