The case marks the second time in five years the Supreme Court has confronted the issue of a business owner who says their religion prevents them from creating works for a gay wedding. But this time, things could end differently.
“Ms. Smith believes opposite-sex marriage honors scripture and same-sex marriage contradicts it,” Kristen Waggoner, the lawyer for Smith, told the justices.Colorado, like most other states, has a public accommodation law that says if Smith offers wedding websites to the public, she must provide them to all customers. Businesses that violate the law can be fined, among other things.
who objected to designing a wedding cake for a gay couple. That case ended with a limited decision, however, and set up a return of the issue to the high court. Phillips’ lawyer, Waggoner, of the Alliance Defending Freedom, is now representing Smith. Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of three high court appointees of former President Donald Trump, described Smith, the website designer, as “an individual who says she will sell and does sell to everyone, all manner of websites, that she won’t sell a website that requires her to express a view about marriage that she finds offensive.”
“Their policy is that only white children can be photographed with Santa in this way, because that’s how they view the scenes with Santa that they’re trying to depict,” Jackson said. Among Smith's other opponents are the Biden administration and 20 mostly Democratic-leaning states including California, New York and Pennsylvania. The states told the court in one of 75 legal briefs filed by outside groups in the case that accepting Smith's arguments would allow for widespread discrimination.
Brianne Gorod of the Constitutional Accountability Center, representing a group of law professors, hypothesized other examples of what could happen if Smith succeeds at the high court.
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