DENVER – The Colorado Attorney General’s Office is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the state’s anti-discrimination law, which is being challenged by a Christian business owner who says she wants to build wedding websites but also to note explicitly they won’t be built for same-sex couples.
Smith first sued all the way back in September 2016, claiming that the anti-discrimination violated her ability to deny potential wedding website services to gay couples. She argued that she wanted to use the business “to celebrate and promote God’s design for marriage as an institution between one man and one woman” and claimed her inability to say so on her website violated her rights.
“[T]he Company must sell whatever it offers to customers regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation, or other protected characteristic. The Company cannot refuse to sell its services, however limited, to a customer just because of who they are,” the attorney general’s office argues. “Both believers and atheists can choose to buy its websites with biblical quotes.
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office says that under the act, customers have a right to whatever goods and services are sold to other customers, and that the proposals from Smith’s company would disregard Colorado’s interest. Smith, who claims she is an artist, is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was also behind the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court case. Earlier this year, attorney Kristen Waggoner said, “The government shouldn’t weaponize the law to force a web designer to speak messages that violate her beliefs.”
Christians being discriminated by Colorado A.G. Same old story under HICKENLOOPER !!