Conservative justices signal support for web designer opposed to same-sex marriage
Conservative members of the Supreme Court on Monday signaled support for a Colorado web designer who claims the First Amendment shields her from having to provide services for same-sex weddings in violation of her conscience.
For more than two hours of argument, the court explored whether Colorado’s anti-discrimination law would violate the free speech rights of Christian web designer Lorie Smith by requiring that she create sites for both for opposite-sex unions and gay weddings despite her religious objection to same-sex marriage.
Lawyers defending Colorado’s civil rights law faced difficult questions from the court’s conservatives, with several inquiries focused on how a win for Colorado could burden free expression, either by forcing particular speech or chilling it.
“Let’s just say that [The New York Times] for Gay Pride Month decides that it’s going to run — to promote and recognize same sex marriage — only same sex marriage announcements, turns away heterosexual announcements, not because it disparages or disagrees with opposite sex unions, but because it’s trying to promote something else,” said conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
“Can it do that?” Barrett asked Colorado’s solicitor general Eric Olson. “That’s a protected characteristic under the law.”
Olson, who said the question posed an unusual case, replied, “I think the answer is no.”
Smith, the web designer, filed a preemptive lawsuit in 2016 to block Colorado’s civil rights law from being enforced against her. The state’s statute, known as a public-accommodation law, makes it illegal for businesses that serve the general public to discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics like sexual orientation, with fines of up to $500 for each violation.
Smith argued Colorado’s law infringes on First Amendment free-speech protections by compelling businesspeople like her to engage in speech that violates their beliefs. She lost two rounds in the lower courts, prompting her appeal to the Supreme Court.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the court’s conservatives, suggested that a win for Colorado could lead to a scenario where a speechwriter-for-hire might be compelled to write a speech with a message that violates her “most deeply held convictions.”
In response, deputy solicitor general Brian Fletcher, who argued for the U.S. government in defense of Colorado’s law, said “speechwriters aren’t likely to be public accommodations.”
Kavanaugh interjected: “Until they are after this case, if you prevail. I mean, that’s what states could do.”
A decision in the case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, is expected by this summer.
Updated: 2:10 p.m.
Source: TEST FEED1
