‘Someone’s beliefs should not get them blacklisted from financial institutions in a free society’
By - Religious Americans had several major legislative and legal victories in 2023.
- The Supreme Court’s June decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis secured a victory for a Christian wedding photographer, and Jake Warner, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, said he believes it will help Christian baker Jack Phillip’s case, as well.
- “The government can’t force anyone to express messages that goes against their beliefs and because we appealed Jack Phillip’s case to the Colorado Supreme Court before 303 Creative was decided the state Supreme Court will be the first to be able to apply that decision in Jack’s current case,” Jake Warner, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Advocates for faith won several major victories this year through the legislature and the court, despite a growing hostility toward religious communities.
There were several examples of anti-religious sentiment over the past year, some of which included an FBI-drafted memotargeting traditional Catholics as “potential domestic terrorists” and the University of West Virginia’s transgender traininglabeling Christians as oppressors. However, 2023 also boasted several victories for religious Americans in schools, the workplace and the pro-life movement.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Christian web designer Lorie Smith, who sued the state of Colorado over a law that would have compelled her to create wedding websites for same-sex couples in violation of her religious beliefs. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices wrote that “tolerance, not coercion, is our Nation’s answer” and that all Americans, including religious ones, should be able to freely express their beliefs as they see fit and “not as the government demands.”
The case will also likely have a significant effect on another religious case that has been going on for a decade involving Christian baker Jack Phillips, who initially won at the Supreme Court in 2018 after he refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Phillips was sued again in 2021 for refusing to bake a cake for a gender transition party, and his attorney previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he believed Smith’s case would be key to defending free speech for religious Americans in Phillip’s lawsuit.
“The government can’t force anyone to express messages that goes against their beliefs and because we appealed Jack’s case to the Colorado Supreme Court before 303 Creative was decided the state Supreme Court will be the first to be able to apply that decision in Jack’s current case,” Jake Warner, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom and Phillips’ attorney, told the DCNF.