<\/p>\n
The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay nearly $1 million in attorneys’ fees after a federal judge\u00a0sided with\u00a0Christian photographer Chelsey Nelson, who claimed city officials violated her First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
Filed Tuesday,\u00a0the settlement\u00a0stipulates the city will pay $800,000 in litigation fees. Nelson\u2019s case has been percolating in the courts for several years and centers on her claim that a local anti-discrimination ordinance would force her to photograph same-sex weddings or shutter her business.<\/p>\n
Listen to the latest\u00a0episode\u00a0of \u201cQuick Start\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n She\u00a0told CBN News\u00a0in October 2025 she is outspokenly Christian and wanted to \u201cproactively\u201d state on her website her biblically based views on marriage and sexuality. City authorities, she explained, told her that would not be permissible and added she could not even tell prospective clients about what ceremonies she was and was not willing to photograph.<\/p>\n \u201cI became aware of this ordinance in Louisville and was really concerned that I might be under \u2026 $10,000 fines at any moment for being reported if I were just simply open about what messages I\u2019m willing to celebrate \u2026 marriage between a man and a woman for a lifetime only and nothing outside of that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In 2020, a federal judge ordered the city not to enforce the decades-old anti-discrimination rule, but Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat, appealed the decision. The case, first filed in 2019, ultimately resulted with a permanent injunction in Nelson\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n While Nelson\u2019s case was working its way through the system, another case \u2014\u00a0303 Creative v. Elenis<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 was before the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-3 decision in 2023, the justices ruled the government cannot use \u201cexpressive activity to compel speech,\u201d meaning authorities can\u2019t force artists to create work that sends messages with which they disagree.<\/p>\n That high court decision set a binding precedent, obligating the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which was hearing the Louisville case, to send the matter back to the district court for further proceedings. Nelson\u2019s case was already largely decided, but the Supreme Court decision solidified her legal standing because, when the Supreme Court sets a precedent, all lower courts must ensure their rulings fall in line with what the high court justices determine.<\/p>\n The Alliance Defending Freedom, the religious liberty law firm representing Nelson, is celebrating its client\u2019s legal victory.<\/p>\n ADF Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart\u00a0said Tuesday\u00a0the government \u201ccannot force Americans to say things they don\u2019t believe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor 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,\u201d he said. \u201cLouisville\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Please sign up for\u00a0Faithwire\u2019s daily newsletter\u00a0and download the\u00a0CBN News app\u00a0to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay nearly $1 million in attorneys’ fees after a federal judge\u00a0sided with\u00a0Christian photographer Chelsey Nelson, who claimed city officials violated her First Amendment rights. Filed Tuesday,\u00a0the settlement\u00a0stipulates the city will pay $800,000 in litigation fees. Nelson\u2019s case has been percolating in the courts for several years and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[7931,72,7930,2209,7929,7906,7445,438],"class_list":["post-23865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-antidiscrimination","tag-christian","tag-louisville","tag-massive","tag-photographer","tag-settlement","tag-wedding","tag-wins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}