We wrote earlier about Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch nailed the Colorado Solicitor General for Jack Phillips, the Masterpiece Cakemaker, being forced to undergo “re-education” after refusing to create a custom cake celebrating same-sex marriage because it violated his religious convictions.
Gorsuch made those comments in another case involving a Christian website designer Lorie Smith. Colorado claims that her website design business qualifies as a “public accommodation” so therefore she cannot turn down a request to make a personalized website design advertising a same-sex wedding because it violates her religious beliefs, that she can be compelled to make the website. That amounts to the government’s compelling speech since that’s an expressive message that the designer is creating.
“Mr. Phillips had to go through a reeducation program, did he not?” Gorsuch asked Colorado solicitor general Eric Olson. He retorted that it was actually training to educate him about Colorado law.
“Some would call that a reeducation program,” Gorsuch said.
“I strongly disagree,” the defense attorney replied.
“Isn’t religious belief a protected characteristic?” Gorsuch asked, to which Olson conceded, “yes.”
Phillip’s punishment from the Colorado commission also included a requirement that he submit quarterly reports on his company’s compliance progress.
On Monday, Kristin Waggoner, the Alliance Defending Freedom attorney representing Christian website designer Lorie Smith, noted that because of Colorado’s “aggressive enforcement,” her client’s “speech has been chilled for six years.”
The White House doesn’t have a problem with the government’s compelling speech, as White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained, they think it’s just fine to do it.
KJP: "…we can require businesses…to service people, regardless of their backgrounds, even when that means businesses must, incidentally, engage in speech [with] which they disagree…" pic.twitter.com/G8qsPBgBu3
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 5, 2022
“Courts have recognized that we can recog–that we can require businesses…to service people, regardless of their backgrounds, even when that means businesses must, incidentally, engage in speech which they disagree upon.”
Now, she’s being cagey, a bit, here with the language and the speech in the pending case would not be “incidental” — it’s the very heart of the request. What she’s talking about is the public accommodation law. But no, the government can’t compel speech, that’s why SCOTUS is considering this case now.
How dare the White House talk about the Constitution and then pretend they can compel speech? Or violate religious beliefs? Who are the fascists again? It’s always the Biden team who has no problem violating the Constitution to achieve the purposes they want.
We saw the White House’s duplicitous approach when it came to Twitter as well. When liberals controlled Twitter, as Elon Musk revealed, the Biden team or the DNC could contact them and get things they didn’t like suppressed. When people complained about getting banned, we were told by the liberals that Twitter was a “private business” and it could do what it wanted to users (despite the fact there was this apparent government collusion behind the scenes). But now that Elon Musk is in charge and Twitter has slipped out of their control, they must monitor and investigate it, to make sure that he complies with what they want.
They think they can dictate to us and that’s what this is about — control. Karine Jean-Pierre doesn’t even have any shame about admitting it.
Story cited here.
