At the end of June, the Christian fascist Supreme Court issued a ruling that a website designer has the “right” to invoke her Christian fundamentalist prejudices to practice overt discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people by refusing to make wedding websites for them. The web designer sued the state of Colorado to challenge a law prohibiting discrimination based on “race, color, religion, national origin/ancestry, sex, pregnancy, disability, sexual orientation including transgender status, age, marital status, and familial status.” The Supreme Court ruled that this law violated the “free speech” of the web designer. 

This Supreme Court ruling was of a pair with a ruling outlawing affirmative action. Both rulings undercut the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that supposedly guarantees everyone in the U.S. “equal protection of the laws.”

The anti-affirmative action ruling, as we wrote in Fascist-Dominated U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Affirmative Action, was “‘a big ‘fuck you, get back in your place’ to Black people as well as to every section of this society that faces systematic discrimination.”

And this ruling is a big “fuck you and get back in the closet” message to LGBT people.

In the immediate term, the Supreme Court ruling endangers all anti-discrimination laws. And this ruling is a significant link in a chain of Supreme Court rulings moving towards eviscerating the supposed separation of church and state, and imposing a truly hellish Christian fascist theocracy.

Legalizing Discrimination, Endorsing Dehumanization Under the Guise of “Freedom of Speech”

“303 Creative” is a one-woman web design company. The owner sued the state of Colorado before she had even started creating wedding websites.¹ She insisted on the right to violate Colorado’s law against discrimination in public businesses. Her lawsuit claimed that being forced to create wedding websites for same-sex couples would violate her religious beliefs and infringe on her right to free speech. The lawsuit, and the “legal argument” that this was a “free speech” issue, was backed by very powerful and highly connected Christian fascist legal associations that have waged consistent and vicious attacks on the rights and humanity of LGBT people.²

The Supreme Court’s ruling justifies discrimination based on the web designer’s Bible-based belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. They argue that her ability to discriminate against same-sex couples is protecting “an individual [from being forced] to create speech she does not believe” because it is “customized and tailored” work.

This is bullshit! The Colorado anti-discrimination law does not infringe on anyone’s right to free speech. But what it did do was say that if you want to have a public business, you cannot legally discriminate against a “protected class of people,” whether that be Black people, women, Latino people or in this case LGBT people.   

There can never be infinite, completely unrestricted “freedom of speech.” Anyone interacting with the public in a public business—selling a house, admitting a student to a school, suggesting a dish to order to a customer at a restaurant—involves some degree or form of (in the words of the Supreme Court ruling) “customized and tailored” work. But by the “logic” of this ruling, because of that, anyone can justify any form of institutional discrimination against women, LGBT people, Black, Latino or Native American people. And following that logic, the “right” of any individual to do anything would trump any attempt to regulate masks in public health crises, speed limits in school zones or safety regulations for buildings.

And, as a matter of fact, for decades, powerful Christian fascist forces in America lashed out furiously against and opposed laws requiring them to rent or sell houses to Black people, to integrate schools, and to serve Black people in restaurants because doing so violated their Christian beliefs and “God's laws.”³

This Supreme Court ruling is a major step in adopting and endorsing that Christian fascist “logic” and agenda.

Part of a Societal Assault on the Humanity of LGBT People

The acknowledgement of the basic humanity of LGBT people, as concentrated in the legalization of same-sex marriage less than 10 years ago, was the product of dramatic changes in society and culture; of blood, sweat, and tears; and struggle and sacrifice. The fury of people subjected to the most overt discrimination, insult, dehumanization, bullying, violence, arrest, and worse exploded in the Stonewall Uprising in New York City in 1969. It was manifested in the heroic and determined battle led by ACT UP to demand that society recognize the humanity of LGBT people and fight for a cure for AIDS. And it is expressed in a million defiant ways of manifesting pride that are subversive of traditional patriarchal cornerstones of all societies based on exploitation and oppression.

This open manifestation of pride, and recognition of the humanity of LGBT people is anathema and abomination to the Christian fascists lashing out throughout society, and who dominate the Supreme Court. They are hell-bent on viciously reversing all concessions to equality for sections of people who have been viciously discriminated against and oppressed by this system including Black people, Native Americans, Latinos and other people of color, women, and differently gendered people.

Leaders of one of the key Christian fascist “legal” institutions that backed the assault on Colorado’s anti-discrimination law declared that “The very future of our nation is at risk if the homosexual agenda [sic] continues to advance unchecked.”

Even beyond the legal implications, this Supreme Court ruling sends a green-light message to the MAGA-ite fascists with their guns and lynch ropes, the rabid anti-trans mobs, and the thugs terrorizing drag shows.

As the revcoms wrote in STOP the Fascist Attacks and Demonization of LGBTQ People! WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT THIS SYSTEM’S FUTURE! A Better World Without Oppression and Exploitation Is Possible:

Fascist mobs amassed at schools and school board meetings. Over 525 anti-LGBT bills introduced in 41 states by fascist lawmakers, with more than 75 signed into law. Medical and psychological care for trans youth and adults outlawed. LGBT people's history, stories and even existence purged from schools and education. Youth who are different, questioning, unsure about their gender or sexuality taught to hate themselves and to harm themselves.

And as the revcoms’ statement pointed out, this assault on the humanity of LGBT people is in the context of a larger Christian fascist agenda of white supremacy, enslaving women through forced motherhood, and rule through open violence and terror.

We Do Not Need to Live This Way

There is no way to deal with these theocratic Christian fascists through the “normal” channels people are programmed to believe are what impacts the direction of society. And individual expressions of LGBT Pride will not withstand these attacks. These fascists, including their Supreme Court, are tearing up the “normal channels.” And, those normal channels have really always been essentially institutions to serve exploitation and oppression, with a thin coating of “inclusion, diversity, and equity” slapped onto the operation of a global empire of slums and sweatshops.

But there is another way the world can be. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, guarantees that “No one shall be subjected to denial or abridgement of rights or liberty, or to discrimination, on the basis of nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or religious or other belief.” It does so in the context of getting to a world without any form of oppression. 

Everyone who wants to see a world where people can love who they love—regardless of gender and sexual orientation—needs to become part of this revolution to bring that future into being. Now—when this society is being ripped apart—is the moment to urgently seize.