Lawyers for two photographers are asking federal appeals courts to affirm their clients’ First Amendment rights and allow them to “create freely,” citing a Supreme Court ruling in June that allowed a Christian web designer to decline requests to create sites for same-sex weddings.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group, are defending the individuals in the two separate cases.
In a July 17 press release, the legal advocacy group said it had filed a supplemental brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit last week asking it to affirm a lower court order that blocked a Louisville law from forcing photographer and blogger Chelsey Nelson to “communicate messages that contradict her beliefs.”
She is also banned from explaining to clients the religious reasons as to why she only celebrates wedding ceremonies between one man and one woman because of Louisville’s anti-discrimination law.
This, her lawyers argue, violates her freedom of speech.
A federal district court in August last year upheld Nelson’s freedom to create photographs and write blogs that align with her religious beliefs and the case is now being appealed in the 6th Circuit.
The legal group also filed a supplemental letter brief Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on behalf of the second individual, Emilee Carpenter, a New York photographer and blogger.
Photographers Face Fines, Prison Time
Court documents (pdf) state that New York laws violate Ms. Carpenter’s First Amendment rights by compelling her to create original content celebrating a “view of marriage she does not believe and banning her from explaining that choice.”The laws also infringe on her expressive association, according to her lawyers.
Penalties for violating the laws include fines of up to $100,000, a revoked business license, and up to a year in jail, according to the lawyers.
In their press release, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys noted that both Ms. Nelson and Ms. Carpenter “serve everyone, including clients who identify as LGBT.”
“They always determine whether to take on a new project based on the message requested and never the person requesting,” the legal group said.
That case centered on Lorie Smith, a Colorado website designer and artist who runs her own design studio, 303 Creative.
Ms. Smith, who is a Christian, had wanted to start designing websites that celebrate traditional weddings but feared Colorado Civil Rights Commission officials would use the state’s anti-discrimination statute—in violation of the First Amendment—to force her to create websites that also celebrate same-sex marriage.
She went on to file a lawsuit seeking an injunction to prevent the state from forcing her to create websites celebrating marriages that defy her beliefs regarding marriage.
Ms. Smith initially lost her case in federal district court but later appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, that court ruled against her and she subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Rules in 303 Creative v. Elenis
In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ms. Smith in a 6–3 opinion (pdf) authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch that noted that Colorado “does not just seek to ensure the sale of goods or services on equal terms” but that it “seeks to use its law to compel an individual to create speech she does not believe.”“In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance. The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.
“Nor, in any event, do the First Amendment’s protections belong only to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy; its protections belong to all, including to speakers whose motives others may find misinformed or offensive.”
Ultimately, the justices concluded that the First Amendment “prohibits Colorado from forcing the website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees.”
Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Bryan Neihart contended that free speech is for everyone, pointing to the Supreme Court’s June decision.
“As the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed in 303 Creative, the government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe,” Mr. Neihart said. “That ruling makes clear that nondiscrimination laws like Louisville’s can remain firmly in place, but the government cannot misuse those laws to compel speech. The U.S. Constitution ensures Lorie Smith, Chelsey Nelson, Emilee Carpenter—and indeed, every American—can speak consistent with her convictions.”
The legal group is now urging the 6th Circuit and 2nd Circuit to uphold the same freedom and follow Supreme Court precedent so that their clients can “speak freely without being threatened by the government with steep fines and penalties.”
