Supreme Court ruling allows businesses to refuse some services to LGBTQ+ customers | PBS NewsHour

Geoff, the justice has sided with her on a 6-3 ideological split, saying that forcing her to make Web sites for something she doesn’t believe in would violate her First Amendment rights.

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said: “The First Amendment protects an individual’s right to speak his mind, regardless of whether the government considers his speech sensible and well-intentioned, or deeply misguided and likely to cause anguish or incalculable grief.”

Phil Weiser (D), Colorado Attorney General: This sweeping opinion promises to destabilize the public marketplace, enabling and encouraging all types of businesses, not just those who make Web sites, to have a First Amendment right to refuse customers because of who they are.

Kate Sosin is a reporter at The 19th News, where they cover LGBTQ+ issues.

Kate Sosin, The 19th News: Today’s ruling is very significant, in that LGBTQ+ people are going to wake up tomorrow in a country where their government decided that it is a protected speech, First Amendment, to turn them away from businesses because of who they are.

And that is a statement that we have not seen before. It’s that we’re changing precedent here. That said, this ruling is very specific to Lorie Smith and her case, and it does not green-light blanket discrimination against LGBTQ+ people immediately.

Theoretically, based on this decision alone, it shouldn’t. However, we have never had a decision where we say that your religious beliefs allow you to turn away LGBTQ+ people. And so cracking that door open, a lot of people feel like, could be the start of an avalanche.

Kate Sosin:

There are two answers to that question.

The first is the political climate, which I think a lot of us know has been really hard for LGBTQ+ people. We have seen more than 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced into state legislatures this year. And as presidential campaigns ramp up, we know that candidates are campaigning on anti-LGBTQ+ stances.

That said, the country itself, the electorate, is moving toward acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. GLAAD released a study at the beginning of June that found that 91 percent of Americans who are non-LGBTQ+ support the idea that LGBTQ+ people should not be discriminated against.

So there’s this huge disparity between the political climate that we’re living in and the lives of everyday people.

And it’s important to note that the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the nation’s most powerful anti-LGBTQ+ legal organization, took her case. We have seen them take a number of anti-LGBTQ+ cases to the Supreme Court and to other courts.

And this is an organization that advocates that LGBTQ+ people are similar to pedophiles. And it also is an organization that has had past ties to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who had five paid speaking engagements for ADF.

So the landscape here is changing for us. What we’re seeing is a mainstreaming of an organization that we used to consider an extremist organization that’s been labeled a hate group by advocacy groups coming in and advocating something that we have now made the law of the land essentially.

Kate Sosin:

Yes, that case was similar, in that you had a baker who said that his custom cakes amounted to art and he did not want to make a custom cake for a same-sex couple who wanted to get married.

The difference was that, five years ago, the Supreme Court looked at that case and said, we don’t fully want to rule on this issue of religious freedom versus LGBTQ+ protections. And instead of really engaging with that issue, they ruled very narrowly for the baker and said that the Colorado Civil Rights Division displayed animus toward him because of his religious beliefs.

So it left open the door, at least the possibility, that future lawsuits like this could come. However, it didn’t — it didn’t actually undo anti-discrimination protections in the same way. So, the court declined to really engage with that issue until today.