Louisville Metro will continue to enforce the Fairness Ordinance to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation, despite a federal judge’s preliminary ruling last week blocking punishment of a Christian photographer who says she will shoot only weddings between a man and a woman. Jefferson County Attorney Mike O’Connell said Tuesday the ruling applies only to Chelsey Nelson, and the city will try to prove at trial its “compelling interest in preventing invidious discrimination against its LGBTQ citizens.” “The Fairness Ordinance remains alive and well,” O’Connell said in an email. The city could have immediately appealed U.S. District Judge Justin’s Walker’s preliminary injunction prohibiting potential enforcement of the law against Nelson for turning away gay couples or advertising that she won’t serve them. Walker agreed with Nelson that photography is speech that is protected by the First Amendment. Sam Marcosson, a professor at University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law, said in an email that Walker failed to consider the compelling interest that underlies anti-discrimination laws. “In effect, he treated her rights as nearly absolute instead of subject to government actions that are necessary to serve the critical goal of fighting discrimination,” Marcosson said. Corey Shapiro, legal director for the […]
