Attorney General Knudsen fights to protect individuals from compelled speech
HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen joined 21 other state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in defense of First Amendment protections for providers of goods and services, who cannot be compelled to express a particular viewpoint.
The attorneys general are asking the Colorado Supreme Court to reverse decisions in lower courts that found Jack Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop, Inc., liable for discrimination for refusing to create a cake expressing a message contrary to his religious beliefs.
“When Phillips creates a custom cake, he engages in expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. The gender-transition cake requested was no exception; creating it would require Phillips to express a readily understood message about sex with which he disagrees,” the brief states. “This Court should vindicate his right to not speak.”
Phillips has been defending his First Amendment rights since 2012 when he declined to bake a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The couple complained and he was censured by the Civil Rights Commission for discrimination. The case made it to the United States Supreme Court that ruled the Commission acted with “hostility” to his “religious viewpoint.”
On the same day the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, a transgender attorney asked Philips to create a cake to reflect the attorney’s “transition from male-to-female.” When Philips refused, the attorney sued, and Phillips was found liable for discrimination in Colorado courts once again.
“The Amici States have an important interest in ensuring that people are not denied equal access to publicly available goods and services. But they are also interested in ensuring that persons providing such goods and services are not compelled to speak. Indeed, our federal Constitution protects the providers of goods and services—like anyone else—from being required to express a particular viewpoint. The Amici States seek to ensure that antidiscrimination policy does not trump that constitutionally protected right,” the brief states.
Other states that joined the Arkansas-led brief include Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
Click here to read the brief.