Religious Exemptions

On Wednesday’s fraught post-election morning, the Supreme Court, with newly installed Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the bench, heard argument in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case with major implications for children in foster care, for LGBTQ people, and for anyone seeking government services.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to approve the Trump administration’s expansion of large employers’ ability to largely ignore the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) birth-control insurance rule, which Congress enacted to increase equal treatment of women workers.

While every Supreme Court proceeding has drama, there’s extra excitement now.

Lambda Legal urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to affirm a lower court that denied a Colorado marketing and design firm’s request that it be exempt from the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) and instead be allowed to refuse website design services to same-sex couples because the owner claims it violates her religion to treat same- and different-sex couples equally.