PHOENIX —
Arizona's Supreme Court could issue a landmark decision Monday morning.
Does a six-year-old City of Phoenix ordinance barring discrimination against people in the LGBT community trample on a business owner's right to refuse service based on the owner's religious beliefs?
The high court will reveal its decision at 10 a.m. Monday in Brush & Nib Studio v City of Phoenix. It comes eight months after the court heard the case, an unusually long wait for a ruling.
The decision could break new ground. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to directly address whether LGBT civil rights laws should allow a carve-out for a business owner's religious beliefs.
In 2013, the Phoenix City Council passed the civil rights ordinance protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender resident from discrimination.
The ordinance spawned an ugly debate at a City Council meeting that was moved to the Orpheum Theater.
Opponents, led by the Center for Arizona Policy's Cathi Herrod, derisively dubbed the ordinance the "bathroom bill," stoking fears that predators would stalk women's bathroom under the cover of being transgender women.
Non of the fears have come to pass. There have been few, if any, complaints filed under the ordinance.
The owners of the Brush & Nib studio in Phoenix, Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, sell custom and off-the-shelf stationery and other paper goods for weddings and other special occasions.
They argue that the ordinance violates their religious and artistic freedom by forcing them to create wedding invitations for same-sex couples.
Briefs filed in the case revealed the business owners sued the City of Phoenix without ever having been the target of a complaint under the city's LGBT rights ordinance.
Testimony by Duka showed that Alliance Defending Freedom, the Scottsdale-based advocates for religious freedom representing Brush & Nib, wrote the company's operating agreement before filing the lawsuit against Phoenix.
The seven-page agreement declared that Brush & Nib "is owned solely by Christian artists who operate this entity as an extension of and in accordance with their artistic and religious beliefs." The agreement goes on to elaborate on Duka and Koski's religious beliefs.
The Arizona Court of Appeals rejected the Brush & Nib owners' claim that the Phoenix ordinance violates their religious freedom. The court ruled that ordinance regulates their conduct, not their beliefs.
