Colorado Would Force Her to Create LGBTQ Wedding Websites. She’s Fighting Back.

Article publisher: 
Daily Signal
Article date: 
8 May 2023
Article category: 
Colorado News
Tags: 
Medium
Article Body: 

Graphic designer Lori Smith believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. She also wants to create wedding websites. Under Colorado’s discrimination laws, if she were to create wedding websites, she would be compelled to do so for same-sex weddings.

Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, she has taken her case to the Supreme Court, asking the court to say that Colorado’s discrimination law violates her rights.

The Daily Signal team visited Lori’s shop, 303 Creative, in Denver, Colorado, ahead of the expected June ruling in her case. Her office is decorated in teal and gold, both trendy and feminine. “Create freely,” one piece of wall decor reads. Another one quotes Esther, from the Bible: “Perhaps you were born for such a time as this.”...

“I’ve always wanted to design and create, and I’ve always wanted to create and design for weddings,” Lori said. “But I can’t do that…because the state of Colorado is censoring my speech and forcing me to create custom and unique artwork, one of a kind designs that celebrate messages about marriage that go against what I believe."...

According to Alliance Defending Freedom senior legal counsel Kellie Fiedorek, Colorado is “misusing its public accommodation law to censor speech,” particularly in the state’s treatment of Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips....