News
A Kentucky appeals court issued a ruling that a Lexington printer did not discriminate against anyone when he declined to create a message in conflict with his religious beliefs. In 2012, Blaine Adamson of Hands On Originals declined to print shirts with a message promoting the Lexington Pride Festival, an event that the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization hosted. Although he declined to print the shirts because of the message that would have been on them, he nevertheless offered to refer the GLSO to another printer who would have made the shirts. Unsatisfied, the GLSO filed a complaint with the commission—despite eventually receiving the shirts for free from another printer. In 2014, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission ruled that Adamson must print messages that conflict with his faith when customers ask him to do so. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys appealed the order to the Fayette Circuit Court, which reversed the commission’s ruling and affirmed Adamson’s freedom to live according to his faith. The commission then appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals in Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission v. Hands On Originals. Jim Campbell, Senior Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom and attorney for Blaine Adamson joins Freedom Matters this week.