The Supreme Court on Friday turned down a petition from a Christian florist who refused to create flower arrangements for a same-sex couple, refusing for now to take another case asking when anti-discrimination laws must give way to religious convictions. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch indicated they would have accepted the case. But it requires four justices for a grant, and that means none of the court’s other three conservatives were willing to go along. A unanimous Washington state Supreme Court found that the florist, Barronelle Stutzman, violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination, a state civil rights law. In 2013, Stutzman told a friend, Robert Ingersoll, that she would not create arrangements for his wedding to his longtime companion, Curt Freed. Stutzman said she held Ingersoll’s hand and said she had to decline his request because of her “relationship with Jesus Christ.” She was fined for violating the state’s law that prohibits businesses from discriminating because of sexual orientation. The conservative Alliance for Defending Freedom has been trying to get the Supreme Court to accept the case ever since. It was seen as a natural follow-up to the court’s 2018 decision in Masterpiece […]
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