Brush & Nib v. City of Phoenix

Summary

The court held that the plaintiffs’ custom wedding invitations and the process of creating them constitute protected pure speech, and that applying Phoenix’s public-accommodations ordinance to compel creation of invitations celebrating same-sex weddings violates the Arizona Constitution’s free-speech guarantee. The court also held that the challenge was ripe for materially similar invitations but not for the plaintiffs’ other hypothetical wedding products. The court concluded that the ordinance substantially burdened the plaintiffs’ sincerely held religious beliefs under Arizona’s religious-freedom statute. The opinion text is truncated before the complete disposition of the religious-freedom claim is shown.