Sotomayor says Supreme Court is opening the door to racial discrimination and sending 'the message that we live in a society with social castes'

• The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that a Colorado web designer can deny services to same-sex couples.
• In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor argued that the ruling could allow for racial discrimination too.

In her dissent to a Supreme Court ruling on LGBTQ+ rights on Friday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the court's conservative majority has implicitly allowed further racial discrimination in the United States.

In a 6-3 decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the Court ruled that businesses may refuse services to LGBTQ+ people if doing so contradicts their religious beliefs.

Specifically, the court sided with a Colorado-based web designer named Lorie Smith who challenged a Colorado law prohibiting businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, arguing the law violated her First Amendment rights and her Christian religious beliefs.

Smith wanted to post a message on her website stating that she would not create wedding pages for same-sex couples. Her lawyers have argued that Colorado's anti-discrimination law would force her to engage in speech that contradicts her Christian religious beliefs.

Notably, Smith does not appear to have ever been asked to create a website for a same-sex couple, and has yet to set up the wedding business or post the message.

Sotomayor argued that the logic of the case could easily be extended to allow for racial discrimination as well.

"A website designer could equally refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, for example," Sotomayor wrote.

"How quickly we forget that opposition to interracial marriage was often because 'Almighty God . . . did not intend for the races to mix,'" she added, quoting religious objects to interracial marriage cited in the 1976 Loving v. Virginia case that overturned state-level bans on interracial marriage.

Noting that Smith has said she would be willing to accommodate gay and lesbian couples — just not for a wedding page — Sotomayor mocked that argument while again drawing a parallel with racial discrimination.

"Apparently, a gay or lesbian couple might buy a wedding website for their straight friends," Sotomayor wrote. "This logic would be amusing if it were not so embarrassing."

"I suppose the Heart of Atlanta Motel could have argued that Black people may still rent rooms for their white friends," she added, referencing a 1964 case ruling that a George motel could not discriminate against Black Americans.

Sotomayor also wrote that the ruling had broader negative effects for LGBTQ+ people, writing that the "symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status."

"It sends the message that we live in a society with social castes," she wrote.