Posted on 10/31/2019 2:03:23 PM PDT by TigerClaws
FRANKFORT, Ky. – The Kentucky Supreme Court handed a victory Thursday to Lexington promotional print shop owner Blaine Adamson. In its ruling, the Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously affirmed, as Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys argued from the beginning, that the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization did not have a legal right to sue Adamson or his business, Hands On Originals, for declining to print a message that violates his religious beliefs.
“Today’s decision makes clear that this case never should have happened. For more than seven years, government officials used this case to turn Blaine’s life upside down, even though we told them from the beginning that the lawsuit didn’t comply with the city’s own legal requirements,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell, who argued before the state high court on Adamson’s behalf earlier this year. “The First Amendment protects Blaine’s right to continue serving all people while declining to print messages that violate his faith. Justice David Buckingham recognized this in his concurring opinion, and no member of the court disagreed with that.”
ADF attorneys explain that the Hands On Originals decision highlights why the U.S. Supreme Court should take up the important First Amendment issue at the heart of the case and decide whether governments may force creative professionals who serve everyone to print messages or create art that violates their beliefs. Last month, Washington floral artist Barronelle Stutzman asked the Supreme Court to hear her case and resolve that question. This is the second time she has petitioned the high court. And Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips is facing the third lawsuit that has been filed against him. Meanwhile, the Arizona Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit both recently ruled in favor of other creative professionals represented by ADF attorneys.
Throughout Adamson’s case, he received broad public support, including from lesbians who own a print shop in New Jersey and agree that promotional printers shouldn’t be forced to print messages they consider objectionable. In addition, the Kentucky Supreme Court received 13 friend-of-the-court briefs in support of Adamson, including briefs from Gov. Matt Bevin and 10 states. The court received only one brief in support of the government.
The Kentucky Supreme Court wrote in its opinion in Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission v. Hands On Originals that “this matter must be dismissed because the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization, the original party to bring this action before the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission, lacked statutory standing to assert a claim against Hands On Originals under the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government ordinance.” [abbreviations omitted]
In a concurring opinion, Justice David Buckingham said that “Hands On was in good faith objecting to the message it was being asked to disseminate.” He also explained, quoting what the U.S. Supreme Court wrote last year in Janus v. AFSCME, that “[w]hen speech is compelled…, individuals are coerced into betraying their convictions. Forcing free and independent individuals to endorse ideas they find objectionable is always demeaning….” No member of the court disagreed with what Buckingham wrote.
The case began in 2012 when Adamson declined to print shirts with a message promoting the Lexington Pride Festival, an event that the GLSO hosted. Although Adamson declined to print the shirts because of the message that would have been on them, he offered to connect the GLSO to another printer who would have made the shirts. Adamson has printed other materials for a lesbian musician who performed at the festival.
The GLSO filed a complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission—despite eventually receiving the shirts for free from another printer. In 2014, the commission ruled that Adamson must print messages that conflict with his faith when customers ask him to do so. After that, all three levels of the state court system ruled in Adamson’s favor.
“The commission wasted taxpayer dollars and judicial resources by pressing this complaint in the first place and then appealing it all the way to the Kentucky Supreme Court,” said ADF-allied attorney and co-counsel Bryan Beauman of Sturgill, Turner, Barker & Moloney, PLLC. “We hope that going forward the commission will respect the free speech rights of its citizens.”
Why does it seem that conservatives never have the financial resources/backing that liberals do to keep suing someone, even it’s 3, 4 or more times?
Anyone, who doesn’t believe that a custom wedding cake is “art”, should just buy a dozen generic cakes from a supermarket, stack ‘em up pyramid style, & stick a couple of Lego figurines on top. They’d save a lot of money, compared to buying from a cake artist.
We work for a living and pay our own bills.
“Human Rights Commission (HRC)” is an attempt at getting taxpayers to fund unelected tribunals in every city to pursue such cases against private companies and individuals.
What is the matter with Lexington KY??? Was that place settled by escaped child molesters from California???
It took a while for the lawyers to discover common sense...
Big college town. University of Kentucky, Transylvania, a couple of others.
We should start targeting such groups.
“Human Rights Commission (HRC)” is an attempt at getting taxpayers to fund unelected tribunals in every city to pursue such cases against private companies and individuals.
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They are parasites on so many levels it makes your head spin considering it.
Our small county in Central Kentucky has a so-called Human Rights Commission. And it’s full of just the kind of persons you would expect. People who think everyone else’s business is theirs. People who wake up every day hoping to find something that will offend them, someone to whom they can administer pay back.
These so-called human rights commissions are nothing but government brownshirts, make no mistake about that.
Unelected leftist bureaucrats who have been given the power to destroy people without due process.
“Our small county in Central Kentucky has a so-called Human Rights Commission. And it’s full of just the kind of persons you would expect.”
Those people have addresses.
I’m just saying.
L
I would not be surprised if a Soros funded organization was responsible for the creation of that Commission. His strategy has shifted to focusing on obscure, “dog catcher” elections at the local level few people pay attention to in order to chip away under the surface to enact the far-left’s agenda.
This is how we lost control over academia, entertainment, media, etc. They just slowly but surely chip away under the surface until they finally have full control.
These cases are total freedom of speech hypocrisy by the LGBT activists’ agenda.
No one is impinging on their free speech rights, not even the private print shop owner that won’t promote their message for them. They have any number of alternatives to that print shop and that print shop is not the government and not carrying out a government policy against the LGBT agenda’s free speech rights.
Let’s remember the heart of the meaning of the Constitutional amendments concerning freedom of speech and freedom of religion IS NOT about your control of what speech you will promote, but about the government not being allowed to abridge your freedom of speech and religion, and about the government not being allowed to force you to be the mouthpiece for speech of someone you don’t agree with.
On the other hand, the LGBT activists agenda IS seeking for the government to enact a policy, by judicial fiat, that would deny the free speech and religious freedom rights of the private owners of the print shop. They are part of the Left’s attempt to morph the legal understandings of our freedoms and rights from restrictions against government control to the use of government to control their opponents.
Hell, the state won't even print messages they consider objectionable, and yet they try to force a private business to do it? That's gotta stop.
20-30 years ago as a parent I had frequent dealings with Polk County FL school system at all levels. Up to and including the school board, various principals and administrators, the superintendent.
I wish I had kept a log. I have sufficient bizarre and infuriating stories to fill a small book. Stories that require no exaggeration or embellishment. Even set against today’s greater lunacy.
The lying, the basic incompetency, the dedication to leftist ideology was disheartening and creepy.
Because they don’t.
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