LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A federal court has ruled in favor of Chelsey Nelson, a Louisville wedding photographer and blogger who challenged the city’s Fairness Ordinance.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky found that enforcing the ordinance against Nelson violated her First Amendment rights. The court issued a permanent bar preventing Louisville from enforcing the law against her and ordered the city to pay damages for restricting her speech.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which filed the lawsuit in 2019, argued that the law prohibited Nelson from expressing her views on marriage on her studio website and could have compelled her to create photographs and blogs celebrating marriages she did not support.
“I create to celebrate God’s design for marriage and the special union of one man to one woman,” Nelson said in a video released by ADF. She added that the law forced her to act as “a spokesperson for the government’s currently favored view of marriage” and threatened her with investigations, fines, and court orders if she refused.
A district court first ruled in Nelson’s favor in 2022, blocking Louisville from enforcing the law. The city appealed to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, but as that case was pending, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis. That ruling held that government officials cannot force artists to create speech with which they disagree.
The Sixth Circuit sent Nelson’s case back to the district court while leaving the earlier decision intact. On Tuesday, the district court reaffirmed its prior ruling.
“The Supreme Court’s intervening decision in 303 Creative confirms this Court’s earlier judgment in Nelson’s favor,” wrote District Judge Benjamin Beaton.
“For over five years, Louisville officials said they could force Chelsey to promote views about marriage that violated her religious beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart. “But the First Amendment leaves decisions about what to say with the people, not the government. The district court’s decision rests on this bedrock First Amendment principle and builds on the victory in 303 Creative.”
Nelson, now living in Florida, welcomed the ruling. “I didn’t leave my free speech behind when I chose to create art for a living,” she said. “Thanks to the court’s ruling in my case, I’m now free to create photographs and blog consistent with my convictions.”
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg’s office has not yet responded to the ruling.
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