A person walks down the sidewalk near the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., February 16, 2022.
Jon Cherry | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a Christian website designer’s appeal challenging a Colorado law that bars businesses from refusing to serve customers based on their sexual orientation.
The court will hear briefing and argument about whether “a law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.”
The graphic artist, Lorie Smith, says she wants to expand her business into creating wedding websites “promoting her understanding of marriage” and post a statement explaining why she will refuse to “promote messages contrary to her faith, such as messages that condone violence or promote sexual immorality, abortion, or same-sex marriage.”
But Smith cannot do so because the state law “considers it illegal,” according to her request for the Supreme Court to take up the case.
The law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, had been upheld by two lower courts.
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