The Supreme Court ruled Friday that conservative Christians have a free-speech right to refuse to provide some business services for same-sex marriages, even in states like California where civil rights laws forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation.
“The 1st Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.In another major reversal, the Supreme Court forbids the use of race as an admissions factor at colleges and universities.
The court’s six conservatives, all of them Republican appointees, were in the majority and the three liberals appointed by Democrats were in dissent. But the ruling was limited to matters of speech and expression, and it does not appear to create a broad right for businesses or stores to discriminate based on sexual orientation.and to have their unions treated equally under the law.