To answer this question, the Court will have to engage in some pretty difficult line-drawing about what qualifies as "speech." Whether making a website counts, what about providing flowers for a wedding? Or taking pictures? Or renting the venue itself? These are of course just a few wedding-related examples, but they point up how hard it is to make a principle distinction between speech and non-speech. But Colorado has consistently maintained that the mere act of selling something - even something expressive - "is not itself expressive conduct." In Colorado's telling, "the Act regulates sales, and not the products or services sold." The 10th Circuit agreed with Smith on that point, holding that the Act did implicate her First Amendment rights.
At the outset, it must decide whether Colorado's Act is a form of compelled speech. There are a few key questions the Supreme Court will have to answer. In February, the high court granted her petition, and the case is set for oral argument in early December. Circuit Court of Appeals, and she filed a petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court to take up her case. But in that case, the Court punted on the important constitutional question and resolved the case on a particularly narrow ground - namely, certain comments from state officials that the Court said expressed "hostility to religion." The Supreme Court takes the case
First amendment freedom of speech quotes free#
There, a baker alleged that the very same Colorado law violated his Free Exercise Clause rights by requiring him to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples. That's because they track pretty closely with another Supreme Court case from 2018, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. The facts of this case might sound a little familiar. Laws like the one at issue in this case have a long and storied history - one that predates the Founding - of protecting consumers from the evils of discrimination on the basis of categories like race, religion, and disability. Second, the state argues that even if Smith's free speech rights are implicated in some way, the Act serves a compelling governmental interest. As a result, the law only targets commercial conduct, and is therefore outside of the First Amendment's purview. Put another way, the Act doesn't regulate speech it only regulates the way that goods and services are sold. It only requires that if a business offers a good or service to the public, it must sell that good or service without regard to a customer's sexual orientation. First, it contends that the Act does not require businesses to sell any particular product. According to Smith, the Constitution doesn't allow the government to compel artists like her to speak messages that violate their deeply held beliefs.Ĭolorado makes two arguments in response. She argues that creating a wedding website is a form of speech that expresses approval of the marriage, and that as a result, she cannot be compelled to offer those services to same-sex couples.
In Smith's view, that legal prohibition violates her First Amendment rights. Specifically, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act prohibits businesses from refusing to serve someone on the basis of certain characteristics, including "sexual orientation." Smith is willing to work with anyone regardless of sexual orientation, but because she believes that same-sex marriage conflicts with God's will, she will not build websites for a same-sex wedding.Īll parties agree that if Smith were to make websites for opposite-sex couples but refuse to do so for same-sex couples, she would be in violation of Colorado's public accommodations law. The website designer, Lorie Smith, is the founder and owner of a local business, 303 Creative, which creates graphics and websites for its customers. The case is shaping up to be a free speech blockbuster. Elenis, an appeal brought by a Colorado website designer who claims she has a First Amendment right to refuse to make websites for same-sex weddings. Supreme Court agreed to hear 303 Creative, LLC v.
0 kommentar(er)
