Kentucky governor, 10 states, others provide chorus of support for Hands On Originals

FRANKFORT, Ky. – The Kentucky Supreme Court has received 13 friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the freedom of a Lexington promotional printer to operate his business consistent with his faith. Gov. Matt Bevin, 10 states, numerous scholars, and multiple groups filed briefs in Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission v. Hands On Originals. The court received only one brief in support of the government and its efforts to punish the printer.

In October of last year, the state high court agreed to hear the case. Two lower courts have already upheld the freedom of Blaine Adamson and his promotional print shop, Hands On Originals, to decline to print messages that violate Adamson’s beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent Adamson and his shop.

“As the numerous briefs filed in this case affirm, printers and other creative professionals should be able to peacefully live and work according to their beliefs without fear of punishment by the government,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell. “Blaine serves all people. He simply declines to print messages that conflict with his faith. The law promises him that freedom.”

The case began in 2012 when Adamson 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 Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission—despite eventually receiving the shirts for free from another printer. In 2014, the commission ruled that Adamson must print messages that conflict with his faith when customers ask him to do so.

The 10 states that filed a brief in support of Adamson highlight the far-reaching implications of the case by explaining that “a freelance writer who objects to Scientology would be violating the Fairness Ordinance…if he refused to write a press release announcing a Scientologist event. An actor would be violating the ordinance if he refused to perform in a commercial for a religious organization of which he disapproves.”

In his brief, Bevin argues that “Kentucky is, and always has been, a land of freedom of conscience, where citizens can live without fear that the government will prescribe what beliefs and speech are orthodox and require conformity therewith.”

Even though many of the scholars and groups that filed briefs do not share Adamson’s religious beliefs, they nevertheless oppose government efforts to force him to print messages that he opposes.

“The support for Hands On Originals is both broad and diverse,” said ADF-allied attorney and co-counsel Bryan Beauman of Sturgill, Turner, Barker & Moloney, PLLC, of Lexington. “Scholars and organizations that support LGBT legal causes have united in one voice with free-speech and religious-liberty groups, and they agree that the commission cannot force Blaine to print messages that conflict with his beliefs.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.

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