Secular Café: Can Anti-Discrimination Law Compel Business To Print T-Shirt For Gay/Lesbian Festival

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Can Anti-Discrimination Law Compel Business To Print T-Shirt For Gay/Lesbian Festival Apr 6th 2012, 12:41 A Gay and Lesbian Services Organization in Lexington, Kentucky, contacted a private business, Hands On Original, by phone in December. They wanted the company to make t-shirts for the annual Pride Festival in Lexington. The Pride Festival is a gay and lesbian festival celebrating the same sex lifestyle and to discuss and promote social and political issues affecting them, such as same sex marriage. They called various businesses but the lowest bid to make their t-shirts was Hands On Originals. The GLSO wanted to negotiate an even lower price with Hands On Originals and the GLSO was placed in touch with the owner of the store. The owner inquired inquired as to what GLSO was, their mission, and what they were promoting. They wanted the number "5" on the front of the t-shirt and the name of the festival on the back of the t-shirt, along with the festival's sponsors. After GLSO told the owner of Hands On Originals what the organization was, their mission, and the t-shirts would be used for the gay pride festival, the owner told GLSO they were a Christian organization and would not print t-shirts for a gay pride festival. Upset with the fact they couldn't impose their will upon a private Christian business, they filed a complaint with the Lexington Human Rights Commmission, alleging a violation of the Lexington Fairness Ordinance. The Lexington Fairness Ordinance prohibits discrimination in public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation. http://lrc.ky.gov/KRS/344-00/130.PDF and http://lrc.ky.gov/KRS/344-00/120.PDF However, it seems to me Hands On Originals was not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation but the message they were asked to create on a t-shirt. As a result, I do not believe the company would be in violation of the Lexington Fairness Ordinances since they were not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation but on the basis of the content of a message, a political and social message. If the statute is to be understood to apply to the facts of this situation and prohibit Hands On Originals from this action, then the statute is compelling speech by a private entity. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held the government cannot compel speech, especially speech on a political, social, or ideological issue. A message on a t-shirt is speech just as print in a book, journal, article, newspaper, or magazine is speech and the speech here is certainly one pertaining to a political, social and ideological issue, i.e. political, social, and ideological speech. The statute then would be compelling a private entity to create and print a message they do not want, which is unconstitutional. The speech in this case is in regards to a societal and political issue, which makes the speech compulsion a more unequivocal violation of the 1st Amendment Free Speech Clause. I do not think Hands On Original can, consistent with the 1st Amendment Free Speech Clause, be compelled to create speech it doesn't want to create, or speak when it doesn't want to speak.

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