How Conservatives Weaponized the First Amendment
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/us/politics/first-amendment-conservatives-supreme-court.html
How Conservatives Weaponized the First Amendment
By Adam Liptak
June 30, 2018
WASHINGTON On the final day of the Supreme Court term last week, Justice Elena Kagan sounded an alarm.
The courts five conservative members, citing the First Amendment, had just dealt public unions a devastating blow. The day before, the same majority had used the First Amendment to reject a California law requiring religiously oriented crisis pregnancy centers to provide women with information about abortion.
Conservatives, said Justice Kagan, who is part of the courts four-member liberal wing, were weaponizing the First Amendment.
The two decisions were the latest in a stunning run of victories for a conservative agenda that has increasingly been built on the foundation of free speech. Conservative groups, borrowing and building on arguments developed by liberals, have used the First Amendment to justify unlimited campaign spending, discrimination against gay couples and attacks on the regulation of tobacco, pharmaceuticals and guns.