Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of "Christian" Florist

Christofascists suffered a defeat on their disingenuous claims that having to providing services to LGBT individuals in accordance with state non-discrimination and public accommodation laws tramples on their "religious freedom."  The U.S. Supreme Court's rejected the appeal from the Washington State Supreme Court against a bigoted florist who sought to use claims of "religious freedom" smoke screen to provide her a license to discriminate. Hopefully, her fate before the high court will send a message that discrimination by businesses providing services to the general public will not be tolerated and that bigots will suffer consequences for their bigotry and false claims of martyrdom.  The Court's action followed an earlier ruling against the Gloucester County, Virginia school board and its anti-transgender policies. A piece at ABC News looks at the Court's totally proper rejection of the appeal.  Here are highlights:

Over the objections of three conservative justices, the US Supreme Court has turned away an appeal from a Washington State flower shop that violated state anti-discrimination law by refusing to serve a same-sex couple on religious grounds.

The decision means a California Supreme Court judgment against Arlene's Flowers and owner Barronelle Stutzman will stand.

With help from the ACLU, the couple sued the shop under Washington's anti-discrimination law, which says businesses that are open to the general public cannot refuse to serve someone based on sexual orientation, even on the basis of sincere religious beliefs.

After years of legal proceedings, the state's highest court sided with the couple. In 2018, the US Supreme Court remanded an appeal from Arlene's Flowers back to the state for a second look. A year later, the Washington Supreme Court affirmed its original decision.

"The adjudicatory bodies that considered this case did not act with religious animus when they ruled that the florist and her corporation violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination by declining to sell wedding flowers to a gay couple, and they did not act with religious animus when they ruled that such discrimination is not privileged or excused by the United States Constitution or the Washington Constitution," the court wrote.

"The State of Washington bars discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. Discrimination based on same-sex marriage constitutes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. We therefore hold that the conduct for which Stutzman was cited and fined in this case—refusing her commercially marketed wedding floral services to Ingersoll and Freed because theirs would be a same-sex wedding—constitutes sexual orientation discrimination under the [law]," the Washington high court wrote in 2019.

Lawyers for Stutzman in a statement online called the decision "devastating news."

"The Supreme Court has once again said that critical nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people are legally enforceable and has set a strong and definitive precedent," said Alphonso David, president of Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group.

Earlier this week, the court delivered another win for LGBT rights advocates by rejecting the appeal of a Virginia school board seeking to impose a transgender bathroom ban. The move means schools in at least five states can no longer discriminate on the basis of gender identity in the use of restroom facilities.