The Supreme Court ruled on the baker case before the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted in favor of LGBTQ rights in key cases. Smith, like Phillips before her, is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group, which has had success arguing religious rights cases at the Supreme Court in recent years. Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson wrote that there is a long tradition of public accommodations laws protecting the ability of all people to obtain goods and services. State officials said in court papers that they had never investigated Smith and had no evidence that anyone had ever asked her to create a website for a same-sex wedding. The court ruled then that the baker, Jack Phillips, did not receive a fair hearing before the state Civil Rights Commission because there was evidence of anti-religious bias.

The case gave the court a second bite at a legal question it considered but never resolved when it ruled in a similar case in 2018 in favor of a Christian baker, also from Colorado, who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. In particular, this court has held, public accommodations statutes can sweep too broadly when deployed to compel speech,' he added. 'At the same time, this court has also recognized that no public accommodation law is immune from the demands of the Constitution. Gorsuch, who wrote a 2020 ruling that expanded LGBTQ rights in an employment context, said that public accommodation laws play a vital role in protecting individual civil rights. 'The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place, where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,' Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.

Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Christian graphic artist and website designer Lorie Smith speaks to supporters outside the Supreme Court, on Dec. The remaining 21 states do not have laws explicitly protecting LGBTQ rights in public accommodations, although some local municipalities do. The ruling could allow other owners of similar creative businesses to evade punishment under laws in 29 states that protect LGBTQ rights in public accommodations in some form.

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