In a stunning ruling yesterday in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, a divided panel of the Tenth Circuit held that Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act “permissibly compels” a graphic and website design company to offer wedding websites that “celebrate same-sex marriages” if it is going to offer wedding websites that celebrate opposite-sex marriages. Judge Mary Beck Briscoe wrote the majority opinion, which Judge Michael Murphy joined. Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich dissented.
I present below Briscoe’s actual reasoning on the Free Speech claim (underlining added; some citations omitted). Everything is fine on points 1 to 6. Indeed, those points seem to be setting up a ruling in favor of the website design company. But Briscoe goes completely off the rails on points 8 and 9.-- More...
