Controversy rages on even after the Supreme Court ruled in 303 Creative v. Elenis that public officials in Colorado could not force a wedding website designer to offer her services to couples entering into “same-sex marriages” because doing so would have been coerced speech in violation of her First Amendment right to free speech. Sadly, Lorie Smith now faces “death threats, threats of rape and of bodily harm, and threats to her family” while some have posted what they think is her home “address on social media in an effort to encourage others to send hateful messages.”
A similar controversy is playing out in Louisville, Kentucky, where the mayor and city officials appealed an order in favor of a wedding photographer Chelsey Nelson. In Nelson v. Louisville/ Jefferson County Metro Government the photographer succeeded in her preemptive challenge to Louisville’s 1999 Metro Ordinance 92.05, more commonly known as the Fairness Ordinance, which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, and public accommodations.
Nelson, who “offers boutique private photo editing services for photographers and wedding photography collections for couples that want a custom experience,” filed suit because she feared that officials would enforce the ordinance against her if she advertised her unwillingness to serve same-sex couples. The ordinance has apparently yet to be enforced against a non-resident and officials have not revealed whether they would have acted against Nelson had she withheld her services.
A federal trial court in Kentucky granted Nelson’s motion for summary judgment, enjoining city officials from enforcing the ordinance or compelling her to serve same-sex couples. In its analysis the court noted that “To Nelson, ‘God designed marriage as a gift to people of all faiths, races, and backgrounds’ and ‘ordained marriage to be a covenant between one man and one woman.’” Nelson, on her website, added “I also can’t photograph anything that conflicts with my religious conviction that marriage is a covenant relationship before God between one man and one woman (for example, I don’t photograph same-sex weddings or ceremonies celebrating an open marriage).”
Like Lori Smith from 303 Creative, “Nelson states that she does not discriminate based on the sexual orientation of her customers and will ‘happily’ ‘provide wedding photography to LGBT clients,’ including ‘LGBT wedding planners,’ and ‘LGBT parents’ on subjects other than same-sex weddings.” The federal trial court in Kentucky decreed that city officials could neither use the ordinance to compel the plaintiff, a Christian, to photograph same-sex weddings that “express messages inconsistent with Nelson’s beliefs,” nor prohibit her from advertising on her website that she only works for couples planning marriages between a man and a woman.
Unhappy with the outcome, even after 303 Creative, officials in Louisville appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which heard oral arguments on July 28, 2023, ignoring the Kentucky’s Attorney General request to drop the appeal. In its judgment the Sixth Circuit is likely to address compelled speech. However, Nelson includes a new wrinkle because Chelsey Nelson’s lawyers, including Kentucky’s Attorney General and twenty states, in a so-called amicus curiae, or “friend of the court” brief supporting her position, raised an intriguing issue about the free exercise of religion that the Supreme Court has so far avoided, just as it did in 303 Creative.
Nelson’s attorneys raised the crucial question about whether she, and/or others like her, can succeed in claiming that having to use their expressive talents to serve same-sex couples violates their First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and Kentucky’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. According to the Kentucky statute, “a government cannot substantially burden one’s ‘right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief’ unless it satisfies strict scrutiny”; this is a high standard under which, as reflected in 303 Creative, such State-imposed conditions ordinarily fail.
In a supplemental brief, the Alliance Defending Freedom has maintained that Nelson is entitled to the nominal damages and equitable relief that she seeks for business losses she might experience due to threats that officials will enforce the Fairness Ordinance against her photography studio. Buttressing Nelson’s position, ADF’s brief highlighted six ways in which 303 Creative serves as a line-by-line rebuttal of Louisville’s attempts to defend the ordinance that would compel her to engage in a form of pure speech through her photography in violation of the First Amendment.
One of the ADF’s points was that the restrictions the ordinance would have placed on Nelson’s conduct were anything but incidental. Moreover, ADF rebuffed the claims of city officials who argued that the “same product test” applied because, as a custom form of expression, photographing same-sex and traditional marriages simply are not the same. Based on the Supreme Court precedent advanced in support of Nelson, she should prevail when the Sixth Circuit announces its judgment in the coming months.
