U.S. News & World Report: The Right’s First Amendment Push
By Joseph P. Williams
In the next few weeks, the Supreme Court will hear arguments and reach conclusions on a series of important First Amendment cases which, at first glance, don’t seem to have much to do with Constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of speech.
They include a baker who doesn’t want to make a wedding cake, a state worker who wants to opt out of union dues and a faith-based crisis-pregnancy center forced to publicly acknowledge they don’t have doctors on staff – and that state-subsidized abortion is accessible and cheap…
“We have come to accept that the First Amendment protects the right to speak,” says Brad Smith, chairman and founder of the Institute for Free Speech, a right-leaning public policy center. “I’m not sure most people would instinctively think it includes the right not to speak.”
