Court Rejects Appeal of Web Designer who Refused To Design Gay Couples’ Websites

DENVER, CO — (07-31-21) — A Colorado based homophobic web designer lost her challenge to Colorado’s anti-discrimination law last week in a suit she filed against the state because she didn’t want to design wedding websites for gay couples.

Last Monday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled 2 – 1 the state can force Lorie Smith of studio 303 Creative to design and publish websites promoting messages that go against her personal religious beliefs.

303 Creative owner Lorie Smith filed her pre-enforcement challenge to Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), which clearly restricts any business from refusing to provide services based on a customer’s identity, in preparation to expand her business services to include wedding websites.

Review U.S Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit rejection of 303 Creative owner Lorie Smith’s challenge to the state law on constitutional grounds.

Smith argued that while she has clients of all gender identities, it’s against her religion to promote gay marriage, and therefore doesn’t want to be forced to make them for gay couples.

“I will not be able to create websites for same-sex marriages or any other marriage that is not between one man and one woman,” said Smith, according to court documents. “Doing that would compromise my Christian witness and tell a story marriage that contradicts God’s true story of marriage.” said Smith.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling said that Smith’s arguments does not supersede Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.

“There is no indication that Colorado will enforce CADA differently against graphic designers than bakeries,” the ruling read, referencing the case of Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who refused to create cakes for same-sex weddings.

You will remember the 2018 case where Jack Phillips appealed after being told by Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission that he had to adhere to CADA, regardless of his religious views.

The Conservative packed Supreme Court ultimately found that Colorado’s enforcement of CADA was a violation of Philips’s First Amendment rights.

However once again Jack Phillips found himself in the news in June of 2021 when Philips was fined $500 for denying an order for a gender-transition cake on the grounds that he violated CADA.

Conservatives are vowing to take this all the way to the conservative packed U.S. Supreme Court.

Article by: Paul Goldberg, Staff Writer

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