"Free Speech" v. "Gay Rights"
In the Supreme Court's latest clash between a Christian conservative web designer and her hypothetical future gay customers, the Supreme Court sided with the web designer based on her First Amendment right to free speech.
I think I would decide the case based on whether providing web design services is actually "speech".
I don't think it is. As a friend of mine who actually provides web design services told me, "Web design isn't your free speech, it is your customer's free speech; it is their speech that is expressed on the website, not yours."
Excellent point.
If I were a wedding website planner, I'd probably have cooked up a variety of web design options. Somebody would come in (or visit via the Internet) and I'd show them (or they'd see) the options, pick one of these, and fill in their information and publish the pages to a URL: yourname.mybusiness.com. Then we're done. There's zero creativity involved, it is just a business transaction. It might not require any effort by me at all, if I've automated everything properly.
If you wanted a unique design for the background or whatever, I guess that would require some creativity, but my assembly of colors and unicorns or whatever doesn't feel like "Gay Marriage Speech" to me, it's just like putting together a PowerPoint slide for my boss or whatever.
It feels like a made-up case to me, made-up so conservative judges could express their disapproval of gay marriage without actually overturning gay marriage.
And, as I complained about yesterday, this is yet another way in which we've divided into groups that congratulate themselves and hate others -- rather than addressing our actual problems as a society. Whether you are a proud member of the LGBT community, or a proud member of the Christian community, this fucked up division between LGBT/Christian is great at fueling social media engagement and political contributions but does NOTHING to address the skyrocketing costs of housing, education, and health care that are impoverishing our working-class population.
I think I would decide the case based on whether providing web design services is actually "speech".
I don't think it is. As a friend of mine who actually provides web design services told me, "Web design isn't your free speech, it is your customer's free speech; it is their speech that is expressed on the website, not yours."
Excellent point.
If I were a wedding website planner, I'd probably have cooked up a variety of web design options. Somebody would come in (or visit via the Internet) and I'd show them (or they'd see) the options, pick one of these, and fill in their information and publish the pages to a URL: yourname.mybusiness.com. Then we're done. There's zero creativity involved, it is just a business transaction. It might not require any effort by me at all, if I've automated everything properly.
If you wanted a unique design for the background or whatever, I guess that would require some creativity, but my assembly of colors and unicorns or whatever doesn't feel like "Gay Marriage Speech" to me, it's just like putting together a PowerPoint slide for my boss or whatever.
It feels like a made-up case to me, made-up so conservative judges could express their disapproval of gay marriage without actually overturning gay marriage.
And, as I complained about yesterday, this is yet another way in which we've divided into groups that congratulate themselves and hate others -- rather than addressing our actual problems as a society. Whether you are a proud member of the LGBT community, or a proud member of the Christian community, this fucked up division between LGBT/Christian is great at fueling social media engagement and political contributions but does NOTHING to address the skyrocketing costs of housing, education, and health care that are impoverishing our working-class population.