The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a Christian web designer in Colorado who refused to create websites to celebrate same-sex weddings.
Lorie Smith cited religious objections in turning down the job.
The court, in a 6-3 vote split along ideological lines, said she had a First Amendment right to refuse.
LGBTQ rights supporters and the state said Smith was simply seeking a license to discriminate
Colorado has a state law making it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion.
“The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Gorsuch wrote.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the ruling “profoundly wrong” in dissent. She argued the Colorado antidiscrimination law “targets conduct, not speech, for regulation.”
“Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people. The Supreme Court of the United States declares that a particular kind of business, though open to the public, has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. The Court does so for the first time in its history,” Sotomayor wrote.
“The immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status,” she added.
The Alliance Defending Freedom defended Smith in case.
“The U.S. Supreme Court rightly reaffirmed that the government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe,” general counsel Kristin Waggoner said in a statement.
The ruling comes one day after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of a U.S. postal worker who refused to work on Sunday. The case was considered another religious rights case.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that the case was the “first opportunity in nearly 50 years” to explain how workplaces must adapt to workers’ religious requests.
