joe daniel price/Getty Images (WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday appeared sympathetic with a wedding website designer challenging Colorado’s anti-discrimination law and its requirement that she provide services for same-sex couples or face a fine. At the same time, the justices seemed wary about the ramifications of a broad ruling in her favor, suggesting a desire to potentially resolve the case on narrow grounds. Lorie Smith, a Denver-based designer who is Christian, says the state’s public accommodations law — mandating that businesses serve all customers regardless of their sex, gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation — forces her as an artist to create messages that violate her beliefs. She has not yet turned away any customers, but says the law preemptively prevents her from joining a lucrative line of work. Smith is “an individual who says she will sell and does sell to everyone, all manner of websites. But she won’t sell a website that requires her to express a view about marriage that she finds offensive to her religious beliefs,” Justice Neil Gorsuch said favorably of Smith. “One can view these websites — or, last time around we had cakes — as either expressing […]
