I missed that, and it's an important detail.

The bill of rights enshrine rights that states can not take away from citizens

Do citizens have a right to enter into business contracts with their state government? They might, but that's for the Supreme Court to decide.

This is a silly and reductive lens that libertarians often apply. Look at the specific examples cited in the article:

    > the Arkansas Times [...] was asked to sign [a no-boycott certification] in order to renew its advertising contract with a state technical college.
    > A teacher in Kansas was told that she could not participate in the state’s teacher-training program because she refused to sign the anti-boycott form
    > A lawyer in Arizona was told that he could not be paid for his work on behalf of incarcerated people because he refused to sign the certification
    > a child speech pathologist in Texas lost her contract with a local school district because she refused to sign.
    > One town in Texas even briefly required victims of Hurricane Harvey to sign the anti-boycott certification as a condition of receiving disaster relief funds.

It's a grotesque distortion to frame this case as involving the rights of citizens to contract with their state government and I'm certain you know it.

I'm sure most people who support these laws would think differently if as a matter of policy a state fired all state contractors (teachers accountants and firefighters, you name it) that were pro life

In fact it’s not a relevant distinction in this context.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of...

The First Amendment, along with nearly all the rest, applies to the states and the federal government equally.

My point is that it's not strictly about the first amendment, it's more about political discrimination.