Can businesses refuse service to gay people
Can Businesses Turn LGBT People Away Because of Who They Are? That’s Up to the Supreme Court Now.
The Together States Supreme Court just agreed to decide a case about whether a business can refuse to sell commercial goods to a gay couple because of the business owner’s religious beliefs. A defeat for the business could gut the nation’s civil rights laws, licensing discrimination not just against queer woman, gay, bisexual, and genderqueer people, but against anyone protected by our non-discrimination rules.
In July 2012, Debbie Munn accompanied her son, Charlie Craig, and his fiancé, Dave Mullins, to the Masterpiece Cakeshop just outside of Denver to pick out a cake for their wedding reception. When the bakery’s owner heard that the cake was for two men, he said he wouldn’t sell them a cake because of his religious beliefs.
Debbie was stunned and humiliated for Charlie and Dave. As she has said, “It was never about the cake.” She couldn’t trust that a business would be allowed to twist people away because of who they are or whom they love. They might as well contain posted a sign in the shop saying “No cakes for gays.”
The Colorado courts agreed with Debbie and ruled
What the 303 Resourceful Decision Means for Anti-Discrimination and Widespread Accommodation Laws
David Cole, ACLU Legal Director
Can a bakery that objects to marriage equality refuse to sell a cake to a lgbtq+ couple for their wedding? This interrogate, or some variant thereof, has occupied courts even before marriages for lgbtq+ couples were legally recognized. In June 2023, in 303 Creative v. Elenis, the Supreme Court addressed this interrogate in a case asking whether a wedding website blueprint business could reject to design websites for weddings of same-sex couples. The court ruled for the business. But properly understood, the decision does not license discrimination; it merely recognizes that where a business will not provide a particular product or service to anyone, it has the right to refuse it to a gay couple. That exception should not apply to most applications of anti-discrimination laws, which require only same treatment, and complete not require businesses to provide any particular service or product. As I explain in more detail in this Yale Law Journal article and as we argue in this model little, 303 Creative does not create a First Amendment right to discriminate.
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Did the Supreme Court Say Businesses Can Now Discriminate Against LGBT Customers—and Employees Too?
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that businesses can now legally refuse service to LGBT people in specific circumstances. Its decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis allowed a graphic designer to rely on her First Amendment right to free speech to refuse to make wedding websites for queer couples. This opinion single-handedly upended non-discrimination laws in the marketplace, but its effect is even more far-reaching: as early as the same day as the ruling, it was used to argue for the right to terminate LGBT employees.
LGBT People Possess Been Under Attack
It was only 20 years ago that consensual gay sex was decriminalized in the United States. Since then, marriage was opened to lgbtq+ couples (2015), and non-discrimination protections in employment were applied to many LGBT people across the country (2020).
Oh, how things possess changed. More than 400 anti-LGBT bills have been proposed in state legislatures in just the past year. Hearkening back to the most virulent homophobia of the 70s, LGBT people are now casually being referred to as “child groom Businesses offering expressive services do not have a First Amendment right to refuse to assist customers based on their identity. The SCOTUS decision merely recognizes a business’s right to prefer not to barter certain products to anyone. David Cole, Can a bakery that objects to marriage equality refuse to offer a cake to a gay couple for their wedding? This question, or some variant thereof, has occupied courts even before marriages for same-sex couples were legally known. In June 2023, in 303 Resourceful v. Elenis, the Supreme Court addressed this question in a case asking whether a wedding website design business could refuse to design websites for weddings of homosexual couples. The court ruled for the business. But properly understood, the choice does not license discrimination; it merely recognizes that where a business will not provide a particular product or service to anyone, it has the right to deny it to a gay couple. T "We Do No Such Thing": What the 303 Imaginative Decision Means and Doesn't Mean for Anti-Discrimination and Common Accommodation Laws
Former ACLU Legal Director