Scott Statement on 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis

WASHINGTON  – Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03) released the following statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. 

“Civil rights and public accommodation laws serve an important function in the marketplace to ensure individuals, no matter their race, color, national origin, sex, including LGBTQ+ status, religion, and disability, can access goods and services without discrimination from businesses.  The Supreme Court’s decision undermines that fundamental principle to create an exemption to anti-discrimination laws. Denying service to someone because of who they are is discrimination, not speech, and the government has an important interest in stopping the harmful impact of discrimination in commercial activities. This decision demonstrates that this Court is seeking to redefine who the victim is in these cases. The Court would have you believe the victim is the business who wants to deny services to some individuals, and not the individuals who would actually be denied services. This is a fundamental shift in our civil rights laws and opens the door to further discrimination against individuals in the name of speech or religion.

“Despite this harmful decision by the Court, there is still important work to be done to continue the progress to enshrine protections for LGBTQ+ on the federal, state, and local level. It is our job to pass the Equality Act to explicitly prohibit discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community as part of our federal civil rights laws. We must also enact the Do No Harm Act to ensure that federal law protections for religious freedom are not used to undermine civil rights protections.  There is an increasing misuse of religious freedom claims to undermine the civil rights of individuals.  Both the Equality Act and the Do No Harm Act are important steps to provide better protections to individuals against such discrimination.  We must also look further into how this ruling will affect other civil rights laws containing public accommodation provisions. For example, a chef may now be able to deny services to people he does not approve of at his restaurant. This case was about making wedding websites for same-sex couples, but the implications go much further. This ruling further serves as a reminder that we have much further to go before all Americans are treated equally under the law.”

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