Posted on 04/07/2014 12:04:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Gay rights trump religious rights.
That’s the rule of law in New Mexico after the U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to consider whether a wedding photographer was within her rights when she refused to film a gay couple’s commitment ceremony.
The high court’s decision not to hear the case lets stand a New Mexico Supreme Court decision that the owners of Elane Photography violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
As one New Mexico justice ominously noted, Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin “are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”
The state’s demand that the Huguenins disobey their religious beliefs and photograph the ceremony is “the price of citizenship,” a justice wrote.
I write extensively about the Huguenins in my upcoming book, “God Less America.”
The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case sends a chilling message to Americans who oppose gay marriage, said Jordan Lorence, an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney who represents the Huguenins.
“It is disconcerting because the (state) decision was so harsh that this small company can now be forced by state anti-discrimination laws to create messages that they don’t agree with,” he told me. “This new authoritarianism – forcing people to bow the knee to a new orthodoxy or they be punished – is very chilling.”
In 2006 Elaine Huguenin received an email from Vanessa Willock asking her to photograph a “commitment ceremony” between Willock and her same-sex partner. Huguenin declined because the event would have been at odds with her deep convictions, Lorence said.
She had previously declined to photograph other events, including nude photography sessions.
The lesbian couple found a lower-priced photographer to shoot their ceremony, but they nonetheless filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission. The ensuing legal battle became one of the first major cases to explore the collision of gay rights and the First Amendment rights of business owners.
“When people say things like gay rights trump religious rights, what they are saying is the government can force people to believe a certain way – and that is something that in a free society should not be tolerated,” Lorence said.
The idea that gay rights take precedence over everyone else’s rights was recently manifested in the forced resignation of Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, who came under fire from the gay rights community after it was revealed he had donated money to California’s Prop 8 initiative.
“We are now going to see more situations where people are going to be forced to choose between what they believe about marriage – and their job or their business,” Lorence told me.
“What concerns me is there will be an effort to expand these types of hunting down people with wrong opinions. I don’t know how far this can go.”
I know exactly how far this can go.
I believe militant gay rights groups will start targeting churches that own fellowship halls. I believe they will start targeting pastors who preach against homosexuality. And I believe they will go after individuals who attend those kinds of churches.
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) was among those shocked by the Supreme Court’s inaction. He said every American should be concerned.
“The ability to speak freely and live according to our beliefs is the prize, not the price, of citizenship,” the congressman said. “And we all have a stake in protecting it.”
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that one day Americans could be forced to answer this question: Do you know or have you ever been a member of a church that opposes gay marriage?
The religious cleansing of America has begun.
And yet, there’s the SCOTUS, throwing religious liberty on the altar of political correctness.
I’ll remind you that this country was founded by Protestants... people who fled the oppression of the Catholic Church and all their wars. The Declaration of Independence was signed by only two Catholics. The rest were Protestants.
In other words, Catholics are the hangers-on in the fight for religious liberty - and in many other cases, they’re the enemy of religious liberty.
Religious liberty has been a bedrock foundation of American political thought since the founding of the country... and now a SCOTUS with no Protestants on it is serene in their dismissal of a case that basically says “If you have a company, you must service clients who display a lifestyle that goes against your religious principles.”
Never before has this happened in the US. And... never before have we had a SCOTUS without any Protestant representation on it.
Coincidence? In light of the absurd and bizarre ruling that enabled Obamacare (another long-held political position of the Catholic Church - socialized medical expenses), I’m pretty certain of my ground now. The SCOTUS is enabling this dismantling of our liberties as part and parcel of a Catholic worldview that now demonstrably controls the Court.
Yep.
Sad and pathetic that Catholics continue to dismiss and refuse to admit the depths to which homosexuals have infested the Church.
But, by all means, go ahead, keep deflecting.
Tolerance wasn’t good enough and I’m betting that acceptance won’t be good enough either, because what they seem to want is mandatory approval and participation. Reminds me of islam, submit to islamic domination or die.
No, Freedom of Religion is covered in the First Amendment of the Constitution.
The "pursuit of happiness" (gayness) is only mentioned in the Declaration.
Isn't Roberts a packer?
I was an altar boy. I wasn’t abused by a homosexual priest. I don’t deny the infestation. I’m also aware of the efforts made by the Vatican to burn ‘em out of the seminaries, the rectories and even the episcopate. There are still some there. Probably always were and always will be.
The purge continues.
Do people really believe this is a constitutional issue anymore? 1st Amendment? 10th Amendment? At this point it’s like arguing if the quarterback should run a draw or throw a post. A parlor game. We’re in a street fight people. Save the Marquess of Queensberry rules for people who actually abide by them. Civil disobedience is the order of the day.
No, and they do earn any “special rights”, other than those already listed in The Bill of Rights.
Supposedly married to this woman:
http://www.mlaglobal.com/legal-search/recruiterlist/jane-sullivan-roberts
Not that that means much these days: exhibit 1 being the bearded POTUS.
