A federal court has ruled that a Colorado wedding website designer cannot refuse to serve same-sex couples on the basis of her religious beliefs.
In a Monday decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, judges denied a request by Lorie Smith, owner of 303 Creative, for a free speech exemption to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA). The statewide law protects Coloradans from discrimination based on protected categories, including sexual orientation and gender identity, thereby forcing Smith to work with same-sex wedding clients.
Judges Michael R. Murphy and Mary Beck Briscoe concluded in an 103-page written opinion that “Colorado’s interest in protecting its citizens from the harms of discrimination” relies upon the full enforcement of civil rights laws.
“Combatting such discrimination is, like individual autonomy, ‘essential’ to our democratic ideals,” the judges wrote.
The court affirmed the importance of protecting “minority viewpoints” and said that Smith’s First Amendment claims were compelling. However, the judges added that “a faith that enriches society in one way might also damage society in another, particularly when that faith would exclude others from unique goods or services.”
Monday’s ruling was a critical reaffirmation of LGBTQ+ protections following Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that decided narrowly in favor of a Christian baker. In a 7-2 ruling, justices claimed the state’s civil rights commission, which is tasked with enforcing CADA, did not properly weigh the religious concerns of Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips in fining him for denying service to a same-sex couple.
The 10th Circuit ruling was, however, not a unanimous declaration of equality. In a dissenting opinion, Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich, a George W. Bush appointee who was tapped by Donald Trump in 2016 as a potential SCOTUS nominee, claimed his peers took a “remarkable — and novel — stance that the government may force Ms. Smith to produce messages that violate her conscience.”
“Stifling minority speech is the prototypical ‘slippery slope’ toward authoritarianism, recognized in the first of the compelled speech cases,” he wrote. “To paraphrase Orwell, liberty must mean the right to tell others — especially the government — what it does not want to hear.”
Tymkovich added that CADA unfairly discriminates against “minority religious beliefs” and claimed that the Masterpiece case indicates that Colorado has an “infamous history” of refusing to view the objections of people of faith “in a neutral way.” While Colorado already allows for case-by-case exemptions to CADA, he recommended writing explicit religious carve outs into the law.
Smith was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a right-wing Christian legal organization that has authored dozens of anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the United States in recent years. This includes the unprecedented wave of legislation in 2021 targeting transgender youth.
Designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group, ADF represented Masterpiece Cakeshop in its SCOTUS victory three years ago and continues to fight in court on behalf of the business. Phillips’ bakery was fined $500 in June for refusing to make a cake for a trans woman, and ADF has already vowed to challenge the ruling.
Although ADF is likely to appeal the 10th Circuit’s verdict, LGBTQ+ advocates celebrated the decision as another win for the community. Jennifer C. Pizer, senior counsel at Lambda Legal, called it a “tremendous ruling.”
“This really isn’t about cake or websites or flowers,” Pizer said in a statement. “It’s about protecting LGBTQ people and their families from being subjected to slammed doors, service refusals, and public humiliation in countless places – from fertility clinics to funeral homes, and everywhere in between.”
While this case may have only pertained to one business, Pizer also added that “the stakes were higher than many people realized.”
“Had ADF succeeded, that federal constitutional ‘free to discriminate’ card also could have been used by all sorts of businesses to excuse turning anyone away due to their race, color, sex, ethnicity, religion, disability or anything else now covered by state or federal law in any of the states in the Tenth Circuit: Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming,” Pizer wrote.
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