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Photographer can’t be forced to shoot same-sex weddings, federal judge rules

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, can’t bar a photographer from limiting her wedding photography business to opposite-sex couples or from explaining why her religious beliefs compel her to turn down same-sex wedding assignments, a federal district court ruled Tuesday.

Chelsey Nelson, a Christian photographer who specializes in photographing weddings, challenged the city ordinance that required her to create photographs and online blogs for same-sex weddings if she did so for those between a man and a woman.

The city’s public-accommodations “Fairness Ordinance” also banned her from publicly explaining her religious reasons for defining her wedding-photography service in that way.