Supreme Court Justices Clash in Christian Designer Case

Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, and Neil Gorsuch in the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court in Washington on June 1, 2017. Alex Wong/Getty Images

As the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado cannot compel a website designer to create messages that go against her Christian beliefs, both Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Gorsuch clashed in separate opinions.

“Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, claiming that the 6–3 majority ruling was a “backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities.”

Elaborating, Sotomayor, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, made reference to the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting that left dozens of people dead as an example of a hate crime against that community. However, reports have pointed out it was never established by either the FBI or federal prosecutors that it was a hate crime of any kind.

“Or the Pulse nightclub massacre, the second-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history?” she also wrote, alleging that a “social system of discrimination” has “created an environment in which LGBT people were unsafe.”

An investigation and trial later found that the suspect, Omar Mateen, was actually unaware that the Pulse nightclub in Florida was a gay bar and seemingly chose the target at random. His wife testified that Mateen, who had pledged allegiance to the ISIS terrorist group, wanted to first attack a Disney event.

Previously, the FBI also was not able to verify whether Mateen went to the Pulse club, knew the club was a gay bar, or was gay himself.

Federal prosecutors in 2018 also established that Mateen had searched on Google, “Orlando nightclubs,” after his plot to target a Disney resort fell through. The Pulse club was the first result that came up before he drove there and launched the attack.

Sotomayor also made reference to the 1998 slaying of Matthew Shepard, saying he was “targeted by two men, tortured, tied to a buck fence, and left to die for who he was.” However, it has long been reported that Shepard, who was gay, was also a methamphetamine user and was murdered by an LGBT individual who told investigators that his death had nothing to do with his sexual orientation.

And journalist Stephen Jimenez’s investigative book, “The Book of Matt,” concluded that his death was the result of a meth deal that went bad rather than an anti-LGBT hate crime, as was claimed by mainstream outlets at the time. He also reported that Shephard was also, at one point, involved in a romantic relationship with one of his killers.

Clash of Opinions

The ruling favored artist Lorie Smith, who sued the state of Colorado over its anti-discrimination laws that had prohibited businesses providing sales or other accommodations to the public based on their sexual orientation.

Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington on Oct. 7, 2022. (Front L–R) Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Samuel Alito and Justice Elena Kagan. (Back L–R) Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Sotomayor also claimed the majority’s ruling reduced LGBT people to “second-class status” in the United States.

“By issuing this new license to discriminate in a case brought by a company that seeks to deny same-sex couples the full and equal enjoyment of its services, the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status,” Sotomayor wrote, responding to Gorsuch’s opinion.

And seemingly responding to Sotomayor’s arguments in the case, Gorsuch wrote last week that her dissent “reimagines the facts” from “top to bottom” and does not answer fundamental constitutional questions such as: “Can a State force someone who provides her own expressive services to abandon her conscience and speak its preferred message instead?”

Her dissent, he wrote, was a distortion of the case and said, “In some places, the dissent gets so turned around about the facts that it opens fire on its own position.”

“For instance: While stressing that a Colorado company cannot refuse ‘the full and equal enjoyment of [its] services’ based on a customer’s protected status … the dissent assures us that a company selling creative services ‘to the public’ does have a right ‘to decide what messages to include or not to include …' But if that is true, what are we even debating?” he wrote.