Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in 303 Creative Ltd. v. Elenis. The case involves a web designer in Colorado who wants to refuse to make wedding websites for same-sex couples. Wedding websites are the way engaged couples let their friends and family know their wedding and pre-wedding plans, access their registry, and generally celebrate with them as the day of the wedding approaches.

A colleague wondered, “Where’s the money”? A wedding website designer is unlikely to have the resources to fund a lawsuit that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. After some research, he found that the lawsuit is being funded by an organization called the Alliance Defending Freedom. This organization was listed as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2016. (https://www.splcenter.org/news/2020/04/10/why-alliance-defending-freedom-hate-group) It was founded by leaders of the “Christian Right” about 30 years ago, and is largely responsible for the invention of the term “gay agenda,” which they claim will destroy society generally and Christianity in particular.

I assume these people turn to the Hebrew Scriptures for support in their condemnation of LGBTQ+ folks. The Old Testament is filled with rules that seemed culturally appropriate two or three thousand years ago. I’m guessing the folks at the Alliance Defending Freedom ignore most of them, and rightly so. They won’t find any support for their hatred in the words of Jesus, who, instead, welcomed all those that his culture treated as outcasts, and who actually violated the rules that were more hurtful than helpful to people.

Nevertheless, the argument is that having to create wedding websites for LGBTQ+ couples violates the website designer’s First Amendment rights. In a New York Times op-ed today, David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, urges us to ask the right questions about this case. “The question is not, as it may seem initially, ‘Can an artist be compelled to create a website with which she disagrees?’” Instead, Cole writes, “The right question is whether someone who chooses to open a business to the public should have a right to turn away gay customers simply because the service provided is ‘expressive’ or ‘artistic.”’ Cole argues that this case is not really about the First Amendment, but instead about public accommodations laws, which ensure that “everyone has equal access to the public marketplace.” He continues, “They don’t trigger serious First Amendment concerns because they apply equally to all businesses, expressive or not, and are focused on the commercial conduct of discriminatorily denying service — not on controlling the content of anyone’s speech.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/opinion/303creative-first-amendment-supreme-court.html)

Before seminary, I practiced law for 15 years, so the details of this argument still fascinate me. But from where I sit now as a spiritual director, retired pastor, and follower of Jesus, what concerns me most is using Christianity and/or Scripture to justify hatred. To claim it violates your freedom if the government stops you from taking actions that discriminate against, hurt, or even destroy LGBTQ+ folks. That is what is destroying Christianity. That is what is driving thinking people, caring people, LGBTQ+ people, and young people away from the Church. It breaks my heart, and I feel pretty comfortable saying in breaks Jesus’ heart, as well.