* Click here for the opinion. Washington Post…

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled in favor of an evangelical Christian graphic artist from Colorado who does not want to create wedding websites for same-sex couples, despite the state’s protective anti-discrimination law.

The vote split along ideological lines 6 to 3, with the liberals in dissent.

It was the court’s latest examination of the clash between laws requiring equal treatment for the LGBTQ community and those who say their religious beliefs lead them to regard same-sex marriages as “false.”

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the First Amendment protects designer Lorie Smith from creating speech she does not believe.

“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, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. “Colorado seeks to deny that promise.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the dissent, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Today the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” she wrote. “Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people.”

* From the opinion…

Before the district court, Ms. Smith and the State stipulated to a number of facts: Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender” and “will gladly create custom graphics and websites” for clients of any sexual orientation; she will not produce content that “contradicts biblical truth” regardless of who orders it; Ms. Smith’s belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman is a sincerely held conviction; Ms. Smith provides design services that are “expressive” and her “original, customized” creations “contribut[e] to the overall message” her business conveys “through the websites” it creates; the wedding websites she plans to create “will be expressive in nature,” will be “customized and tailored” through close collaboration with individual couples, and will “express Ms. Smith’s and 303 Creative’s message celebrating and promoting” her view of marriage; viewers of Ms. Smith’s websites “will know that the websites are her original artwork;” and “[t]here are numerous companies in the State of Colorado and across the nation that offer custom website design services.”

Ultimately, the district court held that Ms. Smith was not entitled to the injunction she sought, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed.

Held: The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees.

* As an aside, The New Republic reported earlier this week that a person named Stewart who had supposedly contacted Smith about creating a website denies ever doing so. Also from the story…

Up to this point, Smith had never designed any wedding website. (In fact, her website six months prior to the lawsuit being filed in 2016 does not include any of the Christian messaging that it did shortly afterward and today, archived versions of the site show.) The initial lawsuit did not mention the “Stewart” inquiry, which was submitted to Smith’s website on September 21, according to the date-stamp shown in later court filings, indicating that she received it the day after the suit was originally filed.

* Anyway, on to local react. Equality Illinois…

When a business decides to open its doors to the public, that business should be open to all—a core American principle at the heart of how we treat one another. Yet, during a Pride Month when LGBTQ+ people are under attack across the country by hateful policies and violence, 6 anti-equality justices on the United States Supreme Court today issued a radical and reckless ruling that strikes at that American principle.

This ruling ignores long-standing precedent and public norms to say that some businesses can turn some people away because of who they are. This is not what Illinoisans want. Illinoisans want a state where all people—including LGBTQ+ people—are equally welcomed in public spaces across the state. We know this because Illinoisans have spoken through their elected leaders to champion the cause of equality and fairness.

In response to this ruling, Equality Illinois will collaborate with our legal partners, pro-equality public officials, and LGBTQ+ community stewards to determine the best course of action to defend the non-discrimination protections in the Illinois Human Rights Act. We will work to ensure the ruling is not used to allow further discrimination because of a customer’s sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion, national origin, sex, or other protected class.

June is Pride Month, and Pride was founded in an uprising fueled by resistance, resilience, and fighting back. We will resist. We will fight back. Our dignity will not be diminished.

As always with national issues, please take a deep breath or two before commenting. Thanks.

I’ll post other reactions if and when I receive them.

…Adding… Gov. Pritzker…

Following the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans, Governor JB Pritzker released the following statement:

“Today’s Supreme Court decision allows LGBTQ+ discrimination to pervade under the guise of free speech. This decision weaponizes religious freedom as a boon for bigotry, and in doing so, puts the burden on the millions of Americans who have fought for their right to love and live as they are.

Throughout its 234-year legacy, the court has repeatedly had the opportunity to lead on the right side of history. Sometimes it has embraced that mantle of courage; but in its darkest hours, it has pushed civil rights to the wayside in the name of a retrograde agenda. Not yet ten years out from Obergefell, this court has turned its back on its mandate to protect the civil rights of all Americans.

LGBTQ Americans deserve the same protections and rights as everyone else. Make no mistake: in Illinois, I promise that we will continue to fight to ensure you are respected and safe no matter who you love.”

* Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson…

“Today’s Supreme Court decision allowing businesses to refuse services based on personal beliefs not only violates principles of equality but opens the door to an extremely dangerous precedent. Our country should not, and cannot, further discriminate against and limit the freedom of our LGBTQ+ communities at a time when their rights are already severely under attack.”

“Like yesterday’s ruling to end affirmative action, this will only further discriminate and divide us, so I call upon all institutional leaders and stakeholders to continue protecting these rights and practices in the city of Chicago. And on this last day of Pride month, I stand committed, now more than ever, to fostering a loving, inclusive, and welcoming city.”

