Bad headline is bad.<p>The court ruled that creating a website was considered speech. The government cannot force you to produce speech you are against.<p>The state stipulated (agreed with) the following:<p>> Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender,” and she “will gladly create custom graphics and websites” for clients of any sexual orientation.<p>> She will not produce content that “contradicts biblical truth” regardless of who orders it.<p>This would also protect a Muslim artist from being forced to produce a drawing of Muhammad if requested by a client.
She had every right to refuse business to anyone for any reason as a business owner, regardless of the quality of her reasoning. People also have the right to refuse to use her business and go to a competitor who would likely be happy to service them.<p>The free market goes both ways and while first amendment protects you from state prosecution of exercising free speech, it does not protect you, however, from the court of public opinion, which she and her business may need to answer to.
I'm just waiting for someone to argue that it violates their religion to allow black people to sit at the lunch counter and suddenly we're back to the 1960s
Technically, isn't the ruling that the website designer can refuse to create same-sex wedding content? If the same-sex couple commissioned a website for a hetero wedding, the designer would be obligated, right?<p>It's a subtle distinction, but legally important.<p>Things get really messy because it's tough to disentangle the content from those commissioning the website in the case of a same-sex wedding.<p>Don't get me wrong: I hold these web designers in low regard. However, my understanding is that this ruling isn't as bad as the headline suggests.
I’d love a complete breakdown on how this case even made it to the Supreme Court. From my (very limited) understanding the situation in this case is essentially a hypothetical?
I think there's a pretty clear line with this sort of thing that we'll eventually settle around.<p>Let me start with the hypothetical illustration. Michaelangelo was a devout catholic. If a Muslim sultan had captured him and forced him to create works of art that offended his personal values, do we really believe that he would have been capable of producing his best works of art, or even items of the same caliber as those he regularly created? Of course not. He would have created art for sure, but without the spark that comes from his passion, there is no physical force in existence that could have prodded him to paint his best masterpieces.<p>So then neither should a court force a modern day expression of artistic creation when it goes against the personal values of the creator.<p>Most of these cases boil down to someone wanting work involving a not insubstantial amount of creativity by a craftsman who holds opposing viewpoints. Even if we force them to do so at gunpoint, they won't create at the same standards because it will be intrinsically impossible to coerce creativity. Should we then punish them for that? Of course not.<p>Now on the other extreme, I don't think there's any real principled disagreement that can be had by forbidding McDonalds from discriminating who can buy a cheeseburger. It's a mass produced item, devoid of creativity at the point of production. What I mean is that all the creativity has already happened at the corporate office and we see merely the works of distributed assembly. There's no discernable difference between a McChicken assembled under coercion and one by incentive.<p>Of course there's a murky line in there, but insofar as a work involves creativity, it ought not be compelled.<p>For example: a wedding cake bakery. Mixing the dough and baking it is not a creative act - it's a well practiced procedure sourced previous creative endeavors that don't need repeating. A bakery serving the public ought not to be able to refuse an undecorated, baked rectangular cake to anyone if its part of a product regularly produced. Beyond that, you start to get into exercising creativity with frosting, however simple and I think you should not be compelled to exercise your creativity.
I’m surprised they took the case. It seems like a carbon copy of the cake decorator case that set this precedent.<p>> But the Supreme Court now says artists cannot be compelled to express messages against their religious beliefs.<p>How is this conclusion different from the conclusion they reached in the cake decorator case?<p>(Also in CO if I’m not mistaken)
From the majority: "The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands."<p>From a dissenting opinion: "Today, the court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class."<p>Remember, the job of the Supreme Court is not to decide what is morally correct or just, but to interpret the Constitution.
Waaaait, isn't this the same court which considers money to be speech?!
By the same rationale, a bank cannot be forced to "speak" with you after you "speak" with it....
I think if they are going to allow discrimination for "religious" reasons, then I think then the whole issue is gone to dust. I should be able to discriminate against your religion then as well, because I am not religious.