Supreme Court sides with Colorado web designer in blow to LGBTQ protections

The setting sun illuminates the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 10, 2023.

Patrick Semansky/AP

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 long ideological lines that the First Amendment bars Colorado from “forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees.”

The case pitted laws that guarantee same-sex couples equal access to all businesses that offer their services to the public against business owners who see themselves as artists and don’t want to use their talents to express a message that they don’t believe in.

For nearly a decade, the justices have dodged and weaved on this clash of legal values, declining to hear some cases and punting on one involving a baker who refused to make custom wedding cakes for same-sex couples. But now the issue was back before a far more conservative court, a court that reached out to hear the case even before any same-sex couples complained that they were the victims of illegal discrimination.

The plaintiff in the case, instead, is business owner Lorie Smith, a Colorado web designer who for the past decade has created all kinds of custom websites for clients.

Smith says that because of Colorado’s public accommodations law, she cannot do what she wants to do most — custom web designs for weddings. The reason: She believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser says the state law is not seeking to dictate what Smith says in her web designs. He contends that Colorado allows any individual or business to create whatever they want, but “if you open your doors and say you are…