US rulings put brake on wokeism

Given its 6-3 conservative majority, there may be little surprise the US Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment on Friday, ruled in favour of a graphic designer in Colorado who refused to create celebratory wedding websites for same-sex couples. That does not diminish the significance of the decision, which pitted the rights of LGBTQI+ people to seek goods and services without discrimination against the free speech rights of all Americans under the constitution’s First Amendment.

The judgment is certain to have widespread ramifications as battle lines are drawn for next year’s presidential election. The alleged “wokeness” of the Biden White House is certain to be a theme. As The Wall Street Journal said, the decision was “a cultural tonic the country urgently needs. The tolerance the left once sought for gays and gay weddings has become the coercion that forces dissenters from the dominant culture to bend the knee”.

The case involving web designer Lorie Smith, who believes marriage can be only between a man and a woman, was whether a court in Colorado was right to convict her under a state anti-discrimination law or whether she had the right to refuse to “lend her creative expression to a cause she does not condone”. The majority ruling, written by judge Neil Gorsuch, appointed by Donald Trump, was unequivocal that she had the right to refuse. Yet the President, responding to the decision, said the ruling would “weaken longstanding laws and invite more discrimination. In America, no person should face discrimination simply because of who they are or who they love”.

Joe Biden appeared to misunderstand the judgment, which was a timely endorsement of Ms Smith’s First Amendment right to free speech and free thought. That is vital at a time when the US – and not just the US – is deeply divided over such issues. While most Americans support same-sex marriage, it remains an open question whether Americans running businesses can dissent from progressive orthodoxies without penalty. The ruling was a victory for pluralism, as significant as the 2018 decision in favour of a baker in Colorado who refused, on religious grounds, to make a gay couple’s wedding cake. The decision coincided with others that will also feature in the campaign. Mr Biden is miffed that the court ruled race-based affirmative action programs at North Carolina and Harvard universities were unconstitutional, putting a big question mark over the edifice of race-based selection that permeates education and business in the US. The decision, Washington correspondent Adam Creighton writes, suggests “the US is seeking to remove government-backed racial division’’. As judge Clarence Thomas, himself black, said in his ruling, “racial categories are little more than stereotypes, suggesting that immutable characteristics somehow conclusively determine a person’s ideology, beliefs and abilities … I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles … that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law”.

When the court tentatively endorsed race-based admissions, in 2003, it assumed the need for such programs would naturally expire “in 25 years”. Yet 20 years on, they continue to be expanded, driven by a highly paid army of “diversity experts” in universities, government and businesses, demanding ever more race-based policies. In reality, white and black applicants from wealthy areas whose parents paid for them to attend expensive schools have far more in common than they do with working-class black or white kids from poorer areas. Mr Biden copped another setback when the court ruled he exceeded his authority trying to wipe out student loan debt, which would have allowed 43 million people to skip repayment of up to $US20,000 each, costing the US Treasury $US400bn. For that, US taxpayers, regardless of how they vote, have reason to be grateful to the court. Even former house Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposed Mr Biden’s scheme.

While controversial, the issues on which the court acted uphold important principles that will serve US interests well.