LGBT rights yield to religious interests at US Supreme Court
LGBT rights yield to religious interests at US Supreme Court
In its decision permitting an evangelical Christian web designer to refuse service for same-sex weddings, the court again embraced an expansive view of religious interests at the expense of protections for LGBT people.
Reading the ruling, it looks like the lady wants to do wedding design but only for the types of folks she thinks are truly married. It is like another era of wackadoos that started off like this and turned into evil.
Ah religion how loving thou art not.
Except that’s not what the ruling said. What it essentially said is that you cannot compel someone to say something if they don’t want to. The website makers in this lawsuit are not denying anyone service based on any protected class, the above document says they’ll create a website for anyone gay, strait, etc. What they are refusing to do is to create (say) something they don’t agree with (a website). No matter how morally correct the thing you want said, you can’t force anyone to say it, as protected by the 1st amendment.
As much as I don’t agree with the site makers, I likewise don’t agree that the government can just force you say anything against your will.
I agree that forcing speech is wrong, the risk is what constitutes "speech” and people/groups trying to expand “speech” to all sorts of business activity.
If in another scenario, this website creator had templates where a user just has to upload their own text and images, but the creator has to click a “publish” button to render and host the pages, does that constitute speech? Was the creating of templates and their final rendered state speech?
I acknowledge this is a false dilemma/slippery slope argument, though clearly corporate personhood has only grown in its interpretation over time (e.g. citizens united) and not reduced.
Imagine for a moment that you were running a web design business and an intolerant church group requested that you build a God Hates Gays website for them. Should Mississippi be able to have a a law that compels you to build that website or be liable for discriminating against a protected group, or should that law be unconstitutional under a compelled speech argument?
It makes me confused why this was even needing Supreme Court unless lower courts just ignore the wedding cake case? Can't the Supreme Court just say see such and such ruling, and not even take the case? Just overturning it?