Posted on 08/19/2011 8:04:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
I haven’t been to the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, VT, but it sounds like a beautiful place. A glimpse at their website shows a near-definitive New England setting of clapboard buildings with panoramic views of rolling, tree-covered hills and blossoming meadows.
And families. Wildflower Inn was voted Best Family Resort by Yankee magazine last year, and the word “family” pops up repeatedly on the website and in the Inn’s brochures. Clearly, that’s the favored clientele, although the Inn’s owners allow that their place is also ideal for romantic weekends. The Inn used to offer its facilities for weddings, too.
Not anymore. That aspect of Wildflower hospitality ended several months before a young couple filed a lawsuit against the Inn. According to the complaint, an employee refused the mother of the bride’s request to hold the wedding reception at the Inn, once she revealed that there were two brides and no groom.
The women’s motive for the lawsuit seems, shall we say, mixed. On the one hand, the two New Yorkers insist that they both just love Vermont, travel there often, and saw the Wildflower Inn as the perfect embodiment of what they enjoy about the state. But they also say that the courage of other same-sex couples who’ve braved the courts to secure and defend the right to practice homosexual behavior anywhere, anytime, inspires them to take a similar brave stand for the cause.
One can’t really help but wonder who the courageous ones are here – a same-sex couple who’ve managed to trap one of the most popular resorts in the state into an expensive lawsuit, at a time when homosexual behavior is surfing huge waves of legal, social, and cultural indulgence … or the Wildflower owners, who—according to the complaint—operate their family’s business in line with their personal moral convictions.
Moral convictions! One can hear the outrage now, from the activists pressing the homosexual agenda. What’s moral about refusing service to two people in love? Would the owners of the Wildflower Inn be just as justified in turning away blacks? In refusing a reception for a mixed-race couple?
No. For one thing, homosexual behavior, unlike race, is a choice. And there’s nothing intrinsically threatening to the families Wilflower caters to in being black, or of any other ethnic origin. Same-sex “marriage,” on the other hand, like any other open practice of homosexual behavior, undermines the basis of family relationships.
Says who? The Bible, for one, and the thousands of years of civilized behavior based on the biblical delineations (and the common sense conclusions of other cultures) of what’s morally right and acceptable and healthy for families and society. The Vermont legislature may have finally decided that same-sex “marriage” is a-okay, but the Bible and the history of Western Civilization still trump their authority in the courts that ultimately matter.
That probably sounds rather quaint to the young couple suing the Wildflower Inn, and things like the Bible and human history are unquestioningly passe’ in the eyes of the ACLU, which is pressing their case through the courts. It always feels braver to “change the world” than it does to admit that, on some things, the world was right all along.
And like it or not, most of us know that’s true. If a heterosexual couple freely admitted they were checking in to a family inn to consummate their adulterous affair away from the prying eyes of their spouses, few would flinch at the Wildflower management for deciding there was no room in the inn.
If a man inquired if he could bring a neighbor’s 11-year-old girl in, so as to have sex with her, the law would race to the side of the proprietors. If a dedicated polygamist was turned away from his plans for a romantic weekend with his five wives, his lawsuit wouldn’t have a chance. (At least this year, before activist courts decree those to also “just be another way to love.”)
The moral sensibilities that balk at such outrageous assaults on conviction spring from the same eternal passages of truth, the exact same enduring social traditions, that tell us that marriage is and should be the union of a man and a woman, not two people of the same gender.
To deny that, as the courts and legislature of Vermont seem so determined to do, is not to embrace a more malleable morality, or to codify a new definition of love – but to deny a truth we know in our bones. And, ultimately, to impoverish a society we think we’re enriching, and destroy the lives of those we believe we protect.
It doesn’t take courage to ride the wave of support for same-sex ‘marriage.’ It takes courage to stand against the surging tide. At the Wildflower Inn, so high in the Vermont hills, the water is rising fast.
You must marry gays, you must accept section 8 criminals, forget doing anything about the illegal next door who is stealing your job, no complaints about drug users and dealers.
Welcome to leftist utopia, you stupid working, job creating, narrow minded bible thumping American idiots.
Strikes me as a violation of the “takings” clause.
Of course, the same thing could be said about pretty much all of the Left’s agenda.
o come on. everyone knows vermont is for lesbians.
Why can’t we discriminate against behaviors we find repulsive?
In a free market businesses must retain the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. No business should be compelled by the state to render services against their will. This is just another manifestation of a centrally controlled economy. It’s no better than wage and price controls. It’s socialism and it’s un-American.
I hope the Wildflower sticks to their beliefs but lawsuits can be expensive. I am so sick of the homosexual agenda.
"Here are the things your business must do, and by the way we're having a parade on Main St -- yes, we'll be naked -- bring the kids! Or else! Oh, one more thing, next week the schools are hosting a 'fisting is for everybody' festival, tickets are $5!"
It’s their biz. They pay property taxes. Whatever happened to ‘we reserve the RIGHT to refuse service.’? This is getting ridiculous.
Gays try to throw the canard that their cause is the same as the blacks and the Civil Rights Movement.......skin color is a characteristic, sexuality is a chosen behavior....big difference, therefore they are not the same thing.
What’s probably gonna happen is that the Wildflower Inn will stop doing wedding receptions altogether. That’s what usually happens when an institution (such as an adoption agency) is faced with a lawsuit but refuses to accommodate the “gay” lifestyle.
What a shame!!!!
Are churches next?
It doesn’t matter if there is a difference or not. The government should not have the power to force businesses to serve anyone. It undermines a key tenant of the free market. If Resort A refuses to serve a group of people, they will flock to Resort B, which will serve them. It looks like healthy competition to me.
Hi. I’m Larry. And this is my fiancee Darryl.
And this is my other fiancee Darryl.
Ask the Catholic Adoption Service, if they still provide services in your state.
In a word, Yes. I have been waiting for the gay movement to get some same-sex couple to approach a Catholic Church and ask to be married. Refusal first, lawsuit second.
The Legal Ramifications of Same-Sex Marriage on the Church
On one hand, the government has a responsibility to uphold religious freedom (1st amendment), and on the other hand, it cannot deny equal protection of the laws (14th amendment). If proponents of same-sex marriage, they will get the courts to declare it a constitutionally protected right. This will create a constitutional conflict. When faced with conflicts like these, the courts have relied on a stringent standard of judicial review known as the strict scrutiny test. In this test, the court has to weigh out if the state has a compelling interest to enforce a certain law that places a burden on an already existing constitutionally protected activity. When it comes to same-sex marriages, this test will be relied upon to measure whether the state’s compelling interest to protect the new “constitutional” rights of homosexuals and same-sex marriage partners warrants placing a burden on religiously motivated practice. Most attorneys and legal analysts on both sides of the issue believe that most Federal courts will almost always rule against religious institutions and practices.
http://www.startchurch.com/blog/view/name/the-legal-ramifications-of-same-sex-marriage-on-the-church
Great list. And don’t forget - coming soon to a church near you: “No sermons allowed against homosexuality. That’s hate speech. And please meet Rev. Ruth. She will be your new minister. Oh, and here’s her life partner Susan.”
That hasn't been a right or even a privilege since 1963.
I wonder if the Wildflower Inn requires couples checking in to provide certified proof of legal marriage. Just to weed out the sinning fornicators.
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