WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is being warned about the potentially dire consequences of a case this week involving a Christian graphic artist who objects to designing wedding websites for same-sex couples.
Rule for the designer, and the justices will expose not only same-sex couples but also Black people, immigrants, Jews, Muslims and others to discrimination, liberal groups say.
Rule against her, and the justices will force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their faith, conservative groups argue.
Both sides have described for the court what lawyers sometimes call “a parade of horribles” that could result if the ruling doesn’t go their way.
The case marks the second time in five years that the Supreme Court has confronted the issue of a business owner who says their religion prevents them from creating works for a gay wedding. This time, most experts expect that the court — now dominated 6-3 by conservatives and particularly sympathetic to religious plaintiffs — will side with Lorie Smith, the Denver-area designer in the case.
But the American Civil Liberties Union, in a brief filed with the court, called Smith’s argument “carte blanche to discriminate whenever a business’s product or service could be characterized as ‘expressive,’” a category of businesses that could range from “luggage to linens to landscaping.” Those businesses, they said, could announce, “We Do Not Serve Blacks, Gays, or Muslims.”
Smith’s attorneys at the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom say that’s not true. “I think it’s disingenuous and false to say that a win for Lorie in this case would take us back to those times where people … were denied access to essential goods and services based on who they were,” said attorney Kellie Fiedorek, adding, “A win for Lorie here would never permit such conduct, like some of the hypotheticals that they’re raising.”
