Colorado to Pay $1.5 Million in Settlement Over Christian Designer’s Free Speech Case

Colorado has agreed to pay more than $1.5 million in attorney fees after being found in violation of the First Amendment rights of a Christian graphic artist and her design studio. The settlement follows a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld free speech protections and a district court decision mandating that Colorado officials allow the artist to operate her business in alignment with her beliefs.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a nonprofit legal organization that represented the artist, Lorie Smith, announced the settlement on November 19. Dedicated to defending “religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life,” ADF confirmed that the agreement includes Colorado paying over $1.5 million in legal fees incurred during the case.

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Smith, owner of the design studio 303 Creative, could not be compelled under Colorado’s anti-discrimination law to create websites that conflict with her deeply held religious beliefs.

With support from ADF, Smith filed a pre-enforcement challenge to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act in 2016. She argued that the law violated the U.S. Constitution by forcing her to act against her belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.

The lawsuit contended that a ruling in Smith’s favor would protect the free speech rights of all Americans, regardless of their beliefs, and help end nearly two decades of unconstitutional government coercion against artists nationwide. In civil rights cases against the government, it is standard practice for the government to pay attorney fees when the opposing party prevails.

“Billions of people around the world believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that men and women are biologically distinct,” ADF CEO and president Kristen Waggoner said. “No government has the right to silence individuals for expressing these ideas or to punish those who decline to express different views.” “For the past 12 years, Colorado has targeted people of faith and forced them to express messages that violate their conscience and that advance the government’s preferred ideology,” Waggoner pointed out, adding: “Political and cultural winds shift, but the freedom to speak without fear of censorship is a God-given constitutionally guaranteed right, essential for a flourishing society and self-governing people.”

Photo credits: United States Supreme Court Building at dusk in Washington, D.C. by Joe Ravi. CC-BY-SA 3.0.