As I have written previously regarding 303 Creative and other situations involving individuals who are members of the LGBT community, all should be free under the law to live the lifestyles of their choice. What is confounding, though, is why state, city officials, and/or private individuals continue to seek to compel people of faith to violate their First Amendment rights to be free from coerced speech by obligating to use their talents to communicate messages with which they disagree. This also happened, quite famously, when Jack Phillips was unwilling to bake a cake for a “same-sex marriage” in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and, more recently, in New Jersey when the owner of a kosher bakery refused to prepare an order for a “pride” event.
Regardless of the outcome in Nelson, one thing is certain: in the prescient words> of Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over ‘till its over.” As such, Nelson is unlikely to be the last word on conflicts between issues involving human sexuality and religious freedom. Stay tuned.
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The act of compelling individuals to conduct themselves in a manner contrary to their beliefs is unconscionable. Citizens from across the globe have come to the United States because of the rights bestowed upon its people: including freedom of religion. Imposing the rights of one group over the other is oppression.
They will self destruct since they cannot propagate their ilk.
It is definitively impossible that two people of the same sex can be married. They can engage in unnatural sexual acts but that’s a separate discussion.
Facts are stubborn things. Well said.
And yet, millions of us are married.
The State does not define what marriage is; God does.
By what authority?
You may speak for yourself. You may not speak for us.
Well said. All boils down to one of your last commments …”all should be free under the law to live the lifestyles of their choice. What is confounding, though, is why state, city officials, and/or private individuals continue to seek to compel people of faith to violate their First Amendment rights to be free from coerced speech by obligating to use their talents to communicate messages with which they disagree.” Truly astonishing we have come to this in this country. I often tell people who disagree with this that they would then be forced to create a cake or website or video etc celebrating something reprehensible to them (name anything reprehensible), and how would they respond? The simple freedom to not be compelled to participate in or accept a job in an area with which you disagree is a fundamental right and concept and I completely fail to understand how this is not understood by all to protect all of us.
As stated Peter Kreeft, “As a philosopher, the thing that strikes me most is the brilliant strategy of the gay marriage movement. Like Orwell in 1984 it sees that the main battlefield is language. If they can redefine a key term like “marriage” they win. Control language, and you control thought; control thought, and you control action; control action and you control the world. Mussolini knew that, too. He made it illegal for Italians to say “hi” in the traditional way. The Italian for “how are you?” is “Come sta lei?” “Lei” is the feminine inclusive pronoun. Fascist ideology held that this was emasculating and weak, so you had to say “Come sta lui?” from now on. “Lui” is the masculine pronoun. So no one could say “hi” in Italy without identifying themselves as pro or anti-fascist.
I think you will find that there is an overwhelmingly strong connection between these three agendas: gay marriage, feminism, and abortion. Very seldom do you find people who are for one but not the other, or against one but not the other. And what they all have in common is this attitude toward language…
In America, the feminists have succeeded in exactly the same way. They’ve labeled the traditional inclusive language, the language of every single one of the great books of Western civilization written in English, as exclusive because it uses “he” and “man” to include women; and they’ve labeled their new artificial ideological invention, which insists, contrary to historical fact, that “he” and “man” exclude women they’ve labeled this “inclusive” language. And amazingly, nearly everyone follows like sheep! So it will be easy, I think, for them to redefine marriage. Hell, they’ve already redefined “human beings” or “persons” so that they can murder the littlest ones whenever they want to. Why should they feel any guilt about dishonesty when they don’t feel any guilt about murder?”
Said the Chinese emperor, when asked what he would do to salvage his kingdom: “I would restore the meaning of words.”
And, thinking cross-culturally, into Alice in Wonderland: “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'”
So, as for the redefinition of “marriage,” in 2012 a young woman in the Seattle area donned the veil and “married” a landmark brick building that had captured her affection. Dismantled today, one brick at a time, the only remaining difference between a woman and a man is the plumbing and how it’s used or misused, and even the fixtures now can be remodeled like any obsolete kitchen or bathroom.
With a former, world-leader president who multi-tasked on his desk in the Oval Office: “It all depends upon what the meaning of is, is!”
If you want to discriminate against one type of marriage or another, then you have no business offering a wedding-related service. Provide the service you’re paid for or pay the price.
Two men cannot be “married,” anymore than triplets can be “married.” Just because a word meaning “X” is said to mean “@”, it doesn’t. Of course, that is heresy against sexular orthodoxy.
