For two and half hours yesterday, December 5th, the Supreme Court heard a major religious liberty case. 

Guest host Adam McManus interviewed Matt Sharp, Senior Counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, about the right of Lorie Smith, the Christian owner of 303 Creative, a Denver, Colorado website design company, to refuse to create websites for homosexual faux weddings.

Colorado’s law would force Lorie to use her artistic web design skills to speak messages celebrating homosexual faux weddings if she speaks messages celebrating marriage between one man and one woman. But on top of that, the law acts as a gag order that prevents Lorie from expressing on her website the reasons why she only creates websites celebrating certain ideas.

This is censorship. And it’s a violation of Lorie’s First Amendment rights.

That’s why, in 2016, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a lawsuit on Lorie’s behalf, challenging the law in federal court. Nearly three years later, a judge issued a final ruling allowing Colorado officials to force Lorie to design and publish websites promoting messages that conflict with her religious beliefs.

In October 2019, Lorie appealed to the 10th Circuit, asking it to reverse the lower court’s decision. Then, in July 2021, the 10th Circuit issued an unprecedented ruling in Lorie’s case, upholding the Colorado law that requires Lorie to promote pro-homosexual faux marriage messages against her conscience in violation of her First Amendment freedom. So, in September 2021, Lorie asked the Supreme Court to take up her case and reverse the 10th Circuit’s ruling and protect her First Amendment rights. 

Watch a 5-minute video about Lorie Smith’s story.

McManus cited the RedState.com article entitled “Justice Gorsuch Leaves CO Solicitor General Stammering During Oral Arguments on Religious Liberty.”

Listen to the two-and-a-half-hour oral arguments before the Supreme Court, complete with all the questions from the justices, in this CSPAN link.

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