Specifically, 303 Creative addressed whether a Colorado anti-discrimination law can require a designer who believes marriage is only between a man and a woman to create a wedding website for a same-sex couple.

Two years ago, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that the answer was "yes."

But on June 30, 2023, a bitterly divided Supreme Court reversed that judgment, holding 6-3 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibited state officials from requiring the designer to create a website that communicates a message with which she disagrees.

As a professor of law who pays particular attention to First Amendment issues involving freedom of religion and speech, I see the case highlighting the tension between two competing fundamental interests - ones that clash routinely in 21st century America.

Compelled speech?

The underlying dispute involves graphic artist Lorie Smith, the founder and owner of a studio called 303 Creative.

According to court documents, Smith will work with clients of any sexual orientation.

However, she will not create content that goes against her religious beliefs, such as "that marriage is a union between one man and one woman."

Conflict arose when Smith challenged Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act, under which it is discriminatory and illegal to refuse services to someone based on "disability, race, creed, colour, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin or ancestry."

In 2016, Smith unsuccessfully sued the members of the state's Civil Rights Commission and Colorado's attorney general.

She and her attorneys argued that creating a website counts as an act of speech, and so being required to prepare a same-sex wedding website would violate her First Amendment rights: The law would force her to speak, legally referred to as "compelled speech."

Smith and her attorneys also claimed that requiring her to create a website would violate her First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

The federal trial court in Colorado rejected Smith's attempt to block enforcement of the anti-discrimination law in 2019.

When she appealed, a split 10th Circuit affirmed that Smith could not refuse to create websites for same-sex weddings, even if it would have gone against her beliefs.

In the court's opinion, protecting diverse viewpoints was a "good in and of itself," but combating discrimination "is, like individual autonomy, ‘essential' to our democratic ideals."

In a lengthy dissent, the chief judge of the 10th Circuit focused on compelled speech. He criticized the panel for taking "the remarkable - and novel - stance that the government may force Ms. Smith to produce messages that violate her conscience."

SCOTUS speaks

The Supreme Court agreed to hear Smith's case but limited the issue to free speech, sidestepping the dispute over the free exercise of religion.

The question before the court was "whether applying a public accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment."

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch noted that "First Amendment protections belong to all, not just to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy."

Gorsuch reviewed the Supreme Court's cases protecting the rights of individuals not to express themselves.

In 1943's West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, for example, the court declared that public officials could not compel students who were Jehovah's Witnesses to salute the flag, because doing so violated their religious beliefs.

While noting the "vital role public accommodations laws play in realizing the civil rights of all Americans," Gorsuch reasoned that Colorado could not "force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance."

Further, Gorsuch harshly criticized the dissenting justices' argument that Colorado's law focused on business owners' conduct, not speech, contending that the dissent sidesteps a key question: whether a state can "force someone who provides her own expressive services to abandon her conscience and speak its preferred message instead?"

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whose dissent was joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, lamented the majority's decision as a time when there is "backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities."

Sotomayor then argued that under Colorado's anti-discrimination law, Smith's "freedom of speech is not abridged in any meaningful sense, factual or legal." If Smith wants to "advocate the idea that same-sex marriage betrays God's laws," Sotomayor made it clear that she can.

Sotomayor went on to decry the ruling for symbolically "mark(ing) gays and lesbians for second-class status." Denying services to same-sex couples "reminds LGBT people of a painful feeling that they know all too well," she wrote. "There are some public places where they can be themselves, and some where they cannot."

Questions ahead

To see how 303 Creative's impact plays out, it is worth closely watching the parts of the U.S. with anti-discrimination statutes in place.

Justice Gorsuch noted that about half of all states have laws like Colorado's that "expressly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation."

More specifically, 22 states, plus the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., offer various forms of protections for LGBTQ+ individuals - including retail stories, restaurants, parks, hotels, doctors' offices and banks.

I believe 303 Creative presents a challenge for society to come to grips with the tension between two fundamental interests.

One is the Supreme Court's affirmation of Smith's key argument: that requiring her to prepare websites that go against her religious beliefs would violate her First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

The other is the interest of same-sex couples in hiring the services they wish - and simply to be treated equally in the eyes of the law, on par with any other potential customers.

Ensuring both freedom of speech and civil rights requires good-faith efforts at respect - and respect is a two-way street.

However, exactly what this looks like will likely be the cause of more litigation to come.

• Charles J. Russo is Joseph Panzer Chair in Education in the School of Education and Health Sciences and Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton.
• First published in The Conversation. Reproduced with permission.

We've learnt that we need to think about "the team of five million" and what is good for us all, and not just for each of us as individuals.

But we've also had times when we've been isolated in our homes.

Many people have felt cut off from family and friends because they haven't been able to travel.

Others have wanted to swim against the tide.

The early Christians had a very strong sense of community.

They seem to have been able to bridge significant ethnic and social divides, and often formed resilient and cohesive groups.

How did they sustain this strong sense of community? What might we learn from them about community in these difficult days?

The early Christians met in each other's homes in small groups of perhaps 10-15 people.

They didn't own buildings for about 200 years, so the home was the primary focus for their gatherings.

Their meetings involved regular meals together.

