When the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that Minnesota could not force wedding videographers Carl and Angel Larsen to create videos that violate their religious beliefs, the Larsens thought their three-year court battle was over. But it appears it’s just beginning.
Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, vowed to fight the court’s decision and squash discriminatory speech in all its forms. In an op-ed for the Minnesota Star Tribune this week, Ellison accused the Larsens of hiding behind their religious beliefs in an attempt to get away with LGBT discrimination.
“Business owners’ free speech and beliefs are already fully protected under the First Amendment. What they want is a license to discriminate against LGBTQ folks,” Ellison wrote. “People have the right to believe whatever they want to believe. What they don’t have is the right to deny you the same service they’re offering to everyone else. No Minnesotan should be afraid that might happen to them.”
The “right to be free from discrimination in public” trumps the freedom of conscience, according to Ellison, who promised to take the case back to the federal district court. He could appeal the case to the Supreme Court, “but the current makeup of that court means we’re not likely to win,” Ellison noted.
Ellison’s argument is remarkable because in it, he admits what few of these demagogues have been willing to say outright: Religious freedom has no place in a politically correct society. And in doing so, Ellison declared war on not just religious freedom but on free speech. If creating a wedding video is a creative act of expression, as the 8th Circuit argued, then the right to create is wholly discretionary and protected by the First Amendment. How the Larsens choose to use their talents and who they offer their services to is their choice, not Ellison’s, not Minnesota’s.
But because that choice could offend LGBT individuals, Ellison believes he has the right and the responsibility to get involved. Ellison’s argument is entirely unconvincing, which is why he lost in court the first time and why he will lose again. The government does not have the right to tell the Larsens what they can and cannot believe, as Ellison admits, which means it cannot tell them how they must or must not act on those beliefs (unless, of course, it endangers the life, liberty, or property of another person). Minnesota’s Human Rights Act does just that, and the 8th Circuit rightfully tossed it out.
Ellison is a tyrant in the making. Full of conviction and hungry for power, he would dictate the moral choices of every Minnesotan if given the chance. He would compel his constituents to act against their consciences.
It’s a good thing the 8th Circuit won’t let him. Let’s hope it stays that way.
