City Threatens to Arrest Ministers Who Refuse to Perform Same-Sex Weddings

Fox News ^ | 10/20/14 | Todd Starnes

[Impala64ssa]

Two Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in fines, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Donald and Evelyn Knapp, two ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d

[Impala64ssa]

This begs the question, if Mr. & Mrs. Knapp were Black ministers and they refused to marry klan members, White supremacists, etc., or if they were rabbis who refused to marry neo nazis or Holocaust deniers, would they still face prosecution?

[Vaquero]

there will be a lot of Catholic priests in trouble.....exercising their 1st amendment rights.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

It’s time to just separate religious marriage from the legal contract altogether. That’s what they do in France. Considering the fact that gay marriage has been forced down everyone’s throat (with other forms very likely to follow, such as polygamy) then just let Our Wonderful Government have the whole damn legal part. I really think the conservative position should be to separate the legal contract from religious marriage altogether.

[Mark17]

This begs the question, if Mr. & Mrs. Knapp were Black ministers and they refused to marry klan members, White supremacists, etc., or if they were rabbis who refused to marry neo nazis or Holocaust deniers, would they still face prosecution?

No. Pigmentation protection trumps all.

[Kartographer]

It is time for christian men to COWBOY UP! Surround your church, surround you pastor's home and dare anyone to cross to deliver such a warrants! If you let them come for your Pastor they will soon be coming for you!! Time to make the Bundy ranch look like a square dance!

"Well you may not know this, but there's things that gnaw at a man worse than dying."

[Secret Agent Man]

note how they don’t threaten ANY other religion. particularly muslims.

note that 1.5% has barry saying the us is a muslim country. we have 70-75% considering themselves christian, 50 times that of the muslims, yet he uses govt to smack down on christians.

it’s time to remove these people from office and power forever.

[P-Marlowe]

IOW you want to surrender the whole issue to the Sodomists and other perverts?

Is that your position?

[BigEdLB]

City Attorney Warren Wilson told The Spokesman-Review in May that the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel likely would be required to follow the ordinance.

Seems to me the residents ought look at the rules for recall, and start some petition circulation against the erstwhile Mr. Warren Wilson.

[PGR88]

Only a homosexual would want to be “married” by someone who didn’t want to perform the ceremony. Many are petty, political and vindictive like that.

[Bratch]

Better be careful what you wish for.

[BigEdLB]

ity Attorney Warren Wilson told The Spokesman-Review in May that the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel likely would be required to follow the ordinance. “I would think that the Hitching Post would probably be considered a place of public accommodation that would be subject to the ordinance,” he said. He also told television station KXLY that any wedding chapel that turns away a gay couple would in theory be a violation of the law “and you’re looking at a potential misdemeanor citation.” Wilson confirmed to Knapp in a telephone conversation that even ordained ministers would be required to perform same-sex weddings, the lawsuit alleges. “Wilson also responded that Mr. Knapp was not exempt from the ordinance because the Hitching Post was a business and not a church,” the lawsuit states. And if he refused to perform the ceremonies, Wilson reportedly told the minister that he could be fined up to $1,000 and serve up to 180 days in jail.

Recall Rules Idaho

In case anyone is here from Coeur d'Alene, and wants to gret the ball rolling against Wilson

[Politicalkiddo]

Sounds fine to me. The only reason they want it is because Churches refuse to do it. That would stop them. The government has no place in religious institutions.

[GeronL]

What would be conservative about that?

The Puritans and Pilgrims didn’t have “religious marriage” at all, it is apparently a newer idea than that. Marriage between a man and a woman going back thousands of years has the been the bedrock of civilization.

Giving that up would not be “conservative”

[cuban leaf]

If the reinfection rate is higher than 1.0 then you have a high potential for a pandemic. The CDC has estimated the reinfection rate, R, as higher than 1.7. That is near disaster level.

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“For profit” means someone is earning an income. You don’t give up your constitutional rights in order to earn an income.

This is why Hobby Lobby won.

[msrngtp2002]

Then it’s time for them to stop being a tax paying, for profit business and become a non-profit, tax exempt church.

I don’t see the problem here. The city loses tax revenue is all. The pastors with some savvy legal help will still be able to earn a living, preach to the masses, and perform weddings that meet the Christian definition.

[Oliviaforever]

“there will be a lot of Catholic priests in trouble.....exercising their 1st amendment rights.”

The government officials would not start by going after the Catholic Church for standing up for their doctrine and not performing gay marriages.

Instead, the government goes after the less powerful Hitching Post Church Wedding Chapel. I’m guessing that the Hitching Post does not quite have financial resources of the Roman Catholic Church and that makes the Hitching Post Church a prime target for the government in a court of law.

[cuban leaf]

It’s time to just separate religious marriage from the legal contract altogether.

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That’s been my perspective for quite a while - even when the homosexuals were only fighting for “civil unions”. I’m a binary (black and white) thinker and it is how I’ve seen it all along.

[BigEdLB]

Wilson confirmed to Knapp in a telephone conversation that even ordained ministers would be required to perform same-sex weddings.

The heart of why a city attorney needs to be recalled - He ignores the 1st amendment...

[exit82]

Interesting how this is happening in Idaho, the reddest of red states.

The good folks there need to band together and remind the mental midgets at Town Hall who is the boss.

[Pearls Before Swine]

A suitable religious response would be “Go to hell!”