Joe.My.God. LGBT News
NBC News reports:
A conservative evangelical Christian who opposes same-sex marriage and runs a business in Colorado designing websites, including for nuptials, Lorie Smith sued the state because she would like to accept customers planning opposite-sex weddings but reject requests made by same-sex couples wanting the same service.
Smith has not been sanctioned for refusing to design such a website but filed the lawsuit on the premise that she could be.
Her case has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where she is asking the justices to decide in a case being argued on Monday that she cannot be punished under Colorado’s anti-discrimination law for refusing to design websites for same-sex weddings.
The Associated Press reports:
The American Civil Liberties Union, in a brief filed with the court, was among those that called Smith’s argument “carte blanche to discriminate whenever a business’s product or service could be characterized as ‘expressive.'” Those businesses, they said, could announce, “We Do Not Serve Blacks, Gays, or Muslims.”
Smith’s attorneys at the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom say that’s not true. “I think it’s disingenuous and false to say that a win for Lorie in this case would take us back to those times where people were denied access to essential goods and services based on who they were,” said ADF attorney Kellie Fiedorek.
The case gives the Supreme Court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority, a second bite at a legal question it considered but never resolved when it ruled in a similar case in 2018 in favor of a Christian baker.
As I reported at the time, Smith first sued Colorado way back in 2016. And as I’ve pointed out each time the case moved up the legal food chain, this is a peremptory suit as Smith has never even been asked to create a same-sex wedding website.
In fact, as she admits, she’s never created a wedding website for anybody and it appears to me that the ADF helped create the business solely with the intent of eventually taking the issue to the Supreme Court.
In a Supreme Court case about a Colorado designer who doesn’t want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples, both sides predict dire consequences. https://t.co/8V0sV6T3Ge
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 3, 2022
A Colorado business owner who opposes same-sex marriage sued the state because she would like to accept customers planning opposite-sex weddings but reject requests made by same-sex couples.
Her case has reached the Supreme Court. https://t.co/hYzduhurZc
— NBC Out (@NBCOUT) December 3, 2022