Commonwealth Policy Center

A bookstore owner is taking the city of Jacksonville, Florida to court. Christie DeTrude, owner of Queen of Angels, a Catholic bookstore, believes what the Bible teaches about sex and gender. She wants to make it an official store policy to refer to people according to their biological sex. But this clashes with a public accommodation law requiring people to use the preferred pronouns of their customers. While Christians should be compassionate towards all people, we have to speak the truth in love, and the government has no right to compel our speech. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, and the Jacksonville city government has no right to violate what the First Amendment requires it to protect.