<p>Colorado has agreed to pay over $1.5 million after violating the First Amendment rights of a graphic designer who took her case to the United States Supreme Court.</p>
<p>The Court ruled in June that the state could not compel Lorie Smith and her design studio, 303 Creative, to create art that violates her religious beliefs. As a Christian, Smith <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/06/30/supreme-court-rules-colorado-cannot-force-graphic-designer-to-create-art-violating-her-beliefs/">believes that marriage should be</a> between a man and a woman. Though she wanted to design wedding websites, Colorado&#8217;s discrimination laws would have required her to create same-sex wedding websites.</p>
<p>Smith, who was represented by lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom, asked the Supreme Court to say Colorado&#8217;s discrimination law violated her First Amendment rights. Her case followed that of Jack Phillips, a cake designer persecuted by LGBTQ activists in Colorado for over a decade for attempting to only design cakes consistent with his religious beliefs.</p>
<p>“After enduring Colorado’s censorship for nearly seven years, I’m incredibly grateful for the work of my attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom to bring my case to victory,” Smith said in a statement on Tuesday.  “As the Supreme Court said, I’m free to create art consistent with my beliefs without fear of Colorado punishing me anymore. This is a win not just for me but for <em>all</em> Americans—for those who share my beliefs <em>and</em> for those who hold different views.&#8221;</p>
<div id="attachment_831287" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-scaled.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-831287" class="wp-image-831287 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/GettyImages-1446991422-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-831287" class="wp-caption-text">(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)</p></div>
<p>Alliance Defending Freedom CEO Kristen Waggoner <a href="https://adfmedia.org/press-release/colorado-officials-pay-15m-violating-constitution#:~:text=“For%20the%20past%2012%20years,Amendment%20protections%20are%20non%2Dnegotiable.">said</a> that the &#8220;government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe, and Colorado officials have paid and will continue to pay a high price when they violate this foundational freedom.&#8221;</p>
<p>“For the past 12 years, Colorado has targeted people of faith and forced them to express messages that violate their conscience and that advance the government’s preferred ideology,&#8221; she said. &#8220;First Amendment protections are non-negotiable. Billions of people around the world believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that men and women are biologically distinct.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;No government has the right to silence individuals for expressing these ideas or to punish those who decline to express different views,&#8221; Waggoner added. &#8220;Political and cultural winds shift, but the freedom to speak without fear of censorship is a God-given constitutionally guaranteed right, essential for a flourishing society and self-governing people.”</p>
<p>In October, the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the same trans-identifying attorney who has brought cases against Phillips for over 12 years — Autumn Scardina, a man who identifies as a woman. Scardina first contacted Phillips in 2012, calling the cake-maker a hypocrite and a bigot, according to Alliance Defending Freedom. Scardina has requested that Phillips create cakes celebrating gender transitions and &#8220;Satan smoking Marijuana.&#8221;</p>

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Colorado Pays $1.5 Million For Violating Artist’s First Amendment Rights After Historic SCOTUS Case