Last week, the Supreme Court handed down 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which it held that the government cannot force people to engage in expressive speech that offends them. Two days later, Al Franken put out a tweet intended to denigrate the decision. Instead, the Harvard-educated “comedian” accidentally revealed just how good the Supreme Court opinion was.

I’m not a huge fan of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch because it was he who issued the staggeringly incorrect decision holding that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 extends to “gender identity.” However, when it comes to Free Speech, Gorsuch nailed it. In 303 Creative, his decision lucidly explains why it is that a website designer cannot be forced to design a website expressing values antithetical to her own and why this is different from a storekeeper having a sign saying, for example, “We will not sell our products to Trump supporters.”

[T]he First Amendment protects an individual’s right to speak his mind regardless of whether the government considers his speech sensible and well intentioned or deeply “misguided,” [Citations]. Equally, the First Amendment protects acts of expressive association. [Citations.] Generally, too, the government may not compel a person to speak its own preferred messages. [Citations.] Nor does it matter whether the government seeks to compel a person to speak its message when he would prefer to remain silent or to force an individual to include other ideas with his own speech that he would prefer not to include. [Citations.] All that offends the First Amendment just the same.

[snip]

All manner of speech—from “pictures, films, paintings, drawings, and engravings,” to “oral utterance and the printed word”—qualify for the First Amendment’s protections; no less can hold true when it comes to speech like Ms. Smith’s conveyed over the Internet. [Citations.]

[snip]

Consider what a contrary approach would mean. Under Colorado’s logic, the government may compel anyone who speaks for pay on a given topic to accept all commissions on that same topic—no matter the underlying message—if the topic somehow implicates a customer’s statutorily protected trait. [Citation.] Taken seriously, that principle would allow the government to force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe on pain of penalty.

Further, writes Gorsuch, the fact that a person is engaged in the speech for pay is irrelevant. It’s still speech.

Nor, in any event, do the First Amendment’s protections belong only to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy; its protections belong to all, including to speakers whose motives others may find misinformed or offensive.

So, that was the long way of saying this: Some products and services, as well as some workplaces and commercial sites, are not communicating ideas. The grocery store is not communicating an idea when I pick a can of peas off the shelf, nor is there a statement being made when the airline sells me a ticket. That’s entirely different from someone conveying an idea in any medium.

Once a person or corporation starts conveying ideas, that’s protected speech. It may be stupid speech, as when Bud Light conveyed its idea supporting so-called “transgenderism,” but it’s still speech and, therefore, protected. On the other hand, Bud Light cannot say that it will not sell its beer to those who oppose “transgenderism.”

That’s it. That’s the whole decision. And Al Franken, the proud product of Harvard University, totally failed to understand the decision. Indeed, he got it bass ackward:

A CO woman asked me to write homophobic & anti-Semitic jokes to express her hostility to gay-marriage & Jews in general to promote her non-existent web-design business. Do I have to?

— Al Franken (@alfranken) July 5, 2023

No, Al, you don’t. The Supreme Court just said that neither the Colorado woman nor the state of Colorado can force you to write something so offensive to your values. On the other hand, the same decision says that, when next you appear at a comedy club, you cannot put up a sign saying, “No admission to anyone who does not share my values.” That’s because you are free to say what you will in your show (selling your product) and cannot bar people access to that product simply because you don’t like them. Ironically, Al is not the only one who didn’t read the decision and leaped to a conclusion. In the wake of 303 Creative’s issuance, at least one leftist promptly violated the principle of Fair Accommodation by banning from his store anyone who didn’t share his political beliefs:

telling people not to shop at your small business to own republicans pic.twitter.com/K5xYgSiOuR

— Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) July 1, 2023

This kind of thing makes you realize that part of the reason leftists are so destructive is that their “useful idiots” are actually just that, and it does not matter how credentialed they may be. They truly have no idea what they’re advocating. If it sounds good, they say it, and that’s because it feeds their emotions without ever touching their minds.

Image: YouTube screen grab (edited).