Washington Same-sex couples can be barred from certain services on religious grounds, according to a US Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court in Washington ruled on Friday in the case of a web designer who also wants to offer her artistic services to wedding couples – but explicitly not to same-sex couples for religious reasons. The court sees this covered by the freedom of expression enshrined in the constitution.
The court found that “the ability to think for oneself and to freely express those thoughts” is one of the most valued freedoms in the republic. According to the Constitution, the United States is a place “where all people have the freedom to think and speak how they want, not how the government demands.”
Civil rights organizations had previously warned that this logic could be taken to the point that shops or service providers could deny their offers to certain groups, such as women or black people. The plaintiff had already wanted to make her position clear on her website. However, this is not compatible with the anti-discrimination law in your state of Colorado. So the woman complained.
“We will fight” – horror at student debt verdict
The Supreme Court has also blocked President Joe Biden’s $430 billion student debt cancellation plan. On Friday, judges upheld six conservative states that had opposed the Democrat’s election promise. The decision was made by a vote of six to three, supported by the conservative Supreme Court justices. The plan should benefit up to 43 million Americans.
The verdict follows one from the day before, in which the court declared the consideration of skin color in applications for universities to be inadmissible. This, too, was seen as a defeat for Biden, who wants to be elected for a second term next year.
Biden wanted to waive up to $20,000 for college graduates who had taken out college loans if they earned less than $125,000 a year. The program has been blocked by other courts since October last year.
Both the cost and the debt of higher education are huge in the US: In 2022, the total debt burden for educational institutions exceeded $1.7 trillion, the second-largest amount of consumer debt after home mortgages. Student debt has more than tripled in the past 15 years.
The Supreme Court ruling is also a setback for Biden because it affects younger voters – a key demographic for US Democrats. “This is a terrible decision and we will fight back,” announced Pramila Jayapal, leader of the left in the US House of Representatives.
“Counting on promises to be kept”
Youth organizations including the Sunrise Movement, March for Our Lives and Debt Collective released a statement. Biden “can’t afford any more disappointment among young people,” it said. Young people who voted Democrat in 2020 and the 2022 midterm elections are “counting on the Biden administration to deliver on its promises.”
Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez referred to the so-called Higher Education Act, through which Biden could single-handedly cancel student debt. The White House said it was examining how the decree could still be implemented.
>> Read here: The US Supreme Court is conservative but not radical. A comment.
Biden had sharply criticized the Supreme Court this week: “This is not a normal court,” he said on Thursday. Under his predecessor Donald Trump, the Supreme Court was predominantly conservative. However, the court also regularly votes differently from the ideological orientation and strengthened Biden’s policy, for example in immigration law and during the protective measures of the pandemic.
LGBTQ rights under threat in the US?
Biden was particularly outraged by the ruling on services for gay couples. “In America, nobody should be discriminated against simply because of who you are or who you love,” the president said on Friday. He was “deeply concerned” that the decision “encourages more discrimination against LGBTQ people”. “When the dignity and equality of a group is threatened, the promise of our democracy is threatened and we all suffer,” Biden said.
Plaintiff Lorie Smith’s case was largely hypothetical. She has not yet designed wedding websites, but had started a business to do so.
The graphic designer wanted to put a notice on her websites that she doesn’t accept commissions for LGBTQ weddings, which would have violated her state’s antidiscrimination laws. Now it has been right.
(Photo: AP)
She wanted to post a notice on the websites that she was not accepting commissions for LGBTQ weddings – which would have violated her state’s Colorado anti-discrimination laws.
Smith denied allegations of homophobia. She was concerned with defending her right to freedom of expression. The verdict was “a victory, not just for me, but for all of us. It doesn’t matter whether you share my beliefs or completely disagree with them. Freedom of expression is for everyone,” she said.
Judge Neil Gorsuch also justified the court’s decision with the greater good of freedom of expression. No service provider should be forced to offer a service that he refuses. “What if a Muslim film director was forced to produce a film with a Zionist message, or a gay web designer was forced to create a website for a group opposed to gay marriage?”
Decision was “deeply wrong”
At least Gorsuch cannot be accused of blanket homophobia: in 2020, he pushed through a Supreme Court decision strengthening labor laws for LGBTQ people and protecting them from discrimination.
The left-liberal judge Sonia Sotomayor gave the counter-speech to Gorsuch in the courtroom. She called the decision “heartbreaking” and “deeply wrong”. Web designer Smith’s lawsuit amounts to discrimination, “plain and simple”.
For almost thirty years, the Supreme Court had expanded the rights of LGBTQ people. Same-sex marriage was legalized in the United States in 2015, and employment laws for LGBTQ people were strengthened in 2020. Nevertheless, equality for gays and lesbians is at the center of heated debates.
Five years ago, a Christian baker was sued in the Supreme Court for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. The court ruled in favor of the baker.
Phillips’ attorney, Kristen Waggoner of the Alliance Defending Freedom advocacy group, is the same attorney who now represented website designer Lorie Smith in court.
More: US court bars student selection based on skin color
With agency material.