© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A protester displays a sign as activists demonstrate outside the US Supreme Court, where justices are set to hear arguments in a major case pitting LGBT rights against a claim that the constitutional right to free speech exempts artists from
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Written by John Crozel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In its decision to allow an evangelical Christian web designer to deny service to same-sex weddings, the US Supreme Court has once again taken an inclusive view of religious interests at the expense of LGBT protection.
In a 6-3 ruling on Friday with support from its conservative majority, the court upheld Lori Smith, who owns a Denver-area web design company called 303 Creative. She sued the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in 2016 because she said she feared retribution for refusing to hold same-sex weddings under a state law that bars businesses open to the public from denying goods or services to people because of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and certain other characteristics.
The ruling, citing the US Constitution’s First Amendment to protect free speech, stated that Colorado could not force Smith to create speech it opposed.
Although presented to the court as a free speech claim, Smith’s case shares with other recent clashes between religiously motivated activism and civil rights laws.
“We’ve seen a huge expansion of rights for conservative religious communities that has had a detrimental effect on equality rights, and certainly for LGBTQ people,” said Elizabeth Platt, director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School.
Colorado is one of 22 US states that have measures that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in public.
Smith, who has said she opposes same-sex marriage based on her Christian beliefs, was represented by the Freedom Defense Coalition, a conservative religious rights group.
“The court reiterated that it is unconstitutional for the state to remove ideas it does not like from the public arena, including the belief that marriage is the union of husband and wife,” said Christine Wagner, chair of the group that brought the case to the court.
Wagoner added, “Disagreement is not discrimination, and the government cannot brand speech as discrimination to censor it.”
Alliance Defending Freedom has brought other high-profile litigants before judges including Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who refused based on his Christian beliefs to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
In its 7-2 ruling in 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop v. marriage.
The justices in this case stopped short of issuing a final ruling on the circumstances under which people can seek exemptions from anti-discrimination laws on the basis of religion. Still, the ruling illustrated a contrast in how the court views protections for LGBT people as opposed to competing conservative Christian interests, Platt said.
“The Court treated Jack Phillips’ allegation of discrimination with great respect and sensitivity, while completely ignoring discrimination against same-sex couples in this case,” Platt said.
Care rules
The court ruled in 2021 another dispute related to tensions between protecting equality and religious freedom.
In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the court in a 9-0 ruling embraced religious rights over gay rights, siding with a Catholic church agency that sued after Philadelphia refused to place children in foster care with the organization because it barred so-called same-sex couples from applying. to become adoptive parents.
The court’s makeup changed with the 2018 retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was succeeded by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the three conservative appointees of former Republican President Trump, along with Justices Neil Gorsuch – author of Friday’s ruling – and Amy Coney Barrett.
Kennedy was the swing vote on a court with a 5-4 conservative majority. He has stood out among conservatives in his espousal of sympathy for both conservative Christian causes and the sometimes called “dignity interests” of marginalized groups including LGBT people.
Kennedy affirmed the dignity of same-sex couples in his landmark 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.
Platt said that “if Obergefell were sued under this Supreme Court, I don’t think it would end up the same way.”
The Court underwent another drastic change in its ideological makeup in 2020 when Trump appointed Barrett to succeed the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Barrett’s addition gave it a conservative 6-3 margin and reset how conservative Christian causes were balanced against the dignity interests of people protected by civil rights laws.
“This court continues to advance the agenda of religious extremists who try to force us all to live by their parochial beliefs,” said Rachel Laser, president of the secular group Americans United to Separate Church and State.
“I hope that no matter what people think of me or my beliefs, everyone will celebrate that the Court has upheld the right of each of us to speak freely,” Smith said after Friday’s ruling.
