Posted on 07/12/2013 5:58:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This is no idle hypothetical from Rasmussen. A photography studio in New Mexico was fined years ago under the state’s Human Rights Act for refusing to accept a lesbian couple’s request to photograph their commitment ceremony because it was contrary to the owners’ Christian beliefs. The studio lost several rounds of appeals because the state’s antidiscrimination law forbids “public accommodations” from discriminating on the basis of orientation. As Gabe Malor said a few weeks ago after the big SCOTUS DOMA decision, this is the next flashpoint in political skirmishing over gay rights. Does free exercise of religion extend to how you run your business?
A heavy, heavy majority says yep, sure does:
If a Christian wedding photographer who has deeply held religious beliefs opposing same-sex marriage is asked to work a same-sex wedding ceremony, 85% of American Adults believe he has the right to say no. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only eight percent (8%) disagree even as the courts are hearing such challenges.
You can, if you like, agree with the majority here without bringing free exercise into it. A strong-form libertarian would say that the photographer has a right to refuse for whatever reason he chooses, religious or not. It’s a matter of private property, not free exercise. That hasn’t been the law in America for 50 years, though; “public accommodations” are statutorily barred from discriminating on the basis of race and certain other categories. And needless to say, you’re not going to see national Republicans rally behind the idea that businesses should have a general right to discriminate restored. (Even Rand Paul’s unlikely to take that position at this point.) Stick with the religious justification and you’re on firmer ground in an overwhelmingly religious country, even one that increasingly supports gay marriage. The big stumbling block here for gay-rights activists is that their most compelling argument to opponents no longer applies: “It doesn’t affect you” is a good, solid, libertarian justification for legalized marriage, not so good when it means business owners will be forced to work with you whether they want to or not. I haven’t seen many polls on this particular question, but if Ras is right that we’re looking at a spread of upwards of 80 points, then national Democrats will stay far away from this topic. Critics of SSM argue that the slippery slope has no stopping point but 85/8 would seem to have plenty of stopping power — enough so that I wonder if a constitutional amendment would be in the offing if the Supreme Court sided with gay-rights supporters on the free exercise question.
The New Mexico case isn’t the only instance of this sort of thing happening, by the way. Erick Erickson has collected other incidents at the state level. The issue hasn’t broken out significantly among the population, though, I think, because people have been too consumed with the gay-marriage debate. As that recedes, that’ll change.
Damn right the studio has a right to refuse.
Yes, this is not like a civil rights case.
While the state may decide it wants to treat immoral behavior as normal, people should not be forced to participate or facilitate or provide services to immoral behavior.
Yes, this is not like a civil rights case.
While the state may decide it wants to treat immoral behavior as normal, people should not be forced to participate or facilitate or provide services to immoral behavior.
If you can’t refuse business, then you don’t really own your business. I mean, I think they should have charged a premium and taken the money, but certainly it is their right to do so or not.
That should be 100%.
religion is a right, homosexuality is not.
Simple, call yourself a muslim and you can do whatever you want.
Refusing a project is a lot different from refusing a project or an event. What if you paint family portraits and you get asked to paint a pornographic scene? You can’t refuse?
If you are generally open to the public then you cannot deny your products/services to certain protected categories such as race, sex, etc.
Sexual orientation has now been added as a special category, if not explicitly then at least implicitly by the ruling on DOMA.
The interesting thing will be to see if some more radical gays get too far ahead of the official gay agenda. If the radical gays can cool their heels for a few years then most businesses will be OK with serving gays. Then the few odd Christian hold-outs will just look like backward yokels. However, if some of the more radical types start pushing on this too fast then it could cause a backlash.
It almost makes me suggest that Christians should dare the more ardent gays to go for it in order to cause a backlash.
What happened in the 60's after the Civil Rights laws were passed? Were there motel operators that considered it a sin to give a room to a mixed race couple? Were they supported by their communities or were they drummed out of business?
Know sin, know sodomy, no service.
Pornography and/or pornographers are not a protected class ... even though what passes for entertainment these days suggests it has the blessing of the powers that be.
I heard a story from my college classmate weeks back that his younger brother who is a DJ who does weddings etc, found out it was a faggot wedding or some union ceremony etc.
He knew in the back of his head these homos were probably angling for a lawsuit so he asked when, where etc, and he later he provided an invoice which was more than triple the original quote. His BS excuse was that he had brand new equipment, new employees, the irs was on his back so he had to jack up the price etc. But he got his objective that the fudgepackers turned him down, not the other way around.
As a working professional photographer, the LAST thing you want to do is have a photographer working a job that they don’t want to be at.
Talk about photos that would fail to meet even the worst expectations.
It’s almost funny if you think about it.
Ooops!
Forgot to put film in the camera.
And the battery went dead.
Sorry girls. Or boys. Or whatever you are today.
Photographers, bakers, and innkeepers are one thing. Wait til we have medical practitioners forced from retirement to perform late-term abortions, lebsian inseminations, and sex changes. How anyone can say “that will never happen” is beyond me.
What you talkin' about, Willis? Men marry women.
I think a business should be able to refuse service to anyone for any reason. (short of life and death situations)
Allowing businesses to choose their customers is actually good for the economy. If a black man doesn’t want to serve whites it opens up two more business opportunities. A klansman could open a whites only business and a third business could serve everyone.
I don’t want to eat in a muslim restaurant and will happily take my business elsewhere. A couple months back I ate in a Detroit restaurant that is basically a blacks only restaurant. The only reason I got in the door was because the owner knew we were coming.
Does that mean the remaining 15% of the people sampled were faggots and lezbos?
In fact, regardless of recent PC, pro-gay interpretations of the equal protections clause of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment by activist justices and activist state judges concerning gay marriage, please consider the following. Constitution-respecting justices had previously sided with the state, deciding that the equal protections clause did not apply in Minor v. Happersett, a case where Virginia Minor had argued that her citizenship gave her the right to vote regardless of a state law that allowed only men to vote.
Based on the Supreme Court's decision in Minor, what the equal protections clause actually does is the following imo. The states can make laws which discriminate on the basis of criterion not expressly protected by the Constitution, the sex of marriage partners for example. But the states are expected to apply such laws equally to everybody affected by a given criterion.
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