303 Creative LLC v. Elenis

Majority reasoning

The majority reasoned that the wedding websites Lorie Smith intends to create are "pure speech" protected by the First Amendment, based on stipulated facts that her designs are original, customized, and intended to celebrate and promote a couple's story and her view of marriage. Drawing on Barnette, Hurley, and Dale, the Court held that the government generally cannot force an individual to speak a message she disagrees with, even under the guise of a public accommodations law, because doing so would let the state "excise certain ideas or viewpoints from the public dialogue." The majority rejected Colorado's argument that this was merely incidental regulation of commercial conduct, noting the stipulations establish that Ms. Smith's services are expressive and that she serves LGBT clients generally but objects only to creating messages that violate her beliefs regardless of who requests them. The Court distinguished this from ordinary anti-discrimination enforcement (like the FAIR case's incidental logistical speech) because Colorado's own stipulated purpose was to eliminate a disfavored viewpoint on marriage. The majority also directly rebutted the dissent's characterization of the case as regulating "conduct not speech" and its Communication Clause argument, stating the Tenth Circuit itself found the case involves pure speech and that the Communication Clause challenge rises and falls with the Accommodation Clause challenge as the parties agreed.

Dissent reasoning

Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, argued that Colorado's law regulates conduct, not speech, and that the refusal to serve a class of customers has never been treated as protected expression under the First Amendment. The dissent traced the history of public accommodations laws from common-law duties on innkeepers and smiths through the civil rights era, arguing that any burden on speech from requiring equal service is merely "incidental" under precedents like O'Brien and FAIR, and is justified by the state's compelling interest in ensuring equal access and dignity in the public marketplace. The dissent contended the majority collapses the distinction between status-based discrimination (refusing to serve gay customers) and message-based refusals (declining to convey a specific message), noting that Smith conceded she would refuse an identical website to a same-sex couple that she would provide to an opposite-sex couple, which the dissent called status discrimination "plain and simple." The dissent warned the ruling's logic could extend to interracial couples, disabled parents, or other groups depending on a business owner's objections, and characterized the decision as the first time the Court has granted a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse service to a protected class.