The Court Delivers Another Reassuring Decision for Religious Conservatives
Conservatives who have moral and theological objections to gay marriage saw the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday as reassurance that they would be able to assert their beliefs in a public square that they see as increasingly hostile to them.
In a 6-to-3 vote, split along ideological lines, the justices agreed with a web designer in Colorado who said she had a First Amendment right to refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages, despite a state law that forbids discrimination against gay people. “If the government can compel an individual to speak a certain way or create certain things, that’s not freedom — it’s subjugation,” said Brent Leatherwood, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s policy arm, in a statement after the ruling.
He described the decision as having granted freedom to all Americans to speak consistently with their beliefs, “even when those beliefs are deemed culturally unpopular.” According to polling from 2021 by the Public Religion Research Institute, majorities of most major religious groups — including Catholics, Jews and Muslims — oppose allowing small-business owners to refuse to serve gay and lesbian people on religious grounds.
Notable exceptions include white evangelical Protestants and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The ruling on Friday comes a day after another Supreme Court decision cheered by religious conservatives, in which the court ruled in favor of a postal carrier who refused to work on the Sabbath.
