No. No. And no.
Hamlet response to your post seems pretty spot-on, so maybe back off that “everyone” a little bit.
I doubt there’s any film director in the country that believes he isn’t conveying a message with his films. Even documentary filmmakers. What scenes to shoot, what scenes to cut, what effects and music you add. . . all of these create an impression.
Do you focus on my kid sharing his cake with the neighbor kid that no one likes, or do you capture him pouting when he’s forced to share his playtoys with his guests? Do you highlight his red faced scream of, “Mine!” as he snatches a toy away from a guest?
All of those are editorial and creative choices.
Should a lawyer be able to refuse to take on a client who’s a member of a protected class?
Should a house painter?
Why not? All cakes look the same once eaten; all abortions look the same once completed. The act of carrying out the abortion, of course, is performance art.
So…if you wanted a cake with a swastika on it and I was Jewish, I should just suck it up and make it for you because once you eat the cake it would be in your tummy? What this has to do with abortion is obscure to me, but you think that because a cake is eaten it’s all good? 
It shares no relevant characteristics with visual or creative artistic expression.
I suppose, if the abortion were done for an audience, or a video, or while wearing tap shows and dancing counterpoint to the Eleanor Powell choreography from “Broadway Melody of 1940,” then . . .
If you’re opposed to Nazis, then you can refuse to make a cake with a swastika on it. And if you’re opposed to marriage, then you can refuse to make a cake with “Congratulations on your wedding” on it. But if you happily make many other customers cakes that say “Congratulations on your wedding”, then that’s evidence that you don’t find that message objectionable after all.
That’s OK, because the actual text does say that you shouldn’t go looking for rights in the actual text.
Here’s the Cato Institute summary, btw:
https://www.cato.org/publications/legal-briefs/telescope-media-group-v-lindsey
Well, I personally see the merit in drawing a distinction between protected and non-protected classes. I’d be a bit hard-pressed to make the argument that the denial of my swastika-cake was flouting any protected status - but if I somehow managed to do so, I’d say you should be forced to make the cake or be censured appropriately for your refusal.
And as for the relation to abortion, I’m just getting less and less impressed with the tendency of some to call anything they want to be able to do freely “speech”, even if it’s merely an action with an effect (like giving money). If they can do that, why can’t I? Carrying out an abortion is a specific act that produces a change in the world. The message of the interpretive dance in question is “this woman shall no longer be pregnant; thus it shall be!”
I say the same thing about decorating a wedding cake, but nobody listens to me.
You’ve clearly established the difference between abortions and wedding cakes.
Seems overly tortured as an analogy. If I’m in the business of making cakes with national emblems on them but refuse to make one with a swastika on it that seems like it should be a choice I should be able to make without being opposed to all other national emblems. Or if I make cakes for all occasions but you want one with a confederate flag and two idiots in clan regalia, that doesn’t seem like something I should have to make with a choice such as you laid out there.
That said, if I make generic cakes that simply have ‘Congratulations on your wedding’ I should sell that to anyone who walks in with out asking them who it’s for…anyone can buy it after all. But that wasn’t the case, was it?
So according to conservatives, the following acts are creative speech and should be protected by the First Amendment:
- Baking a cake.
- Giving money to a politician.
- Somebody advocating for a conservative cause in public.
But according to conservatives, the following acts are not creative speech and should not be covered by the First Amendment:
- Swearing in a song.
- Appearing nude in a film or on television.
- Somebody advocating for a liberal cause in public.
Agreed. All of those are expressive speech and protected by the first amendment. (To be clear, “baking a cake,” is expressive in the context we’re discussing: a custom cake for a wedding. The ordinary mechanical baking of a plain cake, or the reproduction of a previously designed cake, would not be).
You may indeed find conservatives offering up those views, but I’m not aware of any mainstream conservative commentators who would argue any of those are divorced from First Amendment analysis.
The first and third are unambiguously First Amendment material. The second, to the extent it refers to broadcast television, is still subject to a First Amendment analysis, but that First Amendment right is balanced against the government’s power to manage the limited resource of public airwaves. Cable TV and movies have an undeniable First Amendment right to show nudity.
Upon which conservative commentators did you rely for this second summary?
Speech is, you know, speech. As a rule, the videographer does not speak on a wedding video. Nobody thinks the videographer is part of the ceremony. Nobody thinks the videographer approves or disapproves. It’s their job to take pictures.
By your standard, TV news camera operators would be refusing to cover stories in which they didn’t like the topic or didn’t like some of the participants in it, and lawyers would be refusing to handle wills in which assets were left to organizations the lawyer didn’t agree with.
And why is the handing of a money to a politician considered speech, again?
Oh, right.
No (white) skin off your nose, eh?
Because the politician does indeed speak.
If wedding photographers were required to make literal public statements (real speech, in their own words) that they endorsed their clients’ religious beliefs, this would be a very different question.
If my will says I leave a thousand dollars to the Republican Party, and my lawyer normally votes Democratic, can he refuse (on that basis alone) to draw up my will?
I’ll presume you’re answering me, and talking about politicians handing over money.
You can assert that the politician speaks, but what does that actually mean? That words are (always) exchanged while they hand over the money? Then the words are protected but the financial transaction is not. That the act of handing over money is itself speech because nowadays the transaction is done via the same channels that communication is done? Then me punching somebody is speech because my fist travels through the air the same way that sound waves do. That the delivery of money makes a political statement? The act of carrying out an abortion definitely makes a political statement. (“I am willing to do abortions.”)
I’m thinking that any nonbullshit argument for the handing over of money being speech could also be used to declare that damn near anything that is perceived by another person is speech - particularly if the person carrying out the action has the creativity and foresight to say at least one word verbally while carrying out the action.