LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A federal judge said the city of Louisville cannot enforce its Fairness Ordinance against a local business owner who does not want to photograph same-sex weddings.
Chelsey Nelson filed a lawsuit in November 2019, stating the city's anti-discrimination law, designed to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation, violated her constitutional rights, including freedom of religion and speech.
In a ruling on Friday, Justin Walker, judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, agreed with Nelson.
"Louisville cannot enforce the Fairness Ordinance against Nelson without unconstitutionally 'abridging her freedom of speech,'" he wrote.
No same-sex couples have challenged Nelson, and the city of Louisville has taken no action against her, but the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative, Arizona-based advocacy group that is representing Nelson, said she filed the lawsuit as a preemptive strike.
Nelson says she does not want to be forced to shoot and promote same-sex weddings
The judge on Friday also wrote that his ruling was not a "license to discriminate."
The ruling prohibits the city from requiring Nelson to provide her wedding photography services to same-sex weddings. It also said the city cannot prohibit Nelson from posting on her website that she refuses to photograph such ceremonies.
"Just as gay and lesbian Americans 'cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth,' neither can Americans 'with a deep faith that requires them to do things passing legislative majorities might find unseemly or uncouth," the judge wrote. "... Under our Constitution, the government can't force them to march for, or salute in favor of or create an artistic expression that celebrates a marriage that their conscience doesn't condone.
"America is wide enough for those who applaud same-sex marriage and those who refuse to," the judge wrote. "The Constitution does not require a choice between gay rights and freedom of speech. It demands both."
The judge also wrote, however, that most applications of anti-discrimination laws, including Louisville's Fairness Ordinance, are constitutional.
"Today's ruling is not a license to discriminate," Walker wrote. "Nor does it allow for the 'serious stigma' that results from a sign in the window announcing that an owner won't serve gay and lesbian customers.
"In Louisville, since 1999 and still today, Marriott cannot refuse a room to a same-sex couple. McDonald's cannot deny a man dinner simply because he is gay. Neither an empty hotel room, nor a Big Mac, is speech."
Nelson's request to block enforcement against other businesses was denied.
She also cannot seek damages from any business she alleges she may have lost because of her beliefs, the judge wrote.
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