"Faced with what he called a “sea of hypotheticals about photographers, stationers, and others,” Gorsuch conceded that “determining what qualifies as expressive activity protected by the First Amendment can sometimes raise difficult questions.” But, he wrote, no one disputes — indeed, the parties stipulated — that “Ms. Smith seeks to engage in expressive activity.” But everything humans do expresses something. In an earlier case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, Gorsuch joined an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas saying that food preparation (selling a wedding cake) was sufficiently expressive that the seller had a right to discriminate. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that “A website designer could equally refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple. … A stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple because she opposes their having a child. A large retail store could reserve its family portrait services for ‘traditional’ families. And so on.” Gorsuch doesn’t respond. It will take years of litigation to find out what “expressive” means. The fact that the parties stipulated that one business is expressive does not entail that “expressiveness” is a workable test for courts. What if the parties had stipulated that some websites are blessed by angels?"
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Academics from the United StatesJustices of the Supreme Court of the United StatesLawyers from the United StatesPeople from DenverGeorgetown Preparatory School alumni
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Neil Gorsuch
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