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Commentary By Ilya Shapiro

SCOTUS Should Hold States Can't Compel Politically Correct Wedding Messages

Governance Supreme Court

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether a state may, in applying anti-discrimination law, compel the creation of an expressive product. The case of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis has the potential to either inflame or quell our ongoing culture wars.

Lorie Smith owns the graphic design firm 303 Creative and wants to expand into wedding work. Although Smith is perfectly willing to work for LGBTQ customers, her religious convictions preclude her from creating graphics for same-sex marriages. But the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act requires her to create custom websites celebrating the marriages of same-sex couples if she does so for opposite-sex couples.

This resembles the Masterpiece Cakeshop case from 2018, where a baker refused to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding, in alleged contravention of the same Colorado anti-discrimination law. Was cake baker Jack Phillips a free speech martyr or a half-baked bigot? The Supreme Court ultimately ruled—in Justice Anthony Kennedy's final opinion—that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission expressed hostility to Phillips's Christian beliefs and thus violated his right to free exercise of religion.

Continue reading the full article at Newsweek

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Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here

This piece originally appeared in Newsweek