What just happened? On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in 303 Creative v. Elenis , an important free speech case that involves a wedding website designer and has important religious liberty implications. What is the case about? According to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) (the law firm defending the plaintiff), Lorie Smith is an artist who runs her own design studio, 303 Creative, which specializes in graphic and website design. A Colorado law is censoring what Smith wants to say and requiring her to create designs that violate her beliefs about marriage. Although she’s willing to serve LGBT+ customers in other areas, she doesn’t believe in promoting the message of same-sex marriages. When Smith challenged Colorado’s law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled against her, holding that Colorado can force her to create websites promoting messages that contradict her beliefs about marriage. The defense argued that if the government can compel this type of speech it ‘can do so for any speech, whether religious or political.’ During the oral arguments , the solicitor general for Colorado argued the law “targets the commercial conduct of discriminatory sales and its effect on expression is at […]
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