After nearly 10 years in court, Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman has settled a case that began when she declined to create a floral arrangement for a gay couple’s wedding. But just because her own fight for religious freedom is coming to an end does not mean Stutzman has given up. Far from it.
As part of the settlement, Stutzman agreed to pay Rob Ingersoll, the former customer whose wedding Stutzman refused to service, $5,000 and sell her business to her employees. She also agreed to withdraw her petition for reconsideration before the Supreme Court, and in turn, the American Civil Liberties Union vowed to drop its lawsuit against her.
In some ways, the settlement feels like a loss. Stutzman should not have had to pay Ingersoll one cent. She has the right to believe in and live by her religious convictions, even in matters of business, and it is shameful that the courts refused to protect that right.
It is also a disgrace that the ACLU, an organization that stopped pretending to care about civil liberties a long time ago, pursued the case against Stutzman so viciously that she felt she couldn’t continue. And who could blame her? The ACLU was trying to take everything she owned: her business, her house, her assets.
She’s 76 years old. She wants to retire, to live without fear of who might file the next lawsuit. She has seen what’s happened to Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who continues to face lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit because he dared to keep operating his business. So, “the settlement is what it has to be,” Stutzman told the Washington Examiner.
But Stutzman still has hope that her case will be vindicated. In fact, there’s a case making its way to the Supreme Court right now that could exonerate both her and Phillips, who won his case a few years ago but by such a narrow decision that he might end up before the bench once again. This new case, 303 Creative v. Elenis, will give the court the chance to expand its ruling on Phillips’s case and make it clear once and for all that all speech, whether in art or written word, is protected by the First Amendment and that religious persons cannot be compelled to produce speech that violates their convictions.
“The court needs to spell that out,” said Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner. “This issue transcends the marriage debate. This is about whether all Americans can be compelled into speech with which they disagree.”
Stutzman said she plans to throw her weight behind 303 Creative v. Elenis and every other Christian brave enough to put up a fight. Because before long, she said, everyone who tries to “live consistent with their faith” is going to “find themselves in the position I’m in.”
“And each one of us is going to have to figure out what line we don’t want to cross,” she added.
Stutzman continued, “It would be nice to pretend like this didn’t happen and get back to normal, but I’m not sure what normal is. The fight is not over.”
