The Romantic Author as Compelled Speaker.

The romantic author trope has been extensively criticized in the copyright context. yet it threatens to emerge as a new pillar of First Amendment compelled speech jurisprudence. Justice Thomas k concurring opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission exemplifies the tropeS rhetorical power and the costs of that approach. Coisting the baker as an artist, Justice Thomas found that creating custom wedding cakes was speech, and that applying a public accommodations law to require service to a same-sex couple triggered strid scrutiny review. This is an extraordinary result. Although the United States Supreme Court never adjudicated fhe compelled speech claim, it will jake up the issile in 303 Creadve 11£ v. Elenis, where the artist owens a website design business. This Article historically contextualizes the romantic author construct, charts its emergence in First Amendment law, and deconstructs the over-heightened autonomy interest it imports into Justice Thomas's concurring opinion in Master\*eec. This idealized speaker lens does substantial work in suggesting a presionptive constitutiorlai violation arising from a law prohibiting discrimination in public Ricing businesses. The trope privileges speaker autonomy and subjectivity to a degree that legilimizes the erasure of customers-and disavows the state k authority in assuring equal access to goods and services. The high-stakes conflict of rights in Masterpiece and similar wedding vendor cases demands context-sensifive analysis, which the transcendent. self-mgarding lens of authorihip obscures. The central claim of this Article is that wedding vendor cases misapply the romantic ideal, exalting subjectivity and expressive autonomy while swallowing the conflicting rights animated by customer interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]