The Supreme Court ruled Friday in favor of a Christian web developer from Colorado who refused, due to religious objections, to create websites celebrating same-sex marriages.
In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled in favor of Lorie Smith, who had sued the state of Colorado over its anti-discrimination law prohibiting the denial of services based on a customer’s sexual orientation. Smith claimed that the law violated her First Amendment rights because it forced her to create messages which were in violation of her religious beliefs.
The Court held “The First Amendment prohibits Colorado to force a website designer into creating expressive designs that speak messages with which the design disagrees.”
Smith’s web-design business, 303 Creative was launched a decade earlier. She wanted to expand her company to create wedding sites to express God’s design for marriage, which is a union of one man and one woman. She also wanted a message to be posted on her website that same-sex married couples are “a story about the marriage that contradicts God’s true story.”
She filed a declaratory judgment, fearing that she would be in violation of Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws. She lost at the lower and federal appellate courts but appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority of the court, stated: “The First Amendment protections belong not only to speakers who are deemed worthy by the government but to everyone.” In this case, Colorado wants to force a person to speak in a way that is aligned with their views but ignores her conscience on a major issue.
According to the ruling, “The Nation’s response is tolerance and not coercion.” According to the First Amendment, the United States is a complex and rich place where everyone has the right to speak and think as they please and not what the government dictates. Colorado cannot violate that promise in accordance with the First Amendment.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered the majority opinion, joined by John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Bret Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent, which Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined.
