Suppose someone contacts me and asks me to write him a speech in favor of a proposition to which I am totally opposed. I decline as a matter of conscience. The other person says, “The heck with your conscience. You offer your services to the whole public on the Internet. You have no right to discriminate against any potential client because of your personal beliefs. If you don’t write my speech, I will take you to court and force you to do so.”
Any sensible person would, I hope, conclude that my right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment gives me the right to abstain from advocating opinions to which I am in conscience opposed.
But suppose I am a baker and a gay couple asks me to bake their wedding cake. Suppose my religious beliefs tell me that gay marriage is morally wrong. Do I have the right to refuse their order under the First Amendment right to freedom of religion? Or suppose I’m a photographer with the same beliefs and I’m asked to photograph a gay wedding. Do I have the right to refuse on First Amendment grounds as well?
Now some people might argue that there is a difference between writing a speech and baking a cake or taking pictures. But both are creative acts, involving individual expression, and the U.S. Supreme Court has traditionally taken a very broad view as to what constitutes freedom of speech in the context of the First Amendment. If burning an American flag is constitutionally protected as “symbolic speech” why can’t a baker or photographer refuse to serve a gay wedding on religious grounds?
This issue is a particularly vexing one for me because I am both a gay man and a Christian. On the one hand, I don’t like to see gay people discriminated against. On the other, I don’t like to see Big Brother forcing Christians to go against their conscience.
Moreover, I have a hard time understanding why this should be such a burning issue at all. Speaking for myself as a gay man, I wouldn’t want to force an unwilling baker to bake my wedding cake, or photographer to photograph my wedding. Because if they were reluctant, they would probably not give their best effort and I might well be unhappy with the results. Besides, why go to the trouble and expense of filing a lawsuit? Why not simply find a baker or photographer who doesn’t have religious scruples against gay weddings? How difficult could that be?
