Every American should be free to peacefully support causes they believe in without being harassed or intimidated.
Someone should tell that to Terry Goddard. For years, the former Attorney General of Arizona has been leading a campaign to “Stop Dark Money” in our state. Although the name sounds nefarious, it’s nothing more than clever messaging aimed to scare the average person.
But now Goddard’s new donor harassment initiative is set to file signatures in the coming days. And if it makes it onto the ballot and becomes law, it would be a devastating blow to donor privacy and free speech.
On Thursday, Attorney General Mark Brnovich co-led a 20-state coalition in filing an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case deciding the speech rights of business owners. The coalition filed their amicus brief the day after Pride Month began.
At the heart of the case — 303 Creative v. Elenis — is Colorado businesswoman Lorie Smith, a graphic artist and website designer who refused to design wedding websites for same-sex couples per her religious beliefs. Colorado law C.R.S. 24-34-601 prohibits businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, even due to religion. The state considers any business that sells to the public or offers services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to the public as a “place of public accommodation” and therefore beholden to their anti-discrimination law.
The amicus brief pointed out that Smith provided other services to LGBTQ+ customers, but that her Christian religion prevented her from providing wedding-related services to those customers. It also pointed out that Smith’s hesitation concerned the message she would convey in being forced to do so; in other words, her speech and not the status of a customer.
The Christian Bible dictates that marriage is the union between one man and one woman, and that homosexuality is a sin.
“Colorado interprets its public-accommodation law to forbid Smith from expressing her desired messages about marriage. In its view, graphic artists who create websites celebrating opposite-sex marriages must do the same for same-sex marriages, and refusing to do so subjects those artists to punishment,” read the amicus brief. “By adopting this position, Colorado violates the constitutional rights of its citizens, because the First amendment prohibits States from forcing individuals, including people who create custom speech for a living, to speak in favor of same-sex marriage.”
In a press release, Brnovich asserted that business owners like Smith have a constitutional right to discern speech as part of their business.
“Owners of small companies do not give up their constitutional rights as a cost of doing business,” said Brnovich. “Freedoms of speech, belief, and expression are at the core of who we are as Americans, and our government is out of line to infringe on them.”
“As a Christian artist, I was really excited to step into the wedding industry and use my artistic talents. Except, there’s a Colorado law that prevents me from continuing my work and forces me to violate my beliefs and speak messages I don’t agree with,” stated Smith. “Every American should have the right to control the content of their own speech.”
Nebraska, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia joined Arizona in the amicus brief.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The controversy over COVID management is not a medical disagreement but a political fight. It’s also a free speech issue, the question of whether those who disagree with the political/medical status-quo should be silenced.
Although we have learned more over time about the origins and development of COVID, there is no question it is a contagious virus that spreads primarily through respiratory secretions.
Infections range from symptom-free to fatal, but serious disease and death occur almost exclusively in the infirm and the elderly. Like all viruses, the coronavirus mutates, apparently into variants that are more contagious but less deadly.
So far so good. The disagreement is over its containment. Americans have become a risk-averse people, where nonsensical catch phrases like “if it only saves one life” and “in an abundance of caution” have supplanted sober cost/benefit analysis.
So, our government’s go-to solution for the pandemic was lockdowns for everyone. Commercial, social, educational, and other personal interactions were halted to stop the spread of the disease.
The results of this massive experiment in public health were disappointing. 800,000 Americans have perished. There may have been some benefit to “flattening the curve”—spacing out illnesses to avoid overwhelming healthcare facilities—but the total number of fatalities was not much affected.
Meanwhile the cost of the lockdowns was enormous. The federal government spent $6 trillion in COVID relief, much of it wasted or misappropriated. Moreover, virtually all of the handouts were debt financed, pleasing current taxpayers/voters but assuring that Americans will be struggling financially far into the future.
The collateral damage included over 90,000 “excess deaths” due to forced shutdowns of routine preventive and diagnostic care. There were sharp spikes in levels of depression, substance abuse, and overdose deaths, especially among the young.
The Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) in October 2020 was based on addressing these “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.” It recommended an alternative approach called Focused Protection.
The authors were respected physicians from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford with 91,000 additional professional endorsements, including from a Nobel prize winner. Their paper noted that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 was over 1,000 times higher in vulnerable populations than among young people. For children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.
Thus, it made sense to protect vulnerable populations if anything more vigorously, while reopening schools, businesses, and restaurants with reasonable precautions. Both overall mortality and social harm could be protected until we reached herd immunity.
In a society based on reason and open inquiry, this proposal would at least have received serious consideration. Instead, the Trump-hating media erupted in withering denunciations and cancellations.
Worse, recently obtained emails reveal that our “follow the science” authorities intentionally thwarted the dissenting viewpoint. Then-director of the NIH Francis Collins wrote Anthony (“I am the Science”) Fauci that GBD seemed to be getting some attention. “There needs to be a quick and devastating takedown of its premises. Is it underway?”
Fauci answered in the affirmative. Soon after, he informed The Washington Post that GBD was a fringe operation. “This is not mainstream science. It’s dangerous.”
Several media outlets ran with criticisms by Fauci, who completed the cycle by citing their articles in his talking points. Facebook pitched in by censoring any references to GBD. It was the dreaded “misinformation.”
Focused Protection never got traction. But shutting down open dissent in favor of political agendas has produced tragic consequences. In spite of Fauci’s claim in October 2020 that the draconian remedies were temporary, when caseloads rose the next month, shutdowns were resumed.
Hard data is never available on the path not taken, but it’s undeniable that the costs of following the Fauci/Collins strategy were staggering: unbelievably enormous federal outlays, shattered businesses, untreated illnesses, suicides, and devastating educational achievement losses.
Let’s be smarter with omicron. Let’s vaccinate and medicate, protect the vulnerable but avoid panic and unnecessary disruptions in our lives.
The Great Barrington Declaration, the responses, and consequences are a reminder of the practical importance of free speech rights. Better decisions are made when all sides are heard out.