And yet, under the laws of 34 countries in the world, including in the USA as decided by the US Supreme Court, and voted on by the US Senate and the US House of Representatives and signed by the President of the United States, two men and two women can be legally married. Same sex marriages are also routinely performed by the major religions in the US including the Alliance of Baptists, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Reform and Conservative Judaism, the Presbyterian Church, and the United Church of Christ. So Sir, you are just wrong.
Yes, and the track record of most of those folks over the past decade or so has been horrible to worse.
A large number of the same folks tell us that a man can be a woman. I don’t take them seriously as guides to truth and reality, never mind the basic building blocks of a stable and just society.
“… and the United Church of Christ.” Don’t hurt yourself grasping for straws…
No, sir, you are wrong. Two people of the same sex cannot be married as it’s not only contrary to God’s law who is the originator of marriage but it also violates the natural law. And, it makes no difference what institutions of government enact into law or what any other countries do in this regard. Some similarly ill-conceived laws might one day outlaw the law of gravity. I defy any persons to try living in accord with that piece of legislation. Just because you utter the same nonsense over and over again does make it any more plausible than when your ridiculous notion was first proposed.
It might help, in this Catholic forum, if you knew at least a modicum of Scripture and the Ordinary Magisterium over time.
There is no support for active homosexuality, whatsoever, in Scripture. Period. All of these Protestant assemblies provide no credible Scriptural evidence for this. They simply follow popular culture and adhere to the latest cultural ‘belief’ and bask in the praise of secularists.
Today it’s who can be married to each other. Tomorrow it will be how many.
Apologies for being slow to get in here, been a bit busy.
Well put in your comments, Carl,
Thanks to all for joining in …. regardless of whether you agree. Thanks for thinking with us,
Charlie
Ignorant comment.
By form alone it is not possible for homosexual ‘marriage’. Just because countries, only by judicial fiat, ‘legalize’ any behavior, does not make it real.
Well to be accurate, the majority of the 34 countries that have legalized same-sex marriage worldwide have done so by passing equal marriage bills in their national legislatures. This includes our neighbor to the north, Canada. Additionally three countries, where Catholicism is the majority religion, have passed marriage equality laws by popular vote in referendums – Ireland 62% yes, Switzerland 64% yes, and Cuba, 66% yes.
Goodness. Ireland, Cuba, and Canada are examples to follow? And Cuba? Seriously?
Goodness, if all of those sheeple and lemmings are doing it, it must be great! Because the madness of the crowds always works out so well.
In Catholicism, it is not a ‘type’ of marriage. It exists only as a construct in some fevered minds.
It is simply a contract, again by judicial fiat, that gives legal cover for sodomy. It is sterile and devoid of life.
Most of us know that a mouth or an anus differs from a vagina. Those who don’t know are slow learners.
Haven’t you head? No amount of money buys the wicked a seat in heaven.
Paying someone to provide a dissipated service and attempting to legally force another’s debauched desire down someone’s throat is like putting coins in dog s— , then taking a dog to court because he refuses to eat it. Even dogs know what’s good for them.
Or, instead of trying to control the morality of others, you could take your business elsewhere. There is a huge difference between tolerating the actions of someone, or of being forced to accept it like it is good or normal. I think you will find most of these folks will chose God over the dictates of the state and those who actions they find reprehensible.
I’m not sure why conservative Christian wedding vendors will happily serve divorced people who are getting married. Jesus clearly stated that “anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
If you’re going to be judgmental about one group of people, then be judgmental about all groups that stray.
Because they are frankly not interested in other people’s sexual orientation AT ALL until they choose to make a “thing” about it.They are also not theologians looking to probe into the nuances of people’s divorce, if they have an annulment, etc, etc, etc. Get it? They just want to run their business. The nut jobs on the other hand, are seeking to make a legal issue when they can easily just take their business elsewhere. Making a stink where it is not necessary is all the better in their minds to attempt to cow other religious people into submission. But good luck to that as I very much doubt most christians will chose to associate themselves with these people over God.
Right on. These homosexuals are not interested in wedding venues or cakes. Theirs is a pure political agenda which is to shove their homosexuality down everyone’s throat. Ain’t gonna work.
Is the corruption of marriage by divorce abuse to be conflated with the perversion of the form of marriage?
