Kentucky Printer Wins Religious Freedom Battle
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
A custom message printer in Kentucky is legally allowed to decline orders that ask him to print messages that conflict with his religious beliefs.
A Kentucky court ruled Monday that the government cannot force the Lexington business Hands on Originals (HOO) to print messages that conflict with the owner's religious and moral beliefs.
The ruling comes a year after the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission ruled that HOO owner Blaine Adamson must print all messages customers order.
The Alliance Defending Freedom appealed the ruling to the Fayette County Circuit Court.
"The government can't force citizens to surrender free-speech rights or religious freedom in order to run a small business, and this decision affirms that," ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jim Campbell said.
"The court rightly recognized that the law protects Blaine's decision not to print shirts with messages that conflict with his beliefs, and that no sufficient reason exists for the government to coerce Blaine to act against his conscience in this way," he added.
Adamson came under fire when he declined to print custom T-shirts promoting a gay pride festival.
Since he did not agree with the message conveyed on the shirts, he offered to connect the customer with a different printer who would produce the shirts at the same price he would have charged.
Unsatisfied with that solution, the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization filed a complaint against Hands on Originals with the county Human Rights Commission charging HOO with illegal discrimination.
But the Fayette County Circuit Court concluded this week that Adamson did not violate the law when he declined to print the gay pride T-shirts.
The court reasoned that since Adamson employs and regularly does business with people who identify as homosexual, his decision not to print the shirts was not about discriminating against a homosexual customer, but rather about defending his freedom to decline to convey a message with which he disagrees.
"In short, HOO's declination to print the shirts was based upon the message of GLSO and the Pride Festival and not on the sexual orientation of its representatives or members," the court said.
The court continued, "There is nothing in the record before the Commission that the sexual orientation of any individual that had contact with HOO was ever divulged or played any part in this case."
