Free Republic

An Upstate New York wedding photographer has lost her bid to refuse service to same-sex couples after a federal judge dismissed with prejudice her lawsuit against the state. Emilee Carpenter, a photographer and blogger based in the Southern Tier, sued the state in April, alleging that the state’s human rights law violated her First Amendment rights to free speech, free association, and free religious expression. She also said the law violated the establishment clause and her right to due process. Carpenter named New York Attorney General Letitia James and Interim Human Rights Commissioner Jonathan Smith as defendants. Carpenter said that...

A federal judge in New York has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a “Christian” wedding photographer who demanded that the state’s nondiscrimination law be overturned, lest she be forced to photograph same-sex weddings. The woman, Emilee Carpenter, of Elmira, filed suit earlier this year, claiming that New York’s nondiscrimination law violates her First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, and her Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Carpenter claims to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, and that weddings are meant to be “inherently religious and solemn events.” As such,...

Americans celebrating our 245th birthday this weekend largely fall into two groups. Those in the first will simply take it for granted that freedom rings—assume that the liberties we’ve traditionally enjoyed are liberties we will always enjoy—turn on the ball game, hit the pool, and look for the fireworks. That’s a choice most Americans will happily make.Those in the second group will do something many of us do when we hit one of our own personal milestone birthdays—30, 40, 50, etc. We can pause, if only for a moment or two, to assess where we are, and where we’re going.Things...

A wedding photographer in New York is fighting the state's "non-discrimination" law, alleging it violates her right to express her religious beliefs. In a lawsuit profiled by the Washington Free Beacon, Emilee Carpenter is taking Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration to court because they are threatening her with fines and jail time for her belief that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.