Anti-abortion activists participate in the 49th annual March for Life as they march past the US Supreme Court on January 21 in Washington, DC. In the past few years, the Supreme Court danced around the question of whether religious conservatives have a constitutional right to violate anti-discrimination laws — and specifically laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people. Now, it appears ready to come out and say that at least some businesses have a constitutional right to discriminate. On Tuesday, the Court announced that it will hear 303 Creative v. Elenis , a case that is likely to give at least some businesses a right to openly refuse services to LGBTQ customers. This question first arose in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018), where the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Yet, while Masterpiece Cakeshop was a victory for the religious right, it turned out to be a very narrow one . The Court held that states could still enforce bans on anti-LGBTQ discrimination, but that state officials had to be careful not to disparage the religious beliefs of people who use those beliefs to […]
