Emilee Carpenter / Alliance Defending Freedom
A Christian photographer in New York has favorably settled her lawsuit against the state over laws that required her to create messages about marriage that go against her faith.
Legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) stated in a July 22 news release that New York’s laws had threatened Emilee Carpenter with up to $100,000 in fines, up to one year in jail, and a revoked business license if she refused clients’ requests to photograph same-sex “weddings”. Carpenter also was banned from creating blog posts that expressed her views on marriage, according to the release. ADF represented Carpenter in the lawsuit.
After years of litigation, a federal district court has reached a settlement between the state and Carpenter, ordering New York officials to respect her free speech rights and awarding her $224,000 in attorneys’ fees. The settlement comes after Carpenter’s case was heard last year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which returned her case to the district court and ordered it to consider the case in light of a similar U.S. Supreme Court case, 303 Creative v. Elenis.
As CatholicVote reported at the time, that case centered around a Colorado Christian website designer that was being forced by state laws, against her beliefs, to create wedding websites for same-sex couples. The Supreme Court decided in the designer’s favor, ruling that the law violated her free speech rights.
Quoting from the 303 Creative case, the district court ultimately ruled in Carpenter’s suit that New York’s laws “may not be ‘applied to expressive activity to compel speech’” and decided that officials could not require Carpenter to create content inconsistent with her beliefs.
In the release, ADF Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart celebrated the settlement.
“Free speech is for everyone, and we’re pleased to settle this case so that Emilee can speak her views on marriage without the threat of being punished by New York,” Neihart said. “As the Supreme Court reaffirmed in 303 Creative, the government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe.”
