An Arizona Supreme Court ruling on Monday provided further evidence that gay rights are under siege in this country. Other recent events show that the Trump Administration is leading the assault. The Arizona court held that Brush & Nib Studio, a Phoenix-based company that makes customized wedding invitations, has the legal right to reject a gay couple as customers. Even though Phoenix has a local law that prohibits discrimination against the L.G.B.T.Q. community, the court ruled that the religious convictions of the business owners exempted them from the obligation to treat all customers equally. According to the court, designing wedding invitations is a creative act; to compel the owners to design an invitation against their will violates their rights both to freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
The opinion treats the business owners—two women—as a beleaguered minority. Their “beliefs about same-sex marriage may seem old-fashioned, or even offensive to some,” the court wrote. “But the guarantees of free speech and freedom of religion are not only for those who are deemed sufficiently enlightened, advanced, or progressive. They are for everyone.” This, to put it charitably, is nonsense. The owners of Brush & Nib are free to believe anything they want. What they should not be allowed to do is to use those beliefs to run a business that is open to the general public but closed to gay people. [...]
Of course, it’s not clear that the Supreme Court will uphold these discriminatory practices. In the famous Masterpiece Cakeshop case, in 2017, which involved a Colorado baker who had refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, the Court dodged the issue. (The Court ruled for the baker, on the ground that Colorado officials, specifically the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, had behaved improperly, in a non-neutral manner.) But anyone counting on the current Supreme Court to protect the rights of any minorities, including the L.G.B.T.Q. community, is almost certainly looking for disappointment. That may become even clearer this term, when the Justices hear three cases on the question of whether the Civil Rights Act forbids employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity as it does on the basis of race or sex. These cases will be the first to address the rights of gay Americans since Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was clearly supportive of them, stepped down and was replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is not. The President and his allies boast of their tolerance and enlightenment on L.G.B.T.Q. issues, but facts stubbornly suggest that they are hurting the cause in every way they can.
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