1st Amendment Research Paper

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People use the 1st Amendment as excuses for anything that Court suggest is unjust. From having protests to posting their opinions online and newspaper, these people have every right to. However, the 1st Amendment is being abused and not used in the correct context. We can see the abuse of the amendment in the controversy cake article. A gay customer sued the bakery for them refusing to produce a cake that wrote, “Support Gay Marriage”. The bakers have the right refuse to not bake the cake for the customer if the backers’ opinions do not agree with what the customers want them to produce. Nothing in the 1st Amendment says that we have to follow an order even when it is something that we are against in. The same fact applies to the second article …show more content…

Arlene’s Flowers owner Baronelle Stutzman is charged with violating the state’s public accommodation laws by declining to provide floral arrangements for a gay couple’s wedding. However, the article states that the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that “the First Amendment protects artistic as well as verbal expression…should likewise extend to floristry.” If floristry does count as a form of expression, then Stutzman also has the rights to not provide floral arrangement. However in this case, I am on the side with the state. Her profession in no way seems to be directly linked to the participation of the gay wedding. She is only placing flowers at the wedding in order to decorate, not enforcing the gay marriage or embracing in what the customers are about to do. In fact, she is not even in the wedding, so how is this really compromising her Christian beliefs? For all we know, she could actually just use the religion excuse to not serve the gay couple. Recognizing a difference from religious belief and anti-gay prejudice is really difficult, but if the Court do some background research on the person and family and friends, then maybe we can see if the person is refusing services for a legitimate reason or not. This also brings up another problem. If Stutzman refuses to serve a gay wedding due to her religious belief, would she use the same excuse for a gay customer in store? If she did, she is discriminating the customer for the customer’s sexual orientation. Not only that, she probably at one point already served a good number of gay customers without knowing. Serving the customers do not affect her religious belief or compromised her for anything, so decorating the flowers at a gay wedding should be no different. If it makes her feel better about it, she does not have to know that it is a gay wedding that she is serving. I personally believe that we should serve the

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