Losing the Battle. Winning…

My friends, the case of Elane Photography v. Willock has been decided. As I tell you regularly, you will be made to care.

The case centered around Elaine Huguenin, a Christian in New Mexico who owned a photography business. She was asked to provide services to a gay commitment ceremony between two lesbians, Vanessa Willock and her partner. Ms. Huguenin and her husband declined to provide their services because they are Christians and the orthodox tenets of their faith tell them that marriage is between a man and a woman. See e.g. Matthew 19.

Vanessa Willock, in an act of spite and retribution, decided to file a discrimination claim and punish Mrs. Huguenin for adhering to her religious beliefs. In a very profound decision, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that Christians, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and others must surrender the faithful practice of their religion in the name of citizenship.

At its heart, this case teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others…. That compromise is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people…. In short, I would say to the Huguenins, with the utmost respect: it is the price of citizenship.

Note that the tolerance is one way. In the name of tolerance, Mrs. Huguenin can be compelled by state power on pain of punishment to provide her services to Ms. Willock against Mrs. Huguenin’s several thousand year old orthodox religious beliefs, but Ms. Willock is under no obligation to simply tolerate those who disagree with her and find someone who is happy to provide the service.

Ms. Willock proved herself vindictive. Imagine other angry gay rights activists willfully and consciously trying to seek out Christian photographer to either make them comply or drive them from business. Given Ms. Willock’s actions, and the actions of other gay rights activists in Oregon, Colorado, Kentucky, and elsewhere, this is not a hypothetical, but a reality.

The war over gay marriage is not over. Indiana is about to go through a constitutional fight on gay marriage. I hope opponents to gay marriage across the nation make Mrs. Huguenin and Ms. Willock’s names household names and show Americans the aggressive lengths gay rights activists will force their brand of tolerance on Christians.

That Christians should be allowed to refrain from providing goods and services to gay marriages they oppose is something supported by 85% of the American public. It unites men, women, blacks, whites, hispanics, conservatives, moderates, and a fair number of liberals. This battle may be lost, unless the United States Supreme Court steps in and reverses, but this decision gives Christians, Muslims, and orthodox Jews the ammunition to win the war for religious liberty. No longer is coercion of the religious by gay rights activists a hypothetical.

A small band of gay rights activists will not stop on the one way street of tolerance. My friends, whether you want to believe or not, you will be made to care. New Mexico shows again that gay marriage and religious freedom are incompatible. You will not be allowed to opt out.

There is one organization at the forefront of this. That is the Alliance Defending Freedom. They represented Mrs. Huguenin and are considering appealing to the United States Supreme Court. They need our financial help to keep this going. I’ve given them a financial contribution and I hope you will to. They are lone and brave warriors in this fight against the left. They need every penny they can get.

Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then seeks to silence good. We must fund the fight for Truth and Light.

I had wondered about the outcome of baker in Oregon; they might need some donations...

In February, Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, an Oregon-based bakery, found themselves at the center of a media firestorm after refusing to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple’s ceremony. Nearly four months later, the small business continues to receive threatening and harassing phone calls and e-mails, as they grapple with the ongoing fall-out from their controversial decision. This week, they spoke with TheBlaze about the ongoing drama.

A suggestion for FReepers: Email the company [ Email: melissa@sweetcakesweb.com ] and “order” a cake — i.e., donate the price of a cake to support SweetCakes.

2 posted on Saturday, June 01, 2013 7:13:49 AM by rhema

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3026092/posts

"it is the price of citizenship."

Really? If that's true, then only citizens could be so compelled, and anyone who wishes to avoid the compulsion need merely renounce citizenship.

We all know that that wouldn't work. And the fact it wouldn't work falsifies the court's entire line of argument, all by itself.

But there's yet another fact that falsifies it: There is no logical or ethical difference between forcing someone to participate in a gay marriage (and providing services or supplies is participation) and forcing someone to salute the flag, or speak words that are blasphemous according to one's religious belief.

The US Supreme Court has already decided this matter. The case is West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319U.S. 624, 63 S. Ct. 1178, 87 L. Ed. 1628 (1943):

The freedom asserted by these appellees does not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual. It is such conflicts which most frequently require intervention of the State to determine where the rights of one end and those of another begin. But the refusal of these persons to participate in the ceremony does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so. Nor is there any question in this case that their behavior is peaceable and orderly. The sole conflict is between authority and rights of the individual. The State asserts power to condition access to public education on making a prescribed sign and profession and at the same time to coerce [p631] attendance by punishing both parent and child. The latter stand on a right of self-determination in matters that touch individual opinion and personal attitude. ...
Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good, as well as by evil, men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, but, at other times and places, the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. [p641] As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be. Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing. Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.
It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.
To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous, instead of a compulsory routine, is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism [p642] and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

In the United States (the country), there are, in fact TWO “social contracts” or “social compacts”, and each protects a different subset of the overall population.

“It is clear that Congress, as a legislative body, exercise two species of legislative power: the one, limited as to its objects, but extending all over the Union: the other, an absolute, exclusive legislative power over the District of Columbia. The preliminary inquiry in the case now before the Court, is, by virtue of which of these authorities was the law in question passed?”
[Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264, 6 Wheat. 265; 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821)]

You can only be a party to ONE of these two social contracts/compacts at a time, because you can only have a domicile in ONE jurisdiction at a time. These two jurisdictions that Congress legislates for are:

1. The states of the Union under the requirements of the Constitution of the United States. In this capacity, it is called the “federal/general government”.

2. The U.S. government, the District of Columbia, U.S. possessions and territories, and enclaves within the states. In this capacity, it is called the “national government”.

The authority for this jurisdiction derives from Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the United States Constitution. All laws passed essentially amount to municipal laws for federal property, and in that capacity, Congress is not restrained by either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. We call the collection of all federal territories, possessions, and enclaves within the states “the federal zone” throughout this document.

The “separation of powers doctrine” is what created these two separate and distinct social compacts and jurisdictions. Each has its own courts, unique types of “citizens”, and laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court has identified the maintenance of separation between these two distinct jurisdictions as THE MOST IMPORTANT FUNCTION OF ANY COURT. Are the courts satisfying their most important function, or have they bowed to political expediency by abusing deception and words of art to entrap and enslave you in what amounts to a criminal conspiracy against your constitutional rights? Have the courts become what amounts to a modern day Judas, who sold the truth for the twenty pieces of silver they could STEAL from you through illegal tax enforcment by abusing word games?

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