A Christian photographer will be paid $800,000 by Louisville over a law requiring her to photograph same-sex weddings.
A Christian wedding photographer will be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees by the city of Louisville, Kentucky, after a years-long case over a law requiring her to photograph same-sex weddings.
challenging the city law Louisville’s Fairness Ordinance, which bars discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Nelson became aware of Louisville’s Fairness Ordinance that year and concluded that two sections of the law limited how she could operate her wedding photography business. The ordinance, which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations, imposed potential civil penalties and financial damages on business owners who refused to provide services for same-sex weddings. One provision of the ordinance prohibited “the denial of goods and services to members of protected classes,” which includes same-sex couples. Louisville’s Fairness Ordinance also barred her “from writing and publishing any indication or explanation that she wouldn’t photograph same-sex weddings, or that otherwise causes someone to feel unwelcome or undesirable based on his or her sexual orientation or gender identity,” according to the lawsuit. Nelson said complying would have contradicted her Christian convictions in her wedding photography business. The law also prevented her from posting statements about her Biblical views on marriage on her photography studio’s website.found the city liable for infringing Nelson’s constitutional rightsTo conclude Nelson’s lawsuit, which was backed by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, the city of Louisville agreed to pay $800,000 in attorneys’ fees for violating her First Amendment rights., a decision that held that government officials cannot force artists to create speech they disagree with. In civil rights litigation brought against the government, it is common for the government to pay attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party. Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart says in a statement: “This settlement should teach Louisville that violating the U.S. Constitution can be expensive.”from New York, who challenged state laws she said required her to express messages that conflicted with her religious beliefs.
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