On June 30, 2023, in 303 Creative v. Elenis, a major win for free speech, the Supreme Court reasoned that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission could not enforce the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act to compel a wedding website designer, Lorie Smith, to provide her professional services to individuals formalizing their same-sex relationship. Smith declined the opportunity to work with the couple because of her religious belief “that marriage should be reserved to unions between one man and one woman” and “will not produce content that ‘contradicts biblical truth.’” The Justices explained that the Commission could not require Smith to work with the couple because doing so would have required her to violate her First Amendment rights to free speech and expression, albeit on an issue involving her religious beliefs.
Almost nine months later, on March 26, 2024, on remand, a federal trial court judge in Colorado entered a final judgment in Ms. Smith’s favor. The nineteen-page order permanently enjoined Colorado officials from seeking “to compel plaintiffs to create custom websites celebrating or depicting same-sex weddings or otherwise expressing messages inconsistent with Ms. Smith’s beliefs concerning same-sex marriage.”
303 Creative concerns an ongoing conflict of rights centered on human sexuality. On the one hand, same-sex couples properly seek to exercise their rights, including, but not limited to, formalizing their relationships, purchasing property jointly, and including each other in their wills just as spouses do in heterosexual marriages.
However, as I wrote in my earlier column about 303 Creative, respect must go both ways. Proponents of same-sex relationships must respect the beliefs of those who religious faiths are different by neither demonizing them nor accusing them of discrimination if they refrain from providing services such as Ms. Smith’s or Mr. Philips that are readily available elsewhere.
In fact, the Court found that the government lacks the authority to obligate people of faith to communicate messages violating their religious beliefs as what can be described as a not so subtle, but entirely unacceptable, form of thought, and speech, control.
303 Creative must be viewed in light of another conflict in Colorado in which public officials disfavored religion. In 2018’s Masterpiece Cakeshops v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission the Supreme Court ruled that officials violated baker Jack Phillips’ rights by displaying clear and impermissible hostility toward his sincere religious beliefs objecting to same-sex “unions”. This ongoing dispute began when Phillips was unwilling to prepare a custom-made cake for a same-sex couple, but would sell them other baked goods.
Returning to 303 Creative, it is unclear how officials could charge Ms. Smith with discrimination over her reluctance to work with individuals who sought to have her communicate a perspective with which she disagreed. The Supreme Court decided that Colorado officials could not force Ms. Smith to provide her unique artistic and technological talents to prepare a website that essentially would have communicated her support for a relationship with which she disagreed in violation of her right to freedom of speech rooted in her religious beliefs.
Rather than extend the open-mindedness and tolerance they demand from others to those with whom they disagree, activists wish to impose their will on others via social engineering, brooking no dissent. These activists are unwilling to respect, let alone honor, the rights, and views, of others—but expect complete acquiescence from people of faith at the expense of violating their beliefs.
At a time when violence and conflict abound, one must hope that people of good will unequivocally condemn the vile, hateful threats of death and other harm opponents wished on Ms. Smith and her family in light of the popular motto that “hate has no place here.” Yet, the media silence condemning the repugnant threats against Ms. Smith and her family remains disheartening, to say the least.
One hopes that the final order in 303 Creative upholding the rights of Ms. Smith, and, by extension, all Americans, to be free from compelled speech based on her religious beliefs teaches the lesson that while individuals are free to disagree on important issues, they cannot attempt to force their views on others. Under such an approach, perhaps people of good will on both sides of this challenging debate can acknowledge that because respect and tolerance go both ways, individuals must devise ways to co-exist peacefully regardless of their differences.
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Liberal or whatever they call themselves now will never stop trying to limit speech they don’t agree. In many non US countries a person can be put in jail for miss gendering a person. As said ” Scratch a Liberal find a Fascist”.
Well put . . .free speech for me but not of thee, eh? Sigh.
Where is the “good will” in tolerating the affirmation of the engaging in of sexual acts that regardless of the actors or the actors desires, even if the actors are a man and woman, united in marriage as husband and wife, are physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually harmful, and thus, in denying the inherent Dignity of every beloved son and daughter, are not and can never be acts of authentic Love?
The desire to engage in a demeaning act of any nature does not change the nature of the act.
Pornography is what pornography does, it sexually objectifies the human person and denies their inherent Dignity as a beloved son or daughter. People of good will recognize that Love, which is always rightly ordered to the inherent Dignity of the human person, is devoid of lust.
There is nothing that is Good about the sexual objectification of the human person, in fact, if one respects the inherent Dignity of all one’s beloved, they would not tolerate or condone the engaging in of demeaning sexual acts because they Love all their beloved.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2012/03/09/pope-talks-to-us-prelates-about-the-contemporary-crisis-of-marriage-and-the-family/
Respect for me but not for thee?
It is important to note that one cannot acquiesce to the toleration of demeaning sexual acts without disrupting the tranquility that can only come from acts of authentic Love.
Where is the “good will” in tolerating the affirmation of the engaging in of sexual acts that regardless of the actors or the actors desires, even if the actors are a man and woman, united in marriage as husband and wife, are physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually harmful, and thus, in denying the inherent Dignity of every beloved son and daughter, are not and can never be acts of authentic Love?
The desire to engage in a demeaning act of any nature does not change the nature of the act.
Pornography is what pornography does, it sexually objectifies the human person and denies their inherent Dignity as a beloved son or daughter. People of good will recognize that Love, which is always rightly ordered to the inherent Dignity of the human person, is devoid of lust.
There is nothing that is Good about the sexual objectification of the human person, in fact, if one respects the inherent Dignity of all one’s beloved, they would not tolerate or condone the engaging in of demeaning sexual acts because they Love all their beloved.
One cannot be respecting the inherent Dignity of any beloved son or daughter, if one acquiesces to tolerating the engaging in of any act, including any sexual act, that regardless of the actors or the actors desires, even if the actors are a man and woman, united in marriage as husband and wife, are physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually harmful, and thus, in denying the inherent Dignity of every beloved son and daughter, are not and can never be acts of authentic Love.
The desire to engage in a demeaning act of any nature does not change the nature of the act.
Pornography is what pornography does, it sexually objectifies the human person and denies their inherent Dignity as a beloved son or daughter. People of good will recognize that Love, which is always rightly ordered to the inherent Dignity of the human person, is devoid of lust.
There is nothing that is Good about the sexual objectification of the human person, in fact, if one respects the inherent Dignity of all one’s beloved, they would not tolerate or condone the engaging in of demeaning sexual acts because they Love all their beloved.
Tranquility is disrupted each and every time lustful acts are substituted for acts of authentic Love; Good Will towards another requires that we refuse to tolerate that which denies our inherent Dignity as a beloved son or daughter.
Blatant legal political effort by Colorado State authorities at enforcing anti-Christian, un-American, un-constitutional coercive communication and ideological intolerance measures!