* House Speaker Chris Welch…

“This Supreme Court has shown yet again that they will respect no precedent and show no restraint in their effort to disenfranchise those they deem unworthy. Today, six conservative justices created a new right to discriminate against the LGTBQIA+ community, and blocked even modest college debt relief for struggling families. Make no mistake, these rulings are the result of a concerted right-wing attempt to impose their version of America – an America that fits their ideological and political standards because they’ve been repeatedly rejected at the ballot box.

“In Illinois, we will continue to move in a better direction through legislation. We will continue to prioritize affordable college for all, equitable treatment for all, and equal opportunity for all. Because in Illinois we believe in and will always fight for the true American vision for all.”

* Sen. Durbin…

Today, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the following statement regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis:

“It’s shameful that the Supreme Court just issued a ruling that mistakes freedom of expression as a reason to deny service to LGBTQ+ people — on the final day of Pride Month. It’s nothing short of a license to discriminate, signed by the highest court in the land.

“Yet again, the conservative Supreme Court majority is out of touch with the American people’s expectations of its highest court. The majority of Americans embrace anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people — protections that exist to ensure that no one is turned away because of who they are or who they love. Still, LGBTQ+ Americans are being subjected to a tidal wave of hateful rhetoric and legislation across the country by Republican lawmakers, particularly targeting transgender youth.

“As Justice Sotomayor noted in her dissent, ‘the Court, for the first time in its history, grant[ed] a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.’ As a result, this case invites a return to a time when businesses regularly turned people away because of not just their LGBTQ+ status, but also their religion, race, national origin, sex, and more.

“Mark my words: I will do everything I can to ensure that the freedom to exist unapologetically prevails. June 30th might conclude Pride Month, but today’s ruling shows our work is far from over.”

* DPI…

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ+ customers, Democratic Party of Illinois Chair Lisa Hernandez released the following statement:

“Amid a disturbing rise of attacks against the LGBTQ+ community, the U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled that businesses can refuse to serve customers based on how they live or who they love. This court continues to pave a path of destruction that guts decades of precedent and progress towards equality, illuminating exactly how much is at stake in all of our elections. This is an abominable endorsement of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community; one which further cements the retrograde legacy of a SCOTUS stacked with Trump sycophants and ideological extremists. On the last day of Pride month, we must recommit to our fight against hate, discrimination, and prejudice, even if the nation’s highest court refuses to do so,” said DPI Chair Lisa Hernandez.

* Thomas More Society…

The June 30, 2023, United States Supreme Court decision affirming the right of web designer Lorie Smith to refuse to create websites for same-sex weddings has reinforced and solidified the October 2022 victory in the Tastries Bakery lawsuit, won by Thomas More Society attorneys.

Smith, owner and designer of 303 Creative LLC, challenged Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act, whose accommodation and communication clauses prohibited her from designing custom wedding websites if she refuses to create same-sex wedding websites and prohibited her from publicizing that she would not create them. To avoid prosecution, Smith challenged the Act preemptively but was forbidden by both a Colorado district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from exercising her vocation according to her Christian beliefs.

In a similar case, cake designer and Thomas More Society client Cathy Miller, proprietor of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California, was hauled into court—not once, but twice—by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (now the California Civil Rights Department) for declining to design a custom wedding cake celebrating the same-sex marriage of two women. Miller’s freedom to exercise her sincere religious beliefs through her culinary craft was affirmed by a California Superior Court, despite aggressive attacks and litigation backed by the full weight of California’s bureaucratic apparatus.

“There’s a certain irony here,” observed Charles LiMandri, Thomas More Society Special Counsel and partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP, “that laws intended to protect individuals from religious discrimination were used to discriminate against both Cathy Miller and Lorie Smith for their sincerely held religious beliefs. We are pleased that the High Court has upheld the First Amendment rights of Ms. Smith, allowing artisans like her and Cathy Miller to ply their trade according to their deeply held religious beliefs.”

The deciding factor in both cases is the legal concept of “strict scrutiny.” Under strict scrutiny, to compel speech, whether religious or not, the government must show that doing so is the only way—that is, no other means is possible—to achieve a governmental interest of the highest order.

In Tastries, the Hon. J. Eric Bradshaw of the Superior Court of California in Kern County, decided for Miller, concluding that the Department of Fair Employment and Housing’s enforcement action sought to compel Miller and Tastries to express support for same-sex marriage, or be silent. “No compelling state interest justifies such a result under strict scrutiny,” wrote Judge Bradshaw.

Judge Bradshaw noted the inconsistency in California’s alleged respect for Miller’s sincere religious beliefs while trying to force her to either violate her beliefs or stop selling wedding cakes. The Department of Fair Employment and Housing proposed that Tastries could either sell all its goods and services to all customers, cease to offer wedding cakes for sale to anyone, or have Miller and those of her employees that shared her religious objections to same-sex marriage “step aside” and allow her “willing” employees to manage the process.

