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Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed
It would be dishonest to claim any clear line could be drawn between the two. That is exactly what the Court discussed in Roberts v. Jaycees, particularly in Justice O'Connors' concurring opinion. It would also be dishonest to claim that the freedom of association is the only First Amendment freedom these public accommodations cases may involve. There is also a line of cases involving government-compelled speech that may form a strong basis for challenges by some businesses to public accommodations laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
I haven't seen the claims the Hitching Post made against the Coeur d'Alene ordinance in federal court that caused the town to back down so quickly and ignominiously. But knowing what the Court has said about compelled speech in Barnette, Wooley, Hurley, and Prune Yard Shopping Center, I have a hunch that had something to do with it. To require the owners of a for-profit wedding chapel to let it be used to celebrate same-sex marriages would compel them to let their property be used to propound a point of view they disagree with. The fact the Hitching Post is a commercial business and a public accommodation did not make the city ordinance any less an unconstitutional infringement of the Knapps' freedom of speech.
The Court in Barnette, which upheld the right of students who were Jehovah's Witnesses not to salute the flag against their beliefs, saw the inconsistency in saying the same First Amendment "which guards the individual's right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind."
He knows that but he has consistently (and dishonestly) tried to conflate expressive organizations with purely commercial ones.
It would be dishonest to claim any clear line could be drawn between the two. That is exactly what the Court discussed in Roberts v. Jaycees, particularly in Justice O'Connors' concurring opinion. It would also be dishonest to claim that the freedom of association is the only First Amendment freedom these public accommodations cases may involve. There is also a line of cases involving government-compelled speech that may form a strong basis for challenges by some businesses to public accommodations laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
I haven't seen the claims the Hitching Post made against the Coeur d'Alene ordinance in federal court that caused the town to back down so quickly and ignominiously. But knowing what the Court has said about compelled speech in Barnette, Wooley, Hurley, and Prune Yard Shopping Center, I have a hunch that had something to do with it. To require the owners of a for-profit wedding chapel to let it be used to celebrate same-sex marriages would compel them to let their property be used to propound a point of view they disagree with. The fact the Hitching Post is a commercial business and a public accommodation did not make the city ordinance any less an unconstitutional infringement of the Knapps' freedom of speech.
The Court in Barnette, which upheld the right of students who were Jehovah's Witnesses not to salute the flag against their beliefs, saw the inconsistency in saying the same First Amendment "which guards the individual's right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind."