Or in soybean-based ink. George Will’s column today discusses the Elane Photography case that Eugene has been blogging (and participating in as amicus curiae). The case involves a First Amendment Free Exercise Clause/New Mexico Religious Freedom Restoration Act defense to penalties the New Mexico Human Rights Commission assessed against Christian photographers who refused for religious reasons to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. Will writes:
Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law thinks that [photographer Elaine] Huguenin can also make a “compelled speech argument”: She cannot be coerced into creating expressive works, such as photographs, that express something she is uncomfortable expressing. Courts have repeatedly held that freedom of speech and the freedom not to speak are “complementary components of the broader concept of ‘individual freedom of mind.’ ”
Now here’s my favorite part, for purely selfish reasons. Will continues “New Mexico’s Supreme Court is going to sort all this out, which has been thoroughly reported and discused on the invaluable blog the Volokh Conspiracy . . . .”