Kentucky battle pits ‘gays’ against 1st Amendment

For several years now the conflict between “gay” and being “politically correct” has been at war with being Christian – specifically following biblical standards and values for homosexuality, marriage and behavior.

In recent months, “gays” have been winning – with a massive fine against an Oregon bakery for refusing to promote “same-sex marriage” with its cake artistry, related penalties against a Colorado bakery with the same values and other cases involving photographers, venues and more.

But there’s a case advancing in the state courts in Kentucky that could make or break that fight – as well as the First Amendment, if it continues to move up the court ladder.

It involves the company called Hands On Originals, which refused to print pro-homosexual T-shirts to promote a “pride festival,” and was cited in a complaint filed on behalf of the Gay & Lesbian Services Organization in Lexington, Kentucky.

A state agency found that the company must print the pride event T-shirts – no matter the beliefs of its owners.

But that drew a quick rebuke from the Fayette Circuit Court, which found that the First Amendment’s right to speak – or not speak – trumped the politically correct stance of forced messaging.

Now the fight is pending before the Commonwealth of Kentucky Court of Appeals, and the higher it goes, the bigger impact it will have. And with such conflicts erupting in the wake of President Obama’s abrupt flip-flop to supporting “gay marriage” and the Supreme Court’s creation of “same-sex marriage” across the country, it’s being watched closely.

The decision is not expected for some time yet, but right now a number of briefs are being filed that support the lower court’s decision.

They are explaining just how high the pro-homosexual advocates would need to reach in order to obtain a decision that would force someone to make a statement with which he or she fundamentally disagreed.

“The government may not require Americans to help distribute speech of which they disapprove,” said a brief filed by The Cato institute as well as constitutional expert Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law.

“Printers … have a First Amendment right to choose which speech they will help disseminate and which they will not. The district court’s grant of summary judgment, which correctly recognizes and protects this right, should therefore be upheld.”

If the decision advances to a certain point, it could end up being cited in other cases that right now are being fought. The Sweet Cakes by Melissa case in Oregon, the Masterpiece Bakeshop in Colorado, and more.

It gets to the fundamental issue that the briefs cite: that the company is not refusing to print a message, or create a cake with a specific message, based on the customer, but because of the message, which brings in the First Amendment precedents.

WND has compiled a list of such disputes that have erupted, in its Big List of Christian Coercion.

There, listed are cases brought against Christians who have been accused of violating non-discrimination laws because they are following the dictates of their faith.

Volokh explained the case isn’t complicated: “The facts are simple: the owners of Hands On Originals – a business that prints T-shirts, mugs, and other such materials – refused to print T-shirts for the Gay & Lesbian Services Organization with the logo of the Lexington Pride Festival, a gay pride event. The owners didn’t care about the sexual orientation of the customers, but they didn’t want to be a part of promoting the event’s message. The Gay & Lesbian Services Organization complained to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission, arguing that this refusal violated the organization’s rights to be free from sexual orientation [discrimination] in a place of public accommodations.”

The commission agreed, but the trial court reversed, “in large part on the grounds that Hands On Originals can’t be compelled to print messages that it doesn’t want to print.”

The Supreme Court already has ruled, the brief explains, determining in Wooley v. Maynard that drivers have a First Amendment right “not to display on their license plates a message with which they disagree.”

He continued, “The Supreme Court has held that large organizations, such as cable operators or universities, might be required to convey messages on behalf of other organizations with which they disagree. But Hands On Originals is a small owner-operated company, in which the owners are necessarily closely connected to the speech that Hands On Originals produces.”

His analysis said, “Because the First Amendment protects the ‘individual freedom of mind,’ people may not be required to display speech with which they disagree. … Likewise, this individual freedom of mind means that people may not be required to print speech that they disagree with. Like artists, writers, or book publishers, printers – whether they print on paper or on T-shirts – have the constitutional right to choose which messages they print.”

The brief argues that the government’s “interest in preventing discrimination does not justify restricting Hands On Originals’ First Amendment rights.”

“To be sure,” he wrote in his blog, “the U.S. Supreme Court has held that antidiscrimination laws ‘do not, as a general matter, violate the First . . . Amendment[],’ in part because, in their usual application, they do not ‘target speech’ but rather target ‘the act of discriminating against individuals. … But the court noted … that applying antidiscrimination laws to private organizations’ exclusion of speech based on its content is quite different from applying them to private organizations’ exclusion of people based on their identity.”

A separate brief from the Becket Fund said, “In our pluralistic society, the law should not be used to coerce ideological conformity simply to shield some groups from encountering people who disagree with them. Rather, on hotly contested moral issues, the law should ‘create a society in which both sides can live their own values.’”

That brief pointed a significant potential downside for homosexual activists.

“GLSO admits that it would reject a religious organization that wanted to set up a booth condemning homosexuality at the Pride Festival … Such conduct should be protected, just as a pro-choice printer’s refusal to print religious pro-life messages should be protected, and just as a gay photographer’s refusal to photograph a religious anti-gay rally should be protected. But if the commission’s current interpretation of the law were applied in an even-handed way, the commission admits it may have to treat objections to hostile religious messages as equivalent to invidious anti-religious discrimination…”

The court ruling that’s under challenge found that Blaine Adamson, owner of Hands On Originals, was fully within his rights to refuse to produce T-shirts for a “gay pride” festival in Lexington.

“The government can’t force citizens to surrender free-speech rights or religious freedom in order to run a small business, and this decision affirms that,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Jim Campbell, who argued the case before the court.

“The court rightly recognized that the law protects Blaine’s decision not to print shirts with messages that conflict with his beliefs and that no sufficient reason exists for the government to coerce Blaine to act against his conscience in this way.”

The court said, at the time, “In short, HOO’s declination to print the shirts was based upon the message of GLSO and the Pride Festival and not on the sexual orientation of its representatives or members. In point of fact, there is nothing in the record before the commission that the sexual orientation of any individual that had contact with HOO was ever divulged or played any part in this case.”

In other states, the decisions have gone the other way, and still are under challenge. In a message-on-cake dispute in Colorado, Jack Phillips, a Christian cake maker, was ordered to provide a wedding cake for same-sex duo and undergo “sensitivity training.”

Phillips has told WND he does not discriminate based on a person’s sexual orientation, but his issue is over the message conveyed by a cake that promotes a ceremony he believes is contrary to the biblical definition of marriage. He noted that he would bake and offer to sell any other kind of cake, just not a wedding cake.

There, state officials doubled down on Phillips, with one official likening his stance to that of the Nazis.

 

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/kentucky-battle-pits-gays-against-1st-amendment/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/kentucky-battle-pits-gays-against-1st-amendment/