Attorney General Ken Paxton
Attorney General Paxton has joined an Oklahoma-led cert-stage amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and protect the religious liberty of a couple being targeted for their faith.
The amicus brief defends a couple who declined to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding and were then adjudged to have violated Oregon’s public-accommodation law. The Constitution protects individuals from being coerced against their will to use their artistic gifts and talents, such as designing and crafting a wedding cake, to participate in a ceremony that violates their religious beliefs. To force a faithful Christian cake-maker to participate in a same-sex wedding against his faith is a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.
“In sum, if our First Amendment’s religion clauses prohibit a graduating high school senior from being compelled to participate in prayers through standing or sitting silently, surely they also protect citizens from being compelled to participate in religious ceremonies in a much more active and artistic manner,” the brief states. “Recognizing this truth would enable the protection of a ‘good faith’ belief held by ‘reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the world’ contemplated by this Court in Obergefell.”
To read the full brief, click here.
