Posted on 04/10/2013 12:27:44 PM PDT by Mount Athos
State Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Tuesday filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts, a Richland florist that refused to supply flowers to the same-sex marriage of a longtime customer.
Ferguson said he sent a March 28 letter to owner Barronelle Stutzman asking her to reconsider and supply flowers to customer Robert Ingersoll. Through an attorney, Stutzman declined to change her position.
“As Attorney General, it is my job to enforce the laws of the state of Washington,” said Ferguson. “Under the Consumer Protection Act, it is unlawful to discriminate against customers based on sexual orientation. If a business provides a product or service to opposite-sex couples for their weddings, then it must provide same sex couples the same product or service.”
The lawsuit by Ferguson is bound to revive a warning raised by opponents of marriage equality in last fall’s Washington Voter’s Pamphlet statement against Referendum 74. Foes stated:
“People who disagree with this new definition (of marriage) could find themselves facing sanctions, as has occurred elsewhere. Church groups have lost their tax exemptions. Small businesses were sued. Wedding professionals have been fined.”
The supporters of same-sex marriage, in their rebuttal, stated: “Lawsuits haven’t increased in states with same-sex marriage. Liberty and pursuit of happiness are core American values.”
An employee at Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts said late Tuesday that Stutzman was not present, adding: “None of us will have any comment.” Last month, Stutzman told KEPR-TV in the Tri-Cities:
“He (Ingersoll) said he decided to get married and before he got through I grabbed his hand and said, ‘I am sorry. I can’t do your wedding because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.’ We hugged each other and he left, and I assumed it was the end of the story.”
Ingersoll and his partner, Curt Freed, were decade-long customers of Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts. They went online with the refusal and the story went viral. Stutzman refused to change her position, saying: “It’s a personal conviction. It’s not a matter of being right or wrong. It’s my belief.”
The AG’s office has filed a complaint in Benton County Superior Court asking for a permanent injunction requiring Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts to comply with provisions of the Consumer Protection Act. It is asking that a $2,000 fine be imposed for every violation.
But Stutzman’s attorneys warned the AG that any legal action Ferguson takes would result in “an immediate challenge in federal court,” and indicated that “a number of national non-profit organizations . . . are ready for a fight.”
Benton County rejected Referendum 74 by a 50,000-29,000 vote margin in the November election. Only one place in Eastern Washington, Whitman County, voted in favor of marriage equality. The measure passed statewide thanks to heavy support in populous King County.
Ahhh! Thanks for the info. I understand now, I’d probably do the same: a paying customer is a paying customer, but for a wedding? Yeah, I’d draw the line there, too.
Sue a business than won’t sell flowers to a couple of nut-cases, but let how many thousands of illegal aliens run free, unhindered, by US and State laws? Attack normal businesses, but let nut cases run wild, and foreign criminals do as they please.
do you really believe this would be playing out identically if the flower shop owner was a muslim?
The customer would been beheaded.
Apparently not. :-)
If the gov't has the ability to compel me to sell something to you, then it surely has the ability to compel you to buy something from me. See the current ObamaCare debacle.
Speaking solely for myself, I don't think that I'd want to *buy* something from someone who doesn't want my business - especially in something as subjective as wedding flowers. I'd not want to pay top dollar for a centerpiece, and wind up with a stick in a dirty juice glass.
I think that at least some argument can be made about the statute:
“Under the Consumer Protection Act, it is unlawful to discriminate against customers based on sexual orientation.”
The state of Washington does not have the authority to prevent discrimination on the basis of religion. For this reason, retailers can limit their service to couples “married in accordance with Orthodox religious marriage”, excluding those religious *denominations* that permit other forms of marriage, as well as refusing service to those with just secular marriages.
That is, my religion does not have to recognize the legitimacy of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it.
You are 100% correct.
If they had sent their straight friend over to place the order for the flowers, she would have still declined because it was for an activity --- not a disfavored person, but an activity --- she could not morally support.
It had nothing to do with any animus against the individual person who came to the counter.
The florist didn’t discriminate against the customer. They didn’t refuse them service or treat them any different from normal people. The florist simply refused to be a party to a ceremony that violated their firmly held religious beliefs.
That’s what I was trying to say. You said it so much better.
: )
Discriminatory pricing is a loser in courts. Pitting SSM against the 1st amendment is a winner. Even Obamacare is having rough waters on this issue.
If Halal and Kosher bakers and butchers can refuse to serve pork products and Christian butchers and bakers can refuse to provide kosher and halal products then it is no legal stretch at all to assume that Christian, Kosher or Halal businesses do not have to provide services in contravention of their religious beliefs.
This is a really stupid legal hill for SMS advocates to pitch their battle flags on.
Conservatives just need to start circulating ballot measures stating that 1st amendment freedoms trump anti-discrimination statutes and watch SMS advocates twist in the wind.
That is the best way to educate the low information voters on what is really at stake.
Isn't the Consumer Protection Act a federal law? If so, the AG has contradicted himself.
probably not. however the AG would almost certainly NOT filed a lawsuit against them. and they probably wouldn’t have gotten the same mild explanation from a muslim store owner.
Gubmint jackboots on our throats.
Pack up the shop and move elsewhere.
Anything worth saying, is worth saying twice!
I would think that they aren't "customers" until contracts are signed and money changes hands.
Aren't these discrimination laws meant to keep businesses from charging a different price for minorities, or giving lesser quality products for the same price, not say who is or isn't a "customer?"
By their reasoning, can I make a home movie and then go to my local theater and demand that they show it, because I'm a "customer" and they show other people's movies so the have to show mine, too?
Is that how it works now?
-PJ
2. A florist can either fight this sort of thuggery and compulsion (which I greatly admire) or respond in a passive-aggressive manner. "Of course I'd be willing to do your flowers. Pick an arrangement . . . oh, that's a nice one! Those will be $4,000 . . . each" (or in general ten to twenty times the going rate). All the personal services that the gay mafia demand are priced individually, and it would be quite effective (for those who lack the time, money, courage, and energy to fight) if decent Americans would pretend to bow to the far left's demands while through their actions driving unwanted customers elsewhere.
3. As for photographers, they can quote their standard fee for that sort of thing: perhaps $800 per hour, plus $60 per photo for each picture the happy couple chooses to keep. I'm sure the perverts would decide to go elsewhere but not sue, and they would have no standing to sue in any case. "Oh, no, the lighting is dreadful there, I've never had any luck with that setting. That's my going rate for afternoon weddings at that venue in April because I've always found it to be so much work and frustration for someone with my artistic style to try to shoot a ceremony in that lighting."
so if a fetishist has an animal sex orientation, the florist has to supply that “wedding”?
This is not about race, or an immutable trait. This is about a recreational sex fetish.
Oh, I agree that it was a set up, which is all the more reason just to quote them a nice premium price - take it or leave it. Don’t fall for their games.
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