# 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (June 30, 2023) On **June 30, 2023**, the Supreme Court ruled **6–3** that the [[First Amendment]] bars Colorado from forcing a website designer to create wedding websites that celebrate same-sex marriages she objects to on religious grounds. Justice [[Neil Gorsuch]] wrote for the majority; Justice [[Sonia Sotomayor]] wrote the dissent. **Why it matters:** the Court held that a business open to the public may refuse to make something for some customers, despite a state anti-discrimination law, when the product is the owner's own speech. The dissent called it the first time the Court had given such a business a constitutional right to refuse service to a protected group. The case was brought and won by [[Alliance Defending Freedom]], the largest Christian-right litigation group. ## The case **Lorie Smith** owns 303 Creative LLC, a Colorado graphic and website design business. She wanted to start offering wedding websites but believed the **Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act**, which bars businesses open to the public from refusing service because of sexual orientation, would require her to make websites for same-sex weddings. She sued in 2016, before offering any wedding websites, to block the law in advance. The named defendant, Aubrey Elenis, directed the Colorado Civil Rights Division. The two sides agreed that Smith serves customers of any sexual orientation and that her wedding websites would be expressive, custom work. The district court and the Tenth Circuit ruled against her. [[Kristen Waggoner]] of Alliance Defending Freedom argued for Smith on **December 5, 2022**. ## What the Court held The majority — Gorsuch, joined by Chief Justice [[John Roberts]] and Justices [[Clarence Thomas]], [[Samuel Alito]], [[Brett Kavanaugh]] and [[Amy Coney Barrett]] — held that the websites are protected speech, and that Colorado could not use its law to compel that speech. It relied on the Court's compelled-speech cases, from the 1943 flag-salute ruling to parade and Boy Scouts cases, and summarized the principle this way: "the government may not compel a person to speak its own preferred messages." It said public-accommodations laws remain important but cannot override the First Amendment when they compel speech. ## The dissent Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices [[Elena Kagan]] and [[Ketanji Brown Jackson]], argued that Colorado's law regulates the act of refusing service, not speech: "Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group." ## The "Stewart" request Smith's lawyers had filed a 2017 affidavit describing a website request from someone named "Stewart" planning a wedding with a man named "Mike." On June 29, 2023, *The New Republic* reported that the man whose name, email and phone number appeared on the request was married to a woman and said he had never sent it; *The Colorado Sun* and CPR News confirmed his account. Alliance Defending Freedom said a third party or a troll had likely submitted it. Because Smith's suit challenged the law before any customer was turned away, the request was not the basis of the ruling, but it drew attention to how the case was built. ## Why it's on the map *303 Creative* is a product of the Christian right's long litigation strategy: find a sympathetic small-business owner, challenge an anti-discrimination law before it is ever enforced, and widen religious and free-speech exemptions step by step. It followed the 2018 [[Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission]] ruling, also an Alliance Defending Freedom case, and sits in the same line as [[Burwell v. Hobby Lobby]]. It is one of the signature rulings of the 6–3 Court mapped on the [[Conservative Court Capture Timeline]]. ## Connections - [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] · [[Kristen Waggoner]] · [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]] - [[Religious Liberty]] · [[Free Speech]] · [[First Amendment]] - [[Obergefell v. Hodges]] · [[Burwell v. Hobby Lobby]] - [[Neil Gorsuch]] · [[Sonia Sotomayor]] - [[Supreme Court Rulings Hub]] ## Sources - [303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023) — Justia](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/600/21-476/) - [303 Creative LLC v. Elenis — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/303_Creative_LLC_v._Elenis) - [The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Man, and the Supreme Court — The New Republic (2023-06-29)](https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-) - [The Colorado Sun (2023-07-01)](https://coloradosun.com/2023/07/01/303-creative-client-lorie-smith-stewart/) - [CPR News (2023-07-03)](https://www.cpr.org/2023/07/03/303-creative-stewart-scotus-wedding-website/)