Posted on 02/18/2017 4:19:14 AM PST by EBH
Seattle, Wash., Feb 16, 2017 / 03:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Washington state florist must pay fines and legal costs for conscientiously objecting to serving a same-sex wedding, as the state’s supreme court upheld a lower court’s decision on Thursday.
“It’s wrong for the state to force any citizen to support a particular view about marriage or anything else against their will. Freedom of speech and religion aren’t subject to the whim of a majority; they are constitutional guarantees,” Kristin Waggoner, senior counsel with the group Alliance Defending Freedom who argued the case before the Washington Supreme Court, stated Feb. 16.
“This case is about crushing dissent. In a free America, people with differing beliefs must have room to coexist,” she added.
In 2013, Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Wash., declined to serve the same-sex wedding of a long-time customer who had requested her service, citing her Christian religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman.
After hearing of the incident, the office of the state attorney general wrote her that she was violating the state’s law by discriminating on basis of “sexual orientation,” and asked her to stop declining such weddings. Stutzman refused out of conscience.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the state of Washington eventually sued her and a lower court ruled against her, ordering her to pay a fine and legal costs.
She appealed her case to the Washington State Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court’s desicion on Thursday, saying that as a business owner Stutzman had to abide by the state’s anti-discrimination law despite her religious beliefs.
“The State of Washington bars discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. Discrimination based on same-sex marriage constitutes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” the court’s opinion stated.
“We therefore hold that the conduct for which Stutzman was cited and fined in this case – refusing her commercially marketed wedding floral services to Ingersoll and Freed because theirs would be a same-sex wedding – constitutes sexual orientation discrimination under the WLAD.”
The law “does not compel speech or association,” the court added, stating that it “is a neutral, generally applicable law that serves our state government's compelling interest in eradicating discrimination in public accommodations.”
Stutzman has announced that she will appeal her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. “We stand to lose everything we worked for and own,” she stated back in October, noting that legal fees from the case could top $2 million by the end of the case.
Religious freedom advocates decried the ruling.
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said it “shortchanges our nation's most fundamental freedom in favor of ideological conformity.”
With Stutzman facing the loss of her business and personal assets, “it’s no wonder that so many people are rightly calling on President Trump to sign an executive order to protect our religious freedom,” Waggoner stated.
“Because that freedom is clearly at risk for Barronelle and so many other Americans, and because no executive order can fix all of the threats to that freedom, we will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear this case and reverse this grave injustice.”
Forcing people to comply with the wishes of Same-Sex-Attraction-Disorder (SSAD) couple is as sick as allowing these same mentally deranged people to adopt same sex children to feed on. The real criminals are the blackrobed tyrants sitting on the high bench.
The state cannot force inmates to work when they do not want to, yet free persons are.
The gays and freaks should be very happy there isn’t a muslime “Supreme Court”. Off with their heads!!!!
I'm afraid of a 4-4 tie. No precedent, but the lower court ruling stands.
She just should have sent dead flowers. Or have the whole order fall out of the truck on the way to the wedding. Or add some killer bees. Maybe some slugs.
There are sooo many ways to skin this cat.
Am I wrong in claiming the constitution and its amendments grant us the right to discriminate over every aspect of our lives? That is kind of what our founders intended by working to establish this form of government, right?
We should not be forced by the states to conform to a standard that restricts that collective freedom. If we limit discrimination because of race, or sex, or who bakes a flower or grows cakes, then why stop there when there are so many other aspects of our lives they could control?
Arguments could be made that I shouldn’t be permitted to discriminate over what clothes to wear today, what food to eat, where I want to work, what to watch on TV, which candidate I might vote for, and so on. The state court seems to be fixated on the law’s intent and who it protects instead of who it harms. It harms all of us. Soon they will force us to only do business with protected classes.
This continued division of citizens into special protected classes where anyone with differing opinions are publicly and financially destroyed sure smells like restricting our constitutional right to discriminate. Feel free to discriminate against me if you disagree.
It is actually an early lesson on how to do business with the beast. You want to do business ...you have to go along with the moral and the immoral. You don’t want to go along with the immoral then you shall not buy or sell. In fact, “it” will destroy you.
It raises the real question for Christians, which master will you serve?
But from the State level, having a law that prohibits the ‘free exercise of religion’ is unconstitutional. Exercising one’s religion doesn’t happen just on Sunday or inside a church. It is a way of life. As I pointed out elsewhere, for a Christian even their work is holy unto God.
Now, all that said, I do worry then about Islam and their Sharia Law. Does the 1st Amendment protect them when they come to slaughter the infidel? They are after all practicing their religion. (Ducks and takes cover).
That’s the #1 argument that this case should be based on.
Can you force a doctor to treat you? No. Can you force a private school to take your kid? No. Why should you be able to force a florist to cater your wedding?
Lots of ways (like dead flowers) to get around this.
But I am glad to see this going to the SC. It needs to be established that no one can force another person to work for him. (or her. or it.)
I would like to see freedom of association established as well.
yeah, but RATs can refuse to sell TRUMP merchandise.
WTF???
You are absolutely correct. The leftist ideology has been groomed to supplant Christianity in our nation. Obama really gave it a fast-track. This was very obvious to our voters, who clearly rejected it by not electing Hillary. Now we are witness to the temper-tantrums of the left who realize Trump threatened to slow their pace to full implementation. If they were permitted to continue, I’m not sure which threat would be worse; Godless rabid leftists or the screaming Jihadi Muslims.
Absolute freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment, belief and worship, shall be guaranteed to every individual, and no one shall be molested or disturbed in person or property on account of religion; but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state.
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