Kentucky city pays photographer $800,000 in same-sex wedding case

The city of Louisville will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to a Kentucky photographer who challenged the city’s LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination law, ending a years-long case backed by a conservative legal group.

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Chelsey Nelson filed a lawsuit in 2019 challenging Louisville’s Fairness Ordinance, which bars discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, she filed a complaint against the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government, claiming the law could force her studio to “create photographs and blogs celebrating a message about marriage she does not believe.”

During President Donald Trump’s first term, the Justice Department filed a statement of interest in the lawsuit.

Now, Louisville ended the years-long lawsuit, the ADF announced, and agreed to pay $800,000 in legal fees.

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“The government cannot force Americans to say things they don’t believe,” said ADF Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart. “For almost six years, Louisville officials tried to do just that by threatening to force Chelsey to promote views about marriage that violated her religious beliefs. Louisville’s threats contradicted bedrock First Amendment principles, which leave decisions about what to say with the people, not the government. This settlement should teach Louisville that violating the U.S. Constitution can be expensive.”

In September, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Beaton, a Trump appointee, awarded Nelson $1 in damages and found the ordinance unlawfully restricted her ability to publicly state she would not photograph same-sex weddings.

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City officials told local media that by reaching the settlement to also pay Nelson’s legal fees, the move ends litigation but leaves the ordinance intact.

“We are committed to fully enforcing Louisville’s anti-discrimination ordinances, including the Fairness Ordinance, which bans discrimination against LGBTQ people," said Matt Mudd, a press secretary for Mayor Craig Greenberg, in a statement published by the Louisville Courier Journal.

The lawsuit relied on the anti-LGBTQ+ ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 303 Creative v. Elenis, in which a Colorado website designer claimed she wanted to expand her wedding business but that a law would require her to serve same-sex couples in violation of her religious beliefs.