The conservative majority on the Supreme Court decided on Friday that a Christian graphic designer who wants to create wedding websites can decline to cooperate with same-sex couples, which is a setback for gay rights.
Despite a Colorado law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, color, gender, and other factors, the court found 6-3 in favor of fashion designer Lorie Smith. Smith had argued that the law went against her right to free expression.
Smith’s opponents cautioned that if she won, a variety of businesses would be free to discriminate against consumers who identify as Black, Jewish, Muslim, interracial or interfaith couples, or immigrants.
But Smith and her supporters said that if she lost, other artists would be pressured to produce work that went against their moral convictions, including writers, singers, and even photographers, painters, and photographers.
“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,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court’s six conservative justices.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent that was joined by the court’s other liberals. “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.
The ruling is a victory for religious freedom and is one of many recent instances in which the court has supported religious plaintiffs. For instance, a football coach who prayed on the field at his public high school after games received a favorable ruling from the court last year based on ideological principles.
The court’s ruling represents a backward on homosexual rights. Since the 1990s, the court has increased the rights of LGBTQ individuals, most notably by allowing same-sex marriage in 2015 and announcing five years later that a significant civil rights statute now also shields LGBTQ individuals from job discrimination. Gorsuch also authored the ruling on the civil rights law.
The court was careful to note that persons with different religious beliefs deserved to be respected even as it expanded LGBT rights. The idea that marriage must only be between one man and one woman “long has been held — and continues to be held — in good faith by reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the world,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court’s judgment on gay marriage.
The instance of a Christian baker who objected to creating a cake for a same-sex wedding brought the court back to that issue five years earlier. The baker, Jack Phillips, was granted a limited ruling by the court, which stated that the judge’s treatment of his case had been impermissibly hostile to his religious beliefs. The most recent instance was also brought before the court by Kristen Waggoner, Phillips’ attorney from the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Smith does not now produce wedding websites; he owns 303 Creative, a design firm in Colorado. She has said that while she would like to, her Christian beliefs would preclude her from developing websites that honor same-sex unions. She then runs afoul of state law in that situation.
Like the majority of other states, Colorado has a statute prohibiting businesses open to the public from treating consumers unfairly. According to Colorado’s so-called public accommodations legislation, if Smith provides wedding websites to the general public, she must do so regardless of a customer’s sexual orientation.
Businesses that break the law may face penalties in addition to fines. Smith asserted that her First Amendment rights are violated when the legislation is applied to her. The state disputed this.
The case is 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 21-476.
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So, is there ANYTHING American-made anymore?
The answer to that question is most definitely YES!
And it’s why I’m so passionate about my new mission.
I NEVER leave you with just the problem.
You know I’ve got the solution!
In fact, this is EXACTLY why I started my new mission close to four years ago.
The new mission is simply this: to help build out the Parallel-Economy.
Because here’s what I realized…
You THINK you have a choice between all these companies listed below in the circle, but what most people don’t realize is they’re all owned by only 11 companies.
11.
Interesting number.
Will probably be even less than that in the future when these merge even further.
It’s an ILLUSION of choice.
The same goes for all your media…
It’s just an ILLUSION of different choices, but owned by these 6 companies:
Now back to my Mission and my solution.
There has been a need for a Parallel-Economy and it would take time to build it but it is here finally.
They’ve been in business for 37 years and they’re a VERY pro-American, pro-Liberty, pro-Conservative values company!
They’re an American-based, Made-In-America, warehoused-in-America, shipped-from-America company!
In fact, they’re the last private, family-owned, pro-American consumer goods company left in America NOT owned by those 11 companies I showed you above.
Oh, and what if I told you the products are BETTER and often CHEAPER than what you get from those 11 companies above?
Yes, for real.
Once I learned all of that, I knew I no longer had to build this from the ground up by myself, I simply needed to partner with this awesome company to help them get the word out.
So on top of being the last Family-owned major consumer goods manufacturer not part of the Big-11, comparable or often lower prices, supporting American jobs and families, but here’s the best part.
Non-toxic products!
That means no Red Dye 40 or fluoride in the toothpaste or chemicals in the cleaning products, or Deet in the mosquito repellant.
Oh, and Black Angus beef, pasture-raised on hundreds of thousands of acres.
Free roaming with plenty of open-air between all the cattle.
Grass-fed.
No hormones and no antibiotics.
Never!
Oh, and it’s CHEAPER than Omaha Steaks!
But that’s a whole other topic!
Sound good to anyone else?
Me too!
The reason you’ve never heard of them is because it’s Invite Only.
I can get you in, but you can’t just go sign up.
They only want people on the same mission to join and they’re happy to say “no” to the Far-Left Libs!
They’ve been doing it for 37 years and it’s been working great.
Imagine that!
No call centers from India.
Just real, friendly, helpful, and NICE Americans helping Americans!
Wow, like going back in a time machine.
So it is Invite only…and good thing you know someone that has the invites….(me!).
If you’d like to find out more and get a FREE personal invite, just go here and I will get the info out to you!
It’s the real deal, and because they don’t raise the Black Angus as the big companies do, they may have the SHUT OFF invites if they grow too fast.
So if you want in, let me know soon.
There’s only one pro-American, American-made and manufactured, chemical-free, toxin-free, hormone-free, company left….and I’m teaming up with them to FIGHT BACK!
Who’s with me?
Watch this:
