Web designer’s business is open to all
High court case is about free speech, not service
Lorie Smith just wants to be able to run her website design business as she sees fit. The Colorado-based owner of 303 Creative devotes her time to projects she cares deeply about, from helping children with disabilities to animal shelters and veterans.
It’s when Smith wanted to expand her business to designing sites for weddings that her troubles with the government began.
Because of her strong beliefs that God intended marriage to be between a man and a woman, she wanted to include a message on her website explaining her choice not to create sites for same-sex weddings.
Expressing that sentiment, however, runs afoul of her state’s antidiscrimination law, which includes protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. If she did not abide by the law and design projects for all weddings, her business could face fines, investigations and other punitive action. So Smith sued.
Once again, a creative professional from Colorado is before the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in Smith’s case Monday.
It was only four years ago that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who had refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding because of his views on marriage. The court’s decision was extremely narrow, focused only on how the state’s civil rights commission had shown hostility toward Phillips’ religious views.
It didn’t address the larger questions the case raised. Because of that, Phillips is mired in yet another legal battle in a similar case.
It’s time for the court to settle the broader question related to the competing liberties at stake: the civil rights protections for LGBTQ individuals and the religious freedom of business owners. In taking Smith’s case, the court agreed to address this central point: “Whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.”
All Americans should feel uncomfortable with the government deciding what messages we can convey – or not convey – even in a professional capacity. Those who don’t think religious views on marriage remain relevant often paint creative professionals who want to refrain from expressing certain messages as hateful or bigots.
It’s important to keep in mind, though, that claims of discrimination can go both ways.
For instance, an LGBTQ cake baker in Detroit was asked in 2020 to design a cake that expressed a negative message about gay marriage. While she baked the cake, she did not include the requested sentiment. The individual who ordered the cake never picked it up, although he tried to claim he had been discriminated against for his beliefs.
Surely, bakers like this one in Detroit should not be forced to create messages that violate what they believe. The same should apply to the Colorado cake designer – and to Smith.
While there has been robust debate over whether making a special cake counts as speech, Smith’s website design certainly does. The lower appeals court acknowledged this, although it still ruled against her.
Smith’s business is open to all people. It’s not about the person she’s serving – it’s about the message she’s being asked to express.
Whenever I write about these cases, I always hear from those who are scared that if exemptions can be found for religious business owners, then this will lead to LGBTQ people being denied service at a broader range of establishments. That would absolutely be wrong, and our Constitution wouldn’t allow it.
Buying an ice cream cone or renting a hotel room is very different from asking a creative professional to fashion a cake or a website celebrating a specific event, especially one with so much religious significance as marriage.
Court observers are hopeful this case will finally settle some of these First Amendments questions.
Then maybe Lorie Smith can get back to doing the work she loves.