Have you seen CNN’s bizarre story about Michael Imperioli forbidding “bigots and homophobes” from watching his work following Supreme Court ruling? “I’ve decided to forbid bigots and homophobes from watching The Sopranos, The White Lotus, Goodfellas or any movie or tv show I’ve been in,” Imperioli said on his Instagram page Saturday, adding: “Thank you Supreme Court for allowing me to discriminate and exclude those who I don’t agree with and am opposed to. USA! USA!”
Why is this ruling so hard for people to understand? We’re being bombarded by the dumbest analogies by people who seem to be very serious. Imperioli is hardly alone in his profound misunderstanding of the Supreme Court decision, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, protecting the First Amendment rights of Lorie Smith, the owner of a web design company who worried she would be asked to create a wedding website with expressions that contradict her conscience and free speech fights. (See Our Liberal Supreme Court for details.)
“The ruling represents a devastating blow to LGBTQ protections, which have in recent years been bolstered by landmark decisions at the nation’s highest court, and will alarm critics who fear the current court is setting its sights on overturning the 2015 marriage case.” This is Alli Rosenbloom’s line from the CNN story, not Imperioli. Rosenbloom is the author of the story. She’s a reporter for CNN. Her editor let this line go out to the world. That means that either the folks at CNN are incapable of grasping a straightforward court decision or they’re lying about what that decision represents in order to scare people. Do they not believe in the fundamental laws of American civilization?
All 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis does—and this is a massive victory in the struggle to save our inalienable rights to freedom of conscious, speech, and association from negation by the woke progressivism of the corporate state, i.e., the New Fascism—is affirm those First Amendment rights for Lorie Smith and other creative artists by striking down a state law that would have compelled the expression of ideas that violate conscience and force free individuals into political and ideological associations against their will. The decision does not overrule the right of individuals regardless of their identities or beliefs to access places of public accommodations. A Nazi is still able to buy a cake from any of the shops Smith’s webpages advertise. What a Nazi cannot do is force Lore Smith to create a webpage for a business that advocates national socialism.
Yes, that analogy works (Imperioli’s is nonsensical). If one understand the principle involved, he can generate an endless list of things the state of Colorado could force those with whom progressives ally for the sake of inclusion to do. Indeed, it is terrifying to contemplate the future of the nation if the law Colorado passed requiring Smith to create messages that violate her core beliefs—beliefs inspired by her faith that animate her creativity—had been upheld. The state of Colorado sought to elevate an ideology over Smith’s civil and human rights.
Imagine Colorado requiring a gay man to design an anti-gay website. That is what the law would have required considering the principle of equal application of the law. The same right that protects the gay man from having to express such a thing protects Smith from having to do the same. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with one or the other on the substance of the speech or action. The subjective content or political-ideological purpose of the act is irrelevant; the right is neutral with respect to both. Equal treatment and the neutrality of a law must be affirmed or the law is upheld in the face of core principle. That the three progressives on the Court took the side of Colorado is truly terrifying. You could not have asked for a clearer illustration of the fascism intrinsic to progressivism than the dissent of Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor.
freedom and reason 