And sometimes .... liberals have thought that that was a virtue, and proof of sainthood, when MLK and the Berrigan brothers were doing it.
Remember "civil disobedience"?
I don't know if it's Roberts, but the homosexuals have got an edge on the Court somewhere ever since Burger left and took his opinion (that States can criminalize homosexual conduct) in Bowers vs. Hardwick (1986), with him ..... remember, that was a very recent opinion and precedent. And Anthony Kennedy overturned it in 2003 without even referring to it, by the expedient of simply opinionating de novo as if in a vacuum and finding for the homosexuals.
In short, we are seeing a lot of crooked jurisprudence and eyes-wide-shut rationalization from the Court recently, and a rejuvenation of legal positivism. The Court as a whole is thoroughly committed to a course of finding for the homosexuals right down the line, no matter the issue: the homosexual lobby is the new do-no-wrong darling "minority".
And I think several justices have been jonesing to deliver for the girls for a long, long time.
Remember this factoid: As 600 homosexual volunteer attorneys relentlessly forum-shopped case after case after case all through the 1980's and 1990's , the case that would become the Lawrence case was fought at the district and appeals-court level in Texas once before, in 1981, before a judge who died of unascertainable causes [WaPo: causes not reported] -- Jerry Buchmeyer, a Carter appointee. This was before Lambda got squashed by Bowers and the Supreme Court refused to hear the Texas case. [See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_v._Wade ]
They forum-shop, they compromise judges (the chief judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that decreed homosexual "marriage" for the State of Massachusetts was vigorously blandished and courted by Lambda and other gay-rights organizations and publicly honored and praised by them while sitting on their case before her, led by a gay-rights lawyer named Mary Bonauto), and they are shameless in seeking victory by any means at all.
They're liberals. What did we expect? They don't believe in principles or rules, only in their agenda.
This same thing happened many years ago in New Jersey, when a sodomite sued the eHarmony matchmaking website for not similarly offering matching services for homos. eHarmony relented and had to provide several thousand free subscriptions to the deviants, as well as matching service according to their "Christian" matching formula.
I now call them "e-Sodomy."
Barely.
From Google: Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power.
Those were the days of snappy, trite pronouncements that we were supposed to interpret at The Truth. It was garbage as there was NO cause of any import as I remember.
In other times and places, as in our own War of Independence, there was most definitely a cause.
A few years after my dad died my mother started two new projects: she went to art school (water color and etching) and went to law school.
As a girl her grammar school teacher told her that her drawing looked like she drew with her feet. She started art school at 55 years old. She was very bright, a whole lot more than yours truly. I send her pictures all over our family and friends.
She went to law school four nights a week (working five days a week). She took the California Bar exam and passed it the first time. It took Richard Nixon THREE tries.
She started practicing family law when she was 60 and worked until she was 80. She worked for herself and the last few years she worked from home.
I did her billing for her because she was such a pushover that she would NOT dun anyone for the money they OWED her. She was a GOOD lawyer, painfully honest and folks trusted her for that and the fact that she became a lawyer in her older ages...very different from the norm.
She passed away last year at 94.
There are some elements which may cause it to be a federal case; the 5th and 14th Amendments come to mind as possibly being violated, but certainly the 13th Amendment.
The state's supreme court was wrong — not just because their decision is morally reprehensible, but because it is contrary to the State's own Constitution:
Art II, Sec. 11. [Freedom of religion.]
Every man shall be free to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and no person shall ever be molested or denied any civil or political right or privilege on account of his religious opinion or mode of religious worship. No person shall be required to attend any place of worship or support any religious sect or denomination; nor shall any preference be given by law to any religious denomination or mode of worship.
The bold portion is relevant because it is common for sexual acts to be a form of religious worship (See Hindu, or even Christian [portion of the Anglican wedding vows: With this Ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
]).
For the same reason is it a violation of the italicized portion.
Even disregarding the first two issues, the underlined is inescapable: to force one to sell [their services] is to deny them the civil right of determining with whom they wish to do business.
Therefore, the New Mexico supreme court is in rebellion to the very document which gives it authority.
The 14th Amendment reads as follows:
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Now, the photographer is being forced to provide services involuntarily: that is the essence of involuntary servitude,
FTFY
Unfortunately, if those who could act, refuse to do so, this abomination, like so many others Obama, et al have committed, will stand and each and every American citizen will be short changed forever.
Yes, it is.
If you don’t understand that the courts are corrupt, then you have not read many decisions. Most modern judges decide what they feel is right and then write decisions that excuse their feelings. This is true of the Supreme Court as well. Justice Thomas may be the only truly intelligent and logical justice on the court.
When the First Amendment is ignored so homosexual activists can force Christians to choose between obeying God and being in business, the Constitution is dead.
This goes far behind religious rights. Forcing these photographers to take a job they don’t want is akin to slavery.
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