By Bob Allen
A Kentucky printer’s religious beliefs do now entitle him to refuse to make T-shirts for a gay-pride event, Americans United for Separation of Church and State argued in a legal brief filed Dec. 28.
The friend-of-the-court brief with the Commonwealth of Kentucky Court of Appeals was filed in conjunction with Protect Thy Neighbor, an Americans United initiative launched in July to counter attempts by the Religious Right of using religious liberty as an excuse for discriminating against LGBT Americans.
In 2014 the Humans Right Commission in Lexington, Ky., found that Hands On Originals violated the city’s fairness ordinance by refusing to print T-shirts promoting a gay-pride event.
A state court reversed that decision, finding that the state could not compel to print shirts and other promotional messages that are inconsistent with the business owner’s Christian beliefs.
The Americans United brief argues that the act of printing a T-shirt is less “artistic and expressive” speech than “just stenography of customers’ words.”
“It is the paying customers of Hands On Originals who generate and then disseminate the messages that the company is hired to print,” the brief states.
“The various provisions of the First Amendment speak with one voice: businesses like Hands On Originals have a legal responsibility to treat their customers equally,” it concludes. “They have no constitutional right to discriminate, whether in the name of religion or otherwise.”
“Lexington-Fayette Urban County’s anti-discrimination law means no one has the right to treat LGBT people as second-class citizens,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Hands On Originals does not get a special exemption from this regulation simply because of its owner’s religious convictions.”