One group’s behavior opposes nature more than the other. Men with men is more abominable because it violates the order found in nature. A man and a woman engaging in sexual intercourse, no matter their ‘marital’ status, is more natural than two men or two women engaging in mutual masturbation, no matter their ‘marital’ status,
It’s really cute how you use quotations around same-sex marriage, as if you don’t think it’s a real thing. That behavior seems similar to shoving your fingers in your ears and pretending to not hear what’s going on in the real world. Same-sex marriage is here, it’s real, and it’s not going away. Get over it.
I know it’s not a real thing, precisely because it’s not a real thing. It’s a sham.
In your fantasy it’s real. Perhaps one day you’ll wake up.
No human being, including the pope, has any authority at all to redefine marriage, the oldest of human institutions, which predates all forms of government and all religions.
A horse is not a zebra, a cookie is not a cake, and playing house when you are 5 is not real just because someone says so. I also recall the Dred Scott Decision by the courts which turned out to be massively incorrect, so there’s that. In reality, courts and laws do not supercede God or nature.Reality doesnt change just because some people dont like it.
The underlying issue in all of this is seldom mentioned. It has to do with the salvation of souls, the reality of original sin, and the fact that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. Catholics who have been instructed by the priests and bishops that they are in mortal sin are on the broad and easy road to destruction, as are those priests and bishops who embrace false teachings and who fail to warn them. As Saint Pope John Paul II has said, at a meeting with a bishop who asked ‘is it true that people with invisible ignorance do not go to hell,’ he responded, ‘only those priests who teach invisible ignorance go to hell.’
Trent, for decades most every leader said the same to us in pro-life: stop being so outspoken; play nice; don’t upset our RINO friends (sadly from our Bishops), etc.
Yet, by God’s grace, abortion is no longer legal in our State. It is a murderous lie. In the real world, it went away.
Get over it. God is Creator. We are finite and fallen. Christ can heal us. God’s peace to you.
You and your fellows continue your relentless attack on logic and common sense, following in the footsteps of countless other deluded people. We know that. But – no matter what you do, in the end you will lose just as your predecessors did.
Our most effective weapons are simple – prayer and humility, no matter HOW angry we can occasionally get at your foolishness. Speaking for myself I sometimes retreat into humor, and to me the words of the late great P.G. Wodehouse ring down through the ages, especially in this simple phrase – “All work and no play makes Jack a Peh Bah Pom Bahoo.”
I take great comfort in those words and I pray that someday you will too.
Sorry, same-sex “marriage” is not here, nor is it “real”. Marriage is a Sacramental covenant between God, one man & one woman, with the church as a witness to said covenant, until “death do us part”. Why this is not even brought up in these comments is beyond me. You can make up all kinds of words, like “transsexual”, but a made-up, fictional state of being does not make it so. One can no more become the opposite “sex” than a man can “marry” a man. So call the relationship what you will, but it is in no way, shape or form, a “marriage” regardless of what a secular “law” states.
The most clear-cut and logical solution is to apply Mark 12:17. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
If you own your business as an individual, created by God, you can bake a cake, or not bake a cake, for anyone you want, according to your morals and beliefs.
If the business is a corporation, a legal form created by Caesar, you are compelled to follow whatever rules Caesar sets.
If you value your freedome and indepence, organize the business as owned by an individual. If you want to enjoy Caesar’s benefits, organize under Caesar’s law: as a corporation. Evveryone free to choose their own path. No ambiguities.
Wrong.
Compare the threats in this story to Trump’s post in Truth Social on August 4 threatening witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with the legal matters pending against him: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you.”
Donald Trump found his way into the comments again. It never seems to fail
🙂
It’s easy for Donald to visit the comments when he’s already living in people’s heads, rent free. I’m not a Trump fan at all, but, goodness…
There’s a difference Cindy.Previously divorced people who receive annulments can in fact be married in the Catholic Church. Divorce is simply a civil matter. It doesn’t change the sacramental standing of a marriage. An annulment declares that there never was a sacramental marriage. Some element(s) was missing at the time the vows were exchanged.
Two people of the same sex can never enter into a valid Catholic marriage. There’s no equivalent to an annulment process to make that possible.
For you, he must be holy and untouchable. Or above the law as he thinks of himself? Come on… this an open forum… don’t be like a hyper-sensitive woke. He’s mentioned because his threats of violence are strikingly similar to the threats thrown to those who stand up for traditional marriage discussed in this column.
Alan, for Catholics there’s either a valid marriage or non. There’s no such thing as ‘traditional marriage ‘. Or traditional biology.