Leftists Tried to Discredit the Supreme Court’s Decision in This Religious Freedom Case — They FAILED

The U.S. Supreme Court last month ruled in 303 Creative v. Elenis that applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a pre-enforcement lawsuit in 2016 on behalf of Lorie Smith, a Christian web designer. Smith alleged that a Colorado “anti-discrimination” law would have compelled her to create web sites for homosexual “weddings” if she provided the same for weddings.

As a Christian, Smith believes what the Bible teaches about marriage and sexuality: marriage is the union between one man and one woman, and homosexuality is a sin.

Leftists are seething about this decision and claim the case was fraudulent. Smith hadn’t yet been sued by homosexuals seeking “wedding services.” They said that she fabricated a potential client who asked her to make a “same-sex wedding” site so she could bring the lawsuit.

Wrong. The request came after Smith filed her lawsuit, but that’s beside the point. Pre-enforcement lawsuits are a legitimate and legal option to avoid potential prosecution, and leftists who complained apparently didn’t know that. Even without a client request, Smith could still file a pre-enforcement challenge.

What’s really unbelievable is that Colorado’s attorney general, a lawyer, apparently didn’t know about pre-enforcement challenges or even the facts of the case. “This was a made-up case without the benefit of any real facts or customers,” he told the The Hill.

We know that ideological biases blind people, but to this extent? Why would learned judges in multiple courts have allowed Smith’s lawsuit to proceed through the system if she’d perpetrated a fraud or if there were no issue in the case?

Here is the truth from ADF (emphasis added):

“Smith’s case was a pre-enforcement challenge, which allows people to avoid the choice between risking prosecution or giving up their freedom. Pre-enforcement lawsuits have been a hallmark of America’s tradition of civil-rights litigation for over a hundred years. And the Supreme Court has ruled on more than a dozen pre-enforcement cases in the last ten years. Pre-enforcement challenges have been brought by parties across the ideological spectrum. This includes the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, to name a few.”

Photo credit: Alliance Defending Freedom

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