TRI-CITIES — The Richland floral shop owner at the center of a six-year fight over religious freedom is once again asking the country’s highest court to take her case.
Barronelle Stutzman and her attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom announced on Wednesday that they are continuing their fight with the filing of a 471-page petition of review to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stutzman, 74, owns Arlene’s Flowers on Lee Boulevard.
She was sued in 2013 after refusing to design arrangements for the same-sex wedding of a longtime customer.
The couple, Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed, and, separately, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson say Stutzman violated the state’s anti-discrimination law and the Consumer Protection Act by declining to provide services based on sexual orientation.
The two lawsuits have worked their way up together from Benton County Superior Court to the state Supreme Court, and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court, which vacated Washington state’s previous ruling and remanded it back to the lower court.
In June, Washington’s Supreme Court justices stuck with their 2017 unanimous opinion, reiterating that Stutzman broke the law.
The justices further said they found no sign of intolerance or hostility toward religion on behalf of their court or Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom, who gave the initial ruling in the case.
A Southern Baptist, she has argued that arranging flowers is artistic expression protected under the First Amendment.
“Barronelle serves and hires people from all walks of life. What she can’t do is take part in, or create custom floral arrangements celebrating, sacred events that violate her religious beliefs,” Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of Alliance Defending Freedom’s U.S. legal division, said in a news release Wednesday.
“Because of this, the Washington Supreme Court upheld a ruling that threatens Barronelle with personal and professional ruin,” she added.
“Regardless of what one believes about marriage, no creative professional should be forced to create art or participate in a ceremony that violates their core convictions. That’s why we have taken Barronelle’s case back to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
