Progressivism’s Rejection of Civil Rights
When it comes to protecting religious freedom in America, forget about the civil rights community. Just like President Biden, these groups have now surrendered to progressive ideologies, unwilling to defend anyone who disagrees with them – even if the opposition is grounded in sincerely held religious belief. A look at this past Supreme Court term proves this point.
Take, for example, the recent case involving Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer who wanted to expand her business to offer wedding websites for couples celebrating traditional marriage. Smith went to court, concerned that Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), a broadly defined public accommodations law outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation could compel her to design websites for same-sex weddings. Smith explained that she had no problem working for gay clients, but that she couldn’t use her talents to celebrate unions that were at odds with her beliefs.
The Supreme Court ruled that CADA violated the Court’s long-standing precedents prohibiting government-compelled speech. Writing for the Court’s 6-3 majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch noted that while public accommodation laws have “have done much to secure the civil rights of all Americans,” this case was different. “Colorado does not just seek to ensure the sale of goods and services on equal terms. It seeks to use the law to compel an individual to create speech she does not believe.”
The Court’s opinion in 303 Creative v. Elenis is textbook recitation of free speech jurisprudence. But that didn’t stop President Biden from condemning the Court’s vindication of the First Amendment, claiming in a White House Statement that the decision “weakens long-standing laws that protect all Americans against discrimination in public accommodations – including people of color, people with disabilities, people of faith, and women.”
Inevitably, Biden was joined by a posse of “civil rights” organizations. “The Court’s decision opens the door to any business that claims to provide customized services to discriminate against historically-marginalized groups,” asserted the ACLU in a press release. The group was quick to remind the press that, along with its Colorado affiliate, it had “filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to reject the First Amendment challenge to a Colorado civil rights law requiring businesses open to the public to treat customers equally.” So much for that organization’s founding commitment to defending “the rights enshrined in the US Constitution.”
Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of over 200 national civil rights organizations, was even more inflammatory. “We are disappointed that six justices fell for the cynical, manufactured attempt to manipulate the First Amendment in order to make it easier to exclude LGBTQ+ people from public life. As a bigoted few work to promote hatred and pass laws targeting LGBTQ+ people, it’s imperative that the civil rights community works together with legislators and businesses to condemn this dangerous decision.” Wiley nastily described Smith as a “promoter of hatred” – a disgusting slur; naturally she made no mention of the right to free speech.
The aggressive opposition to religious expression is one hallmark of today’s progressives. The other is silence.
A second religion-related case reviewed by the Court this term involved Gerald Groff, a Sabbatarian Christian who asked that he not be scheduled to work on Sundays. Groff’s employer, the US Postal Service, tried to weasel its way out of the obligation of Title VII, the federal law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace, to accommodate the religious practices of employees unless doing so would create an “undue hardship” on the operation of business. The Biden administration defended the postal service, rather than counsel them to live up to its obligations under this key part of the Civil Rights Act.
What about the civil rights organizations that fought so hard to pass this crucial legislation? None of these groups filed amicus briefs before the Court. None issued press releases after the Court unanimously vindicated Title VII. Not one.
As key decisions from the Supreme Court’s term revealed, President Biden and those well-funded organizations that were founded to defend civil liberties are now busy trying to force Americans to submit to the post-liberal ideology of progressivism. Fortunately, the law is on the side of liberty. This Supreme Court, or at least its majority, will continue to defend the Constitutional and statutory guarantees of religious freedom and expression for all, ignoring the true promoters of hatred in our midst.
Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is the director of the Conscience Project, and a former honor’s program trial and appellate attorney in the DOJ Civil Rights Division starting in the Clinton administration.
