There is no ‘horseshoes and hand grenades’ exception in the First Amendment and latest SCOTUS case proves it
Fox News
There is no ‘horseshoes and hand grenades’ exception in the First Amendment. Latest SCOTUS case is about government compelling speech, which it can’t do.
The government cannot force a Muslim calligrapher to write "Believe Jesus" for a church under the theory that it is just providing the "same calligraphy services" when he writes "Believe Muhammad" for a mosque.
In reality, Colorado conceded to these facts as did the lower court. Lorie is "willing to work with all people regardless of … sexual orientation," declines projects if they "promote content" she disagrees with, and only creates custom, unique, expressive wedding websites that "celebrate" each "couple’s wedding" and "story." No off-the-shelf templates. No plug ’n’ play. It’s all speech. It’s all about content. And it’s all undisputed.
So when Cole claims that Lorie discriminates because she declines to create "identical" websites for same-sex and opposite-sex weddings, that makes no sense. Why would anyone want someone else’s custom wedding website with pictures, text, images, and stories celebrating and directing them to a different wedding? Lorie doesn’t offer identical, off-the-shelf, plug ’n’ play websites like that. And if she did, she would happily sell such websites celebrating marriages between a man and woman to anyone. What Cole really means is if you exchange details in the websites like the text and images and stories — the actual content — then he thinks it’s still the identical service. For Cole, it’s all just generic websites. But a website celebrating John and Jim, with their pictures and their text about how they met, fell in love, and will marry conveys a very different message when you replace it with content, pictures and text about someone else’s wedding and marriage, whether that’s for Mark and Paul or Tom and Jane. There is no "horseshoes and hand grenades" exception in the First Amendment. The government cannot force a Muslim calligrapher to write "Believe Jesus" for a church under the theory that it is just providing the "same calligraphy services" when he writes "Believe Muhammad" for a mosque. Newsflash: Different words and different pictures can convey very different meanings. And celebrating same-sex marriage is a very different message than celebrating marriage between a man and a woman. Nor can the ACLU or other Colorado supporters — like the Biden administration — apply their "same-service" theory consistently. In a telling moment at oral argument, Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked the Biden administration if the government could force a gay website designer to create a website for a Catholic student group promoting their religious belief about marriage.