303 Creative LLC v. Elenis
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023), is a United States Supreme Court decision that dealt with the intersection of anti-discrimination law in public accommodations with the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In a 6–3 decision, the Court found for a website designer, ruling that the state of Colorado cannot compel the designer to create work that violates her values. The case follows from Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, , which had dealt with similar conflict between free speech rights and Colorado's anti-discrimination laws, but was decided on narrower grounds. Both Masterpiece Cakeshop and 303 Creative involved questions of whether a U.S. state's anti-discrimination laws can require designers to create works that recognize same-sex marriages, when same-sex marriage conflicts with those designers' beliefs. The decision in 303 Creative was seen by some as a victory for free speech rights as well as religious liberty and by others as a setback for LGBT rights and an assertion of discrimination as a type of free speech. Background Lorie Smith is a website designer, running a limited liability company as 303 Creative, LLC. registered in Colorado. Smith had been selling website development services and wanted to move into making wedding announcement websites. Smith claims it would have been against her Christian faith to make sites for same-sex marriages. She wanted to post a notice on her business website to notify users of her unwillingness to create websites promoting same-sex marriages, and instead would refer gay patrons to other potential designers who may provide services to them. Before implementing the notice, Smith discovered that such a notice would violate the Colorado state anti-discrimination laws that were amended in 2008, which prevent public businesses from discriminating against people based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. Smith, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), sued Colorado in 2016 in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, seeking to block enforcement of the anti-discrimination law in a pre-enforcement challenge. The district court waited for the result of the 2018 Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which dealt with the same anti-discrimination law and also dealt with a business owner's refusal to provide wedding-related services to gay couples. As Masterpiece was ruled on narrow procedural grounds, finding that the Colorado agency that ruled against Jack Phillips (the cakeshop owner) was unfairly hostile to his religious beliefs, the district court accepted review of the pre-enforcement challenge, but ruled against Smith and upheld the law's constitutionality in 2019. Smith appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The Tenth Circuit took up Smith's pre-enforcement challenge, finding Smith had "sufficiently demonstrated both an intent to provide graphic and web design services to the public in a manner that exposes them to [Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act] liability, and a credible threat that Colorado will prosecute them under that statute." The Tenth Circuit still ruled in favor of the state in