U.S. Supreme Court rules that businesses can di§crimin@te against gays

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that certain businesses can refuse to provide services to same-s£x weddings, a ruling advocates say discr¥minate against LGBTQ Americans.

The court ruled 6-3 in favor of a Colorado web designer who argued that she has the right under the First Amendment to refuse to create wedding websites for gay people.

Lori Smith, the website designer who brought the case, was never even hired to make a website for a same-s£x couple, nor has she ever created a wedding website, HuffPost reports.

Smith, an evangelical Christian who opposes marriage between anyone other than a man and a woman, sued Colorado’s civil rights commission and other state officials in 2016, saying she feared being p¥nished under the state’s public accommodations law for refusing to serve gay weddings.

Smith and her lawyers argued that being required to provide her services for a same-s£x wedding would inherently force her to express messages contradicting her Christian beliefs and viol@te her right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, Aljazeera reports.

Writing for the Supreme Court majority on Friday, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch sided with Smith.

“As surely as Ms Smith seeks to engage in protected First Amendment speech, Colorado seeks to compel speech Ms Smith does not wish to provide.

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,” the decision also reads.

The ruling focused on a limited category of commercial activities, like artists or businesses creating content.