The United States Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it will hear the case of a website designer from Denver, Colorado who is forced by the state to provide service against her religious convictions.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal counsel of web designer and 303 Creative owner Lorie Smith, revealed that the appeal to review the case was accepted by the Supreme Court. The case, as per the organization, is projected to be a milestone on artistic and religious freedom.
The Christian Post elaborated that the case, 303 Creative LLC et. al. v. Aubrey Elenis, was included in the Supreme Court's orders list that was released on Tuesday. The Supreme Court will determine if a Colorado state law, the Anti-Discrimination Act, was violating the First Amendment right of Smith. Accordingly, the law requires Smith to create wedding websites for same-sex couples if she provides the same service for regular couples.
Under the Certiorari Granted section of the orders list, the Supreme Court acknowledged the acceptance of the case, which is number 21-476. The Supreme Court detailed the aspects of the case they will review.
"The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted limited to the following question: Whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment," the Supreme Court said.
The case was brought to the level of the Supreme Court after the 10th Circuit Court directed Smith last July to serve everyone regardless of sexual preference. This is in line with the state's Anti-Discrimination Act that coerces Smith to provide a service contrary to her conscience. The ADF raised that the said Colorado law produces the risk of censoring from public discourse certain viewpoints or ideas.
"Further, the law allows secular artists but not religious ones like Smith to make 'message-based refusals.' The 10th Circuit nonetheless took the extreme position that the government may force an artist to create expressive content, even if that artist's 'pure speech' violates her faith, going so far to suggest that the more unique or custom the speech is, the more power the state has to compel it," the legal organization said.
The organization explained that the state has been targeting certain people, which other states have replicated. They cited other service providers who have experienced similar circumstances with Smith such as Elane Photography and Sweet Cakes, which closed business; florist Baronelle Stutzman, who was forced to retire; and photographer Emilee Carpenter, who faces the risk of imprisonment.
"This Court must act now or officials with enforcement power over nearly half the country's citizens will continue compelling artists to speak against their consciences while silencing them from explaining their beliefs," ADF urged.
Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner elaborated that the Colorado law clearly showed a current danger to the constitutional right of every American--rights that make the United States a free and diverse nation. Waggoner stressed that Colorado has made the law a weapon to silence those who oppose them, such that those who dare to do so are punished.
