A perturbed employee is tired of being instructed to use his or her social media account to broadcast what the company wants to broadcast. The employee wrote into the New York Times workplace-advice column to ask: “Can the employer require employees to share on their personal social channels a post about a new person being hired to lead the organization, or about open jobs for which the organization is recruiting?”
The employee put her objection this way: "I just don’t like the idea of being forced to share something I don’t think my family, friends, and former colleagues will find interesting."
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This all makes sense, and New York Times writer Roxanne Gay affirms the employee's qualms: “Legally, your employers cannot force you to post professional content on your personal social media accounts.”
Gay may not be 100% correct on the legality here, but she’s correct on the propriety. It violates a person’s dignity to compel someone to express a sentiment or belief one may not hold. Even more fundamental than the freedom to speak your mind is the freedom to not violate your own conscience.
Almost everyone seems to understand this.
I write opinion pieces for a living, sometimes on a contract basis. Nobody would say that my employer, much less the state government, could force me to write an opinion I disagreed with.
Here’s a New York Times piece about a student who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance: “Under federal law and South Carolina law, no one can be forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”
But in the gay marriage debate, somehow, this freedom of conscience gets tossed out the window. Nearly all of the largest media outlets, which otherwise believe in freedom of conscience, hated the Supreme Court’s ruling in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, even though that ruling said something very similar to what the New York Times advice columnist said: Nobody can justly force you to express a belief or sentiment you do not share.
The gay marriage debate, however, fries people’s brains. Look at the attempt of former senator and comedian Al Franken to mock the Supreme Court decision.
A CO woman asked me to write homophobic & anti-Semitic jokes to express her hostility to gay-marriage & Jews in general to promote her non-existent web-design business. Do I have to?
— Al Franken (@alfranken) July 5, 2023
Literally, the idea that a customer can force a contractor to express an opinion is the opinion of Colorado and the liberal minority of the court, and Franken is making it out to be the majority opinion.
I’m glad that we mostly all believe in the freedom of conscience and that coerced speech is bad. I just wish those beliefs still held sway when gay marriage was on the table.