In the culture of the first century, eating together created a strong bond of belonging and of being a close family, even if there was no biological connection between many members. And so they called each other "brothers and sisters", seeing themselves as strongly connected to each other.

They also saw their community as a body, with many different parts.

The apostle Paul applied the idea of a group as a body (an idea that had been applied by others to "the body politic"), to the group of believers.

It emphasised that, although everyone was different, each person was important.

Paul asked: "If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?

If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?"

Each person was different — but all were part of the one body. Everyone was valued. No matter how insignificant they seemed, the body metaphor emphasised that everyone mattered.

All belonged together.

Because all belonged together, they used the language of "we" and "us", and not of "I" and "me".

The early Christians also believed that God had given each of them a gift or an ability and these gifts were to be shared with everyone else.

The gifts varied from wisdom and teaching to service and encouragement. "To each one," God gave a gift, meaning that each had a contribution to make.

No-one was a passenger; all contributed to the welfare and life of the group.

This involved a re-evaluation of what was important.

"Service" and "caring" were regarded as just as important as up-front leadership roles.

They also saw themselves as servants of one another.

The apostle Paul saw himself as a servant or slave of others — by his own choice.

He urged other believers to "do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:3-4).

In doing so, he urged them to follow the example of Jesus, whom Paul regarded as the greatest servant of all.

Through love, they were to become servants to each other (Galatians 5:13).

They were to bear each other's burdens, to weep with those who wept and to rejoice with those who rejoiced. Their care extended to strangers too.

They sought to do good to all.

These groups meeting in someone's lounge also bridged huge ethnic divides.

The early Christians believed that through what Jesus had done for them, Jew and non-Jew alike were now equal and part of the group on exactly the same terms.

They acted this out in eating together, and caring for each other, despite all the social forces that separated them into disparate ethnic factions.

At the heart of their community was their strong sense of belief.

Because they jointly believed in what God had done in Jesus' life, death and resurrection, through which God had created a new reality, they had a shared faith, shared practices and a shared set of values.

The early Christians were small groups and were often given a hard time by others. But in these communities, ethnic and social barriers were being broken down, leading to an inclusive and welcoming community with an outward focus.

The strength of their beliefs, the resilience and values of their corporate life, and the quality of their care for each other got them through decades and decades of challenges and difficulties.

What can we learn from their experience?

They offer some challenges to our way of thinking about community.

An emphasis on "we" and "us", and not on "I" and "me", means we need to think of each other and not just of ourselves.

Thinking of everyone belonging together as a corporate body where we are mutually servants one of another, sharing each other's burdens, means we need to think of responsibilities and not just of rights.

Such lessons are especially apposite as we face the challenge of keeping our community safe during the Covid pandemic.

• Paul Trebilco is professor of New Testament studies in the theology programme at the University of Otago.
• First published in the ODT. Republished with permission.

Research from the University of New England showed many couples in such facilities are unable to have normal sexual relationships.

This is because of systematic and illegal breaches of their privacy, the study stated.

The study is to be published this month in the journal "Elder Law".

The research stated vehement opposition from religious conservatives meant Australian lawmakers failed to adequately protect the rights of elderly citizens.

"Couples may be separated or provided with single beds only, unable to push them together," the paper stated.

"Staff frequently enter without knocking, commonly ignore ‘do not disturb' signs and often gossip about residents.

"Some Australian aged-care facilities will still segregate sexes, including married couples, and many ignore the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and interest residents."

It was also noted that there was no mandatory staff training about how to respect and respond to consensual sexual relationships between residents.

The paper's lead author, Alison Rahn, noted that a charter of residents' rights was instituted in the 1980s.

"The original version protected the sexual rights of residents," she said.

"But the Catholic Church made sure that was expunged.

"However, the charter still says their privacy must be respected and they have the right to socialise with whoever they choose and to take risks.

"You could read into that to say residents have the right to have their relationships protected, but the reality is much different in most facilities, which are commonly run by religious institutions and charities."

Ms Rahn is a self-described sex therapist and sex educator.

She said rooms in aged-care facilities needed to be built large enough to allow for double beds.

She added that institutionalised separation of couples once they entered aged care should be stopped.

The paper calls for specific human rights legislation for older Australians.

It also calls for laws to be strengthened to protect couples entering aged care together.

Those who form relationships after entering aged care should also be protected, the paper stated.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Alison Rahn website
• Image: Patheos

Crimea was once an independent Tatar khanate, captured by Russia in the 18th century.

The Tatars were deported by Stalin as punishment for alleged collaboration with the Nazis — although some fought on either side in World War II.

In 1954, Nikita Khruschev (then Soviet leader), gifted the territory to Ukraine.

The decision was of no practical consequence at the time since both Russia and Ukraine were simply states within the USSR. There was, however, no public (or even parliamentary) consultation.

In the Gorbachev era, many Tatars returned. They now form about 12 per cent of the population (about 60 per cent are Russian, the remainder Ukrainians, Bulgarians etc.).

Strategically, Crimea is important for its natural resources and its ice-free, deepwater port of Sevastopol, a major base of Russia's powerful Black Sea Fleet.

The international law claims are as complex as the history. Continue reading.

Justin Glyn SJ is a student of philosophy and theology in Melbourne who holds a PhD in international and administrative law.

Source: Eureka Street

Image: ShutterStock