Posted on 10/19/2014 4:13:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
City officials in Coeur d'Alene Idaho have told a married couple who are both ordained ministers that they will go to jail if they refuse to perform wedding ceremonies for gay couples.
The Alliance for Defending Freedom has filed suit against the city and asked for temporary restraining order to prevent officials from carrying out their threat.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit and a motion for a temporary restraining order Friday to stop officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, from forcing two ordained Christian ministers to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples.
City officials told Donald Knapp that he and his wife Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, are required to perform such ceremonies or face months in jail and/or thousands of dollars in fines. The city claims its “non-discrimination” ordinance requires the Knapps to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies now that the courts have overridden Idaho’s voter-approved constitutional amendment that affirmed marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
“The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that’s what is happening here – and it’s happened this quickly. The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple’s freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected just as the First Amendment intended.”
The couple would face 180 days in jail and up to $1000 in fines per day if they dared to adhere to their religious beliefs.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Those “city officials” should be in prison
Coming to a Federal Government near you. :-(
Bet they won’t force Muslim clerics to perform same!
Here’s the catch. They are probably on shaky legal grounds and rock-solid moral grounds. And rock-solid constitutional grounds.
This is what happens when your laws are no longer in harmony with natural law, with moral law, or with the constitution itself.
This is what happens when you elect lawless men into high office.
They will say that its a business and not a church. After they beat down this rampart, then they will move on to the church itself. Pastors in Canada, Germany, and Sweden have already been prosecuted for opposing homosexuality. This is not over until people awaken and start to stand up, instead of leaving these small businessmen to face bankrupting legal fights alone.
Just one caveat: “Marryin’ Sam” and “Marryin’ Samantha” sell a Christian ceremony in a for-profit “chapel”.
Johann Tetzel would be very pleased.
So what if a Protestant couple man and woman go to a Catholic Priest, can he NOT do the wedding because they would need to be baptized members of his church. Why don’t pastors just do weddings for their parishners, and if the same sex people aren’t accepted into membership as parishners, then take that to the SUPREMES>
I don’t know of any in Coeur d’Alene, do you?
The City Officials should be tried and incarcerated for intentionally violating the First Amendment.
Is the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel a real church or just a business?
The website is called http://hitchingpostweddings.com which would suggest it is not actually a church, there is no mention of regular worship services.
I don’t even know anyone in Idaho, period.
The time for playing nice is over. It's time for FORCEFUL action.
Thats the catch. They are a wedding chapel, doing this as a business. They are not a church. They are on the same legal ground as the baker who refuses to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding.
Morally, they are in the right. And until recently, that would have been enough, no one would imagine forcing someone to violate his conscience to perform a same-sex wedding if they were morally opposed. But that was then, and this is now.
They can say anything they want. What they can not do is compel an ordained Pastor to participate in a secular farce.
In the article, the two ministers don't seem to have any kind of congregation or regular meetings; it is just a wedding chapel business in a resort town.
Well, you know someone just across the stateline — me!
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