{"id":1715139,"date":"2022-10-28T13:02:37","date_gmt":"2022-10-28T17:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1715139"},"modified":"2022-10-28T13:03:06","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T17:03:06","slug":"the-aclus-interpretation-of-anti-discrimination-would-destroy-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-aclus-interpretation-of-anti-discrimination-would-destroy-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The ACLU\u2019s Interpretation Of \u2018Anti-Discrimination\u2019 Would Destroy Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-aclus-interpretation-of-anti-discrimination-would-destroy-free-speech%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1715139&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>At an Oct. 25 event hosted by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that anti-discrimination laws should be interpreted in ways that restrict the decisions of business owners, even when they have nothing to do with the identity of the customer, an interpretation that gives governments broad power to restrict freedom of speech.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The event, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?app=desktop&#038;v=bpOgmH-IP5w&#038;t=3476s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">303 Creative and the Future of Free Speech<\/a>,\u201d featured a panel discussion between ADF CEO and General Counsel Kristen Waggoner, ACLU National Legal Director David Cole, and Notre Dame Law School Associate Professor Sherif Girgis.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The discussion was about <em>303 Creative v. Elenis<\/em>, a free speech case the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in December. Lorie Smith, who runs 303 Creative, is a Christian graphic designer who declined to create a wedding website for a same-sex couple. Smith says she based her decision on the message the website would convey, not on the person requesting it. Waggoner is scheduled to argue Smith\u2019s case before the United States Supreme Court on Dec. 5.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cole argued that Smith\u2019s decision was an act of identity-based discrimination, while Waggoner argued it was an exercise of Smith\u2019s constitutionally protected right to free speech.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the panel discussion, a member of the audience asked Cole whether it would be legal or illegal for an artist to decline to design a website celebrating same-sex marriage if the person requesting the website was not homosexual.<\/p>\n<p>According to Cole, it would depend on the specific facts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example, in Masterpiece Cake Shop,\u201d Cole said, \u201cif instead of Charlie and Dave, our clients, it was Charlie\u2019s mom, who was heterosexual, asking the baker to make this cake for a same-sex wedding and he would make the exact same cake for an opposite-sex wedding, the only thing that\u2019s different is for whom it is ultimately being used, yeah, that would be discrimination based on identity,\u201d Cole said.<\/p>\n<p>Girgis asked Cole, \u201cIn the scenario where it\u2019s a straight person who wants to celebrate and promote same-sex marriage, so they ask for a website that has content promoting same-sex marriage \u2014 there\u2019s no protected identity issue in the picture \u2014 it sounds like you\u2019re saying it\u2019s okay to refuse that because forcing you to make that would be compelled speech.\u201d Cole agreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By interpreting Colorado\u2019s anti-discrimination law this way, Cole essentially argued that declining to create a website celebrating a same-sex marriage is free speech while declining to create a website celebrating a specific same-sex wedding is discrimination, regardless of who requests the website design.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2017 Cole and Waggoner argued opposite sides of<em> Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission<\/em>, the case in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Christian baker Jack Phillips, who declined to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Smith\u2019s case picks up where Phillips\u2019 case left off. As Waggoner previously <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/17\/christian-graphic-designer-defends-right-of-all-americans-to-be-protected-from-compelled-speech\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">told The Federalist<\/a>, \u201cFree speech and free exercise were in <em>Masterpiece<\/em>, but the court\u2019s holding was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American Civil Liberties Union continues to pave the way for left-wing madness as they seek to further erode free speech protections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":1715142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1715139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1715139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1715142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1715139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1715139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1715139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}