A shirt maker who refused to make a shirt with a message that he had qualms was attacked by so-called Kentucky Human Rights Commission because the shirt he refused to print endorsed a doubleplusgood message of queerness. This was appealed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals based on the idea that a political message is not concomitant with a persons sexual orientation.
That shirt maker has won a victory for free speech.
This has already dragged on over many years, and the resources of the allegedly unprivileged and dispowered are seemingly unlimited, while the resources of a small business owner are very finite, so this is likely far from over in the long run.
Still, a victory for sanity and the 1st Amendment is worth celebrating.
When this sort of thing started being a “thing” some years ago, it seemed to me that there was a common-sense “bright line” that sorted everything out — and I haven’t seen a thing to dissuade me in all the time since.
If you have a thing, on a shelf, marked $10, then any genderqueer neonazi communist abortion-supporting Satanist jihadi Democrat douchebag drug-using felon-on-parole should be able to walk in, slap a sawbuck on the counter, point to it, and walk out with it in their possession.
On the other hand, every American should be able to say, “I won’t work for you” to anybody for any reason whatsoever. If a guy walks into a bagel shop and wants to have a bagel open-faced with schmear and lox, the gal behind the counter should be able to say, “I don’t work for guys with tats” — and that should be the end of it. If he says, “fine, I want that bagel, that container of schmear, and that lox”, he should get full measure at the posted price.
The Thirteenth Amendment says, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” I totally fail to see how any compelled service — beyond de minimis transference of an object and acceptance of consideration — cannot violate these plain words.
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