Conservative-dominated court rules against law intended to prevent businesses discriminating against members of LGBTQ+ community
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Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent in the Colorado LGTBQ+ rights case, which was joined by the court’s two other liberal justices.
“Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” Sotomayor wrote.
A business open to the public seeks to deny gay and lesbian customers the full and equal enjoyment of its services based on the owner’s religious belief that same-sex marriages are ‘false’. The business argues, and a majority of the Court agrees, that because the business offers services that are customized and expressive, the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment shields the business from a generally applicable law that prohibits discrimination in the sale of publicly available goods and services. That is wrong. Profoundly wrong
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