Supreme Court signals support for website designer who wants to decline same-sex weddings
decline to create websites for same-sex weddings, embracing the idea that a state anti-discrimination law cannot compel her to do so.
In a case that could have profound implications for when businesses may turn away customers, the Colorado website designer argues the state should not be permitted to use a law designed to ensure businesses take all comers to compel her to communicate messages to which she objects.
The two-and-a-half-hour debate centered on whether same-sex couples would be denied wedding websites because of their status as LGBTQ individuals – a result that might favor the state – or whether the designer was refusing to endorse a message of approval of same-sex marriage that she says conflicts with her religious beliefs.
Guide:A look at the key cases pending before the Supreme Court
Preview:Supreme Court to debate if businesses may decline same-sex weddings
Supreme Court to decide if businesses may refuse LGBTQ weddings
The law at issue bars public businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation – the same law that bars discrimination based on race and gender. But Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was one of several conservatives who questioned whether a website designer is more like a retail business under the law or more like an artist.
Justice Samuel Alito appeared to reject that argument, drawing a distinction based on who is being discriminated against. Alito repeatedly referenced a line from the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage in which the court said “many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises.”
“Do you think it’s fair to equate opposition to same-sex marriage with opposition to interracial marriage,” Alito asked the attorney representing Colorado.
The court’s liberal justices appeared mostly aligned in favor of Colorado’s law.
Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned whether, under the website designer’s approach, a photography studio could say it wanted to shoot and sell photographs harkening to widely recognized images of Christmas from the 1940s and 1950s that featured only white children with Santa Claus. Could that photographer stage only white children and decline to take pictures of Black children for the product?
The lawyer representing Smith acknowledged that might be an “edge case.”
Four years ago, a 7-2 majority of the Supreme Court sided with a Colorado baker who refused to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. But that decision was focused narrowly on how the state’s civil rights commission treated the baker, Jack Phillips. The court did not rule on broader questions about where to draw the line between a business owner’s religious freedom and LGBTQ rights.
The lack of clarity on that question has led to other lawsuits, including from a florist in Washington state who declined to create an arrangement for a same-sex wedding. The Supreme Court declined to hear that case last year.