Wedding websites are the latest gay rights battleground in Colorado

When the Supreme Court ruled narrowly in 2018 for a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple, the justices avoided declaring a clear winner in the cultural conflict between LGBTQ rights advocates and those who say their religious beliefs forbid countenancing same-sex marriage.

It turns out that the next such case, which the Supreme Court takes up Monday, was just a short drive away.

About five miles from Jack Phillips’s Masterpiece Cakeshop, the focus of the battle four years ago, is a cheerful office in a nondescript building. Graphic designer Lorie Smith says the same Colorado public accommodation law that Phillips challenged, which forbids discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, also violates her deeply held religious views and free-speech rights.

Smith wants to expand her business to create wedding websites but only to tell the stories of brides and grooms “through God’s lens.” And she wants to be able to tell same-sex couples on her 303 Creative LLC website that she will not create such platforms for them.