Posted on 09/17/2012 5:49:30 PM PDT by CedarDave
Elaine Huguenin, who with her husband operates Elane Photography in New Mexico, asks only to be let alone. But instead of being allowed a reasonable zone of sovereignty in which to live her life in accordance with her beliefs, she is being bullied by people wielding government power.
In 2006, Vanessa Willock, who was in a same-sex relationship, emailed Elane Photography about photographing a “commitment ceremony” she and her partner were planning. Willock said this would be a “same-gender ceremony.”
Elane Photography responded that it photographed “traditional weddings.” The Huguenins are Christians who, for religious reasons, disapprove of same-sex unions.
Willock sent a second email asking whether this meant that the company “does not offer photography services to same-sex couples.” Elane Photography responded “you are correct.”
Willock could then have said regarding Elane Photography what many same-sex couples have long hoped a tolerant society would say regarding them – “live and let live.” Willock could have hired a photographer with no objections to such events.
Instead, Willock and her partner set out to break the Huguenins to the state’s saddle.
Willock, spoiling for a fight, filed a discrimination claim with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, charging that Elane Photography is a “public accommodation,” akin to a hotel or restaurant, that denied her its services because of her sexual orientation. The NMHRC found against Elane and ordered it to pay $6,600 in attorney fees.
The Huguenin case demonstrates how advocates of tolerance become tyrannical.
So, in the name of tolerance, government declares intolerable individuals such as the Huguenins, who disapprove of a certain behavior but ask only to be let alone in their quiet disapproval.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
Remember that Alberta, Canada, had a similar council, which did a very similar thing: they dragged a minister out of his pulpit to defend "charges" that he had preached "hate speech" by delivering a sermon on Leviticus without any sugar coating or gainsay or the necessary "reconciling" load of waffles.
Libs always do this, and they always give these bullyboy tribunals Orwellian names like "human rights council", and so on.
The Canadian case became a cause notorious (the preacher's freedom was at stake), and eventually the tribunal was abolished and its founding legislation denounced as anticonstitutional and abusive. Which it was.
that’s what I thought too, but this couple wasn’t afraid to voice their beliefs.
that’s what I thought too, but this couple wasn’t afraid to voice their beliefs.
No, you don’t evade your convictions. Otherwise, you lose.
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