Smith faced an almost identical situation in Colorado—to make wedding websites for any and all types of unions or make none. As sole operator and only staff person at 303 Creative, employees were not part of the equation.

Paul Jonna, Thomas More Society Special Counsel and partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP, added: “We are optimistic that the ruling in 303 Creative will protect all creative professionals involved in the wedding industry, including Cathy Miller. The Supreme Court’s ruling makes abundantly clear that there is room in our great county for people of all views on marriage.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion in the High Court’s 6-3 decision. Justice Gorsuch rejected Colorado’s goal of “excis[ing] certain ideas or viewpoints from the public dialogue” as illegitimate and rejected Colorado’s argument that there was no other means of ensuring that same-sex couples have access to the full marketplace. “In some sense, of course, [Lorie Smith’s] voice is unique; so is everyone’s. But that hardly means a State may coopt an individual’s voice for its own purposes… Were the rule otherwise, the better the artist, the finer the writer, the more unique his talent, the more easily his voice could be conscripted to disseminate the government’s preferred messages. That would not respect the First Amendment; more nearly, it would spell its demise.”

* IDHR…

Today, Director Jim Bennett released the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow businesses to refuse to serve customers based on their protected characteristics, such as sexual orientation.

“When a business is open to the public, it should be open to all.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that betrays our nation’s values, undermines decades of settled case law that protects our marketplace from discrimination, and permits certain businesses to discriminate against historically marginalized groups simply because of who they are.

Our antidiscrimination laws, including the Illinois Human Rights Act, exist to protect the rights of vulnerable communities. Before these protections were codified into law, businesses like banks, hotels, restaurants, and bars, posted signs and publicly refused to serve people who were not white, straight, male, able-bodied, or neurotypical. The court had an opportunity to strengthen anti-discrimination laws, but instead, it chose to harm LGBTQ people by relegating them to second-class status. They deserve far better from our nation’s highest court.

The Illinois Department of Human Rights calls on each of us to ensure freedom and inclusion for everyone in the marketplace. We must not allow this regressive ruling to be used to instill fear. The Illinois Human Rights Act provides comprehensive protections against discrimination in public accommodations, as well as employment, housing, financial credit, and sexual harassment in education. If you believe you have experienced discrimination, you can file a discrimination charge by calling 312-814-4320 or 866-740-3953 (TTY) or emailing IDHR.Intake@illinois.gov.

* Leader Gordon-Booth…

State Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, D-Peoria, issued the following statement Friday after the release of additional Supreme Court rulings:

“In a matter of 24 hours, the Supreme Court has rolled the hands of time back on minorities, marginalized communities, the LGBTQ+ community and everyday working people looking for student loan relief. If we take a look back to last summer’s eradication of women’s rights and bodily autonomy, it’s very clear that Donald Trump’s Supreme Court is moving our country backwards one decision at a time.

“While not everyone may feel personally impacted by these specific cases, these decisions erode rights, limit opportunity and reject the underlying values of our country. We are collectively hurt by such decisions, which is why we cannot remain silent in the days ahead.

“In Illinois we understand what’s at stake. It’s why we have taken strong steps to support basic rights, and why we must continue to be proactive.

“I will continue to use the full weight of my position to uplift and advance the rights of everyone, no matter what a regressive court tries to do.”

* Rep. Kelly Cassidy…

This week, the United States Supreme Court issued two decisions that fly in the face of the idea of a free and equal society. Yesterday, in two decisions (SFFA v. UNC and SFFA v. Harvard), the court held that schools may not consider race as a factor in admissions, leaving in place factors like legacy admissions or donor status in a decision that could set back efforts at equity and inclusion not just in college admissions, but throughout our society. Today’s decision in 303 Creative represents yet another rollback of long-acknowledged rights by permitting a business to effectively post a sign excluding anyone from being served if the product or service provided involves expression.

“Once again, the court is ignoring years of precedent and settled law to roll back rights,” said Representative Kelly Cassidy, “If a business can make an argument that their product is expression, they can argue their right to limit access to any product or service. This reads like an engraved invitation to expand the definition of expression. I love to cook and find it an expression of my creativity. Does that mean if I was a restaurateur I could refuse to serve my food to someone based on my bias against who they are?”

“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a deep disappointment for those of us who have felt the love and affirmation of this Pride Month,” Cassidy added. “The Court’s majority adds to the attacks we have seen across the country on members of the LGBTQ+ community – this time suggesting that discrimination against our community can be justified.”

Cassidy noted that the impact on Illinois’ law protecting against discrimination in public accommodations is still being analyzed. The Dobbs Working Group will be reviewing the impact carefully in the event there is a need for state action to protect the rights of any groups subject to discrimination in our state. The Working Group is committed to ensuring that the guarantees contained in the Illinois Human Rights Act are fully recognized.