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?
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.
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.
Isn't the Consumer Protection Act a federal law? If so, the AG has contradicted himself.
Gubmint jackboots on our throats.
Pack up the shop and move elsewhere.
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."
What happened to the signs I used to see:
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone!......
freedom of association ring a bell?
In a nutshell, religious expression is expressly protected by 1A, while refusal of service on basis of sex is not constitutionally protected. And express constitutional protections trump non-enumerated protections regardless what state laws say.
Also, while misguided liberals argue that sex equality is protected by the Equal Protections Clause of Sec. 1 of 14A, if they would bother to read Sec. 2 of 14A then they would find that Sec. 2 discriminates on basis of sex, age and citizenship regardless of Equal Protections Clause.
I’d say it’s time for 10,000 good conservative citizens to occupy the neo-Nazi office of State Attorney General Bob Ferguson and prevent his Hitler operation from going forward.