The Supreme Court ruled Friday that an evangelical Christian web designer cannot be compelled to create a wedding website for a gay couple. Lorie Smith, a graphic designer who wanted to expand into wedding websites, sought a ruling that Colorado could not enforce its anti-discrimination law against her. Smith opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds and wanted to post a message on her page indicating that she would not design websites for same-sex couples.
“The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees,” Justice Gorsuch wrote for the 6-3 majority in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. The Court held that the web designer’s work constitutes speech and the state of Colorado cannot force her to express herself in a way that violates her deeply held beliefs.
The vote was 6-3 for religious liberty. Read the whole thing.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of a Pennsylvania postal worker who lost his job for refusing to take Sunday delivery shifts due to his Christian observance of the Sabbath. The court’s opinion, written by justice Samuel Alito, held that accommodating Gerald Groff’s religious practice did not provide an “undue burden” on postal operations, which expanded to Sundays for Amazon delivery.
“An employer who fails to provide an accommodation has a defense only if the hardship is ‘undue,’” the court stated on Thursday. “Faced with an accommodation request like Groff’s, it would not be enough for an employer to conclude that forcing other employees to work overtime would constitute an undue hardship.”
Read the whole thing.
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This comes on the heels of another significant religious freedom victory, this one in Germany. From Fox News:
A high court in Germany recently lifted bans that prohibit peaceful prayer gatherings outside abortion clinics, ruling they violate constitutional rights.
The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, which is one of five federal supreme courts in Germany, ruled last week that blanket bans on prayerful protests outside abortion clinics impinge upon the freedom of assembly guaranteed in the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, which was ratified in 1949. The ruling marks a landmark legal victory for a Pforzheim-based chapter of 40 Days for Life, a pro-life group headed up by Pavica Vojnovic, according to the Christian Post.
A third legal victory comes from the U.K., where Maya Forstater was awarded compensation for the discrimination she experienced after expressing her “gender-critical” view that biological men could not become women. Her statement: “I have received the “remedy” judgement in my case. The Center for Global Development has been ordered to pay over £100k in compensation for loss of earnings, injury to feelings and aggravated damages for their high-handed conduct. Thank-you to everyone who supported my case.” The U.K. went furthest and fastest into gender insanity, but there are signs that this is slowly being reversed.
