RFI’s Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team has joined Christians and Jews in a friend of the court brief asking the Supreme Court to hear the case of a florist shop which was sued by Washington State for declining to participate in a same-sex wedding. 

The case, Arlene’s Flowers Inc. v. Washington, began in 2013 when Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, refused to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding. She believed that providing her floral services in this context would amount to participation  in the event, which would violate her religious belief that marriage is the union of husband and wife. Washington’s attorney general sued the flower shop, and a state court found it guilty of violating Washington’s law against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. 

Arlene’s Flowers appealed the verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court, which remanded the case to the Washington Supreme Court for reconsideration in light of its holding in Masterpiece Cakeshop. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado bakery that refused to provide a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The Court reached this decision on the grounds that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had been hostile to the  owner’s religious beliefs, in violation of the free exercise provision of the First Amendment. 

Whether the case of Arlene’s Flowers will achieve a similar conclusion remains in question. This past June, the Washington Supreme Court again upheld the guilty finding against the florist. Consequently, Arlene’s Flowers is once again asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its case.

In an amicus brief, RFI’s Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team is joined by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, an incorporated group of lawyers, rabbis, and communal professionals. With a unified voice, the brief urges the Supreme Court to review and reverse the verdict against Arlene’s Flowers.

The brief argues that Washington State’s action against Arlene’s Flowers violates the florist’s  First Amendment religious liberty protections because it would require her to attend a wedding ceremony to which she religiously objects and participate in its rituals. The florist believes, as do many believing Muslims, Jews, and Christians, that participating in same-sex weddings “would go against God’s definition of marriage” and would make her “accountable to the Lord.” Since  “all three major Western religions view the wedding ceremony as an inherently spiritual event,” the brief argues, forcing believers “to attend and participate in marriage ceremonies they object to as a matter of conscience violates their most deeply held beliefs.” This, in turn, is a violation of the First Amendment.

Seventeen U.S. states, forty three members of Congress, and the libertarian Cato Institute, among others, have filed briefs in support of the florist.

RFI’s Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team has filed several other amicus curiae briefs before the Supreme Court, including one in support of the World War I memorial cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, and another in support of a faith-based funeral home.