CHAUTAUQUA–Remember Lorrie Smith?

You, faithful reader of this column, may have learned of her here in December 2022.

As part of her business–303 Creative, in Colorado–Smith engages in speech as a graphic artist by designing websites.

And Colorado has a law banning discrimination–in public accommodations–based on many of the usual categories.

However, Colorado sought–via this law–to compel 303 Creative and Smith to engage in speech violating her religious beliefs.

Maybe you would engage in such speech. Maybe you wouldn’t. Either way, 303 Creative and Smith’s point was that compelling someone to engage in speech violating the person’s religious beliefs violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause.

That’s how they framed their First Amendment challenge in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which the U.S. Supreme Court decided on June 30.

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The high court simplified the challengers’ point: Compelling someone to engage in speech violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause.

In other words, the court doesn’t confine its holding to speech violating the person’s religious beliefs. Nor does the court define speech narrowly.

Even beyond these admirable strengths, the opinion–written by Justice Neal Gorsuch, and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brent Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett–is masterful.

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“The framers designed the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to protect the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think,'” Gorsuch writes. In previous court opinions, speakers’ “choice of what to say (and not say) might have been unpopular, but they had a First Amendment right to present their message undiluted by views they did not share.”

“(T)he First Amendment protects … individual(s’) right to speak (their) mind regardless of whether the government considers (their) speech sensible and well intentioned or deeply ‘misguided,’ and likely to cause ‘anguish’ or ‘incalculable grief,'” Gorsuch writes. “Generally, too, the government may not compel a person to speak its own preferred messages.”

Nevertheless, if “Smith offers wedding websites celebrating marriages she endorses, the (s)tate intends to ‘forc(e her) to create custom websites’ celebrating other marriages she does not” endorse, Gorsuch writes. “If she wishes to speak, she must either speak as the (s)tate demands or face sanctions for expressing her own beliefs … . (T)hat ‘is enough,’ more than enough, to represent an impermissible abridgment of the First Amendment.”

“In saying this much, we do not question the vital role public accommodations laws play in realizing the civil rights of all Americans. … (G)overnments in this country have a ‘compelling interest’ in eliminating discrimination in places of public accommodation,” Gorsuch writes. “At the same time, … no public accommodations law is immune from the demands of the Constitution. In particular, … public accommodations statutes can sweep too broadly when (they) compel speech. … When a state public accommodations law and the Constitution collide, there can be no question which must prevail.”

The opinion also takes issue with the dissent: “For instance: While stressing that a Colorado company cannot refuse ‘the full and equal enjoyment of (its) services’ based on a customer’s protected status, … the dissent assures us that a company selling creative services ‘to the public’ does have a right ‘to decide what messages to include or not to include’ … . But if that is true, what are we even debating?” Gorsuch asks.

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Don’t be surprised if some who disagree with the court’s opinion call their opponents the usual names. Those who do this either don’t get it, or aren’t being candid.

And that’s putting it politely, which is way more than some who engage in name calling make a habit of doing.

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The speaker at the Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua, or ABC, July 10 event agrees with the conclusion of the court’s opinion.

“It’s not a blanket denial of service,” said talk-show host, columnist, and Fox News contributor Guy Benson. “It’s the live and let live ethos.”

ABC was formed in 2018. Its mission is “to achieve a balance of speakers in a mutually civil and respectful environment consistent with the historic mission of Chautauqua” Institution. ABC is its own Section 501(c)(3) organization, legally separate from the institution.

Dr. Randy Elf’s Aug. 20, 2020, ABC presentation, on “How Political Speech Law Benefits Politicians and the Rich,” is at https://works.bepress.com/elf/21