USA Today
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Friday turned away a challenge from a Washington State florist who declined to create an arrangement for a same-sex wedding, the latest development in a long running dispute over LGBTQ rights.
The court refused to hear the case without comment, as is its usual practice. Three conservative associate justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, said they would have taken the case. The high court’s decision not to take the case leaves in place a Washington State Supreme Court ruling against the florist.
The decision comes days after the court handed down a unanimous decision concluding that a Catholic foster agency in Philadelphia could decline to screen same-sex couples as potential parents on religious grounds because the city’s anti-discrimination regulations were not applied equally to religious and secular entities.
Florist Barronelle Stutzman’s challenge to her state’s anti-discrimination law comes three years after the court didn’t directly resolve the same issue posed by a Colorado baker.
Then, the court ruled 7-2 that Colorado “cake artist” Jack Phillips faced religious hostility from a state civil rights commission after refusing to serve a gay couple’s wedding celebration. The majority left unresolved the central dispute: Whether anti-discrimination laws can require creative artists to serve same-sex weddings against their beliefs.
Following the narrow ruling in favor of Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop, the high court sent the case of Arlene’s Flowers, which Stutzman owns, back to the Washington State Supreme Court for further review. But last year, that court ruled 9-0 that Stutzman was not the victim of religious hostility, and it affirmed its original ruling against her.
The case has been on hold at the Supreme Court while the justices decided the Philadelphia foster care case. In that June 17 ruling, the high court said that because the city’s anti-discrimination provisions included a potential secular exception it unconstitutionally treated religious organizations and activities worse than secular ones.
The question for legal scholars and advocates after the case is how much of an impact the decision will have beyond foster care. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, noted in his opinion that the Catholic agency was different than a business.
Stutzman, like Phillips, claimed protection as an artist under the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech, religion and association. But the state court ruled that floral arrangements do not constitute expressive conduct.
The Supreme Court has weighed in twice on the broader issue of same-sex marriage. In 2013, it ruled that the federal government must recognize gay and lesbian marriages in the 12 states that had legalized them. In 2015, it extended same-sex marriage rights nationwide.
This news originally appeared in USA Today.
