Justice Gorsuch Calls Out “Reeducation Program” During 1st Amendment & LGBTQ Case

The Supreme Court of the United States is currently hearing oral arguments on the case of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. The question here is whether a web designer can refuse to design a website for a same-sex wedding, which is incredibly similar to the case involving Colorado bakery owner Jack Phillips who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. Ultimately, the legal issue here is “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the free speech clause of the first Amendment.”

A Colorado website designer is challenging a state law that prevents businesses that are open to the public from discriminating against LGBTQ individuals who seek to be customers. Web designer Lorie Smith says that being subjected to the law violates her 1st amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, whereas Colorado’s solicitor general argues that exempting Smith from the law would “upend anti discrimination law – and other laws too.”

Lorie Smith, a devout christian who firmly believes in marriage “only between one man and one woman,” wants to expand her web design business to include wedding websites, but intends to post a notice that this will exclude wedding websites for same-sex weddings as it would require her to create messages that are contrary to her deeply held religious beliefs. It’s not the LGBTQ individuals as customers that she wants to avoid, rather it’s the messaging surrounding LGBTQ weddings which violates her religious beliefs. According to ScotusBlog,

“Smith explains that she decides whether to take on a commission based on the message that the work will convey, rather than the person requesting it. This means, she says, that she would “happily” design graphics for an LGBTQ customer who runs an animal shelter. But she will not take on commissions that would be inconsistent with her Christian beliefs – including, she says, by promoting same-sex marriage – because a custom wedding website would “express approval of the couple’s marriage.””

The case has already generated some interesting audio clips, like this one by conservative Justice Gorsuch about semantics and the manipulation of language. He refers to a “reeducation program” that Colorado baker Jack Phillips was required to complete when he refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding, while the Colorado solicitor general insists it was “a training to educate him.”

Language manipulation is one of the sharpest tools in the leftist culture/political war arsenal. If they can just package unsavory things in language that make those things more palatable to the public, then the public likely won’t even notice they’re being herded straight into communism. As Gorsuch points out, they’d much prefer to insist that a pesky christian baker was forced to take a training to educate him about Colorado law rather than admit that their intent was to basically reeducate him into conforming to (or at least complying with) the leftist agenda and narrative about “inclusivity.”