Anti-discrimination
laws are unconstitutional. Congress
would have to write an Amendment to the US Constitution to limit the First
Amendment and have the States ratify it; fat chance.
JUDGES: GAYS' FEELINGS TRUMP
CHRISTIAN'S FAITH, Court
affirms loss of 1st Amendment rights due to 'emotional toll' of flower fight,
by Bob Unruh, 2/16/17, WND
The nine
judges on the Washington state Supreme Court –
Mary Fairhurst, Charles Johnson, Barb Madsen, Susan Owens, Debra Stephens,
Charles Wiggins, Steve Gonzalez, Sheryl McCloud and Mary Yu – have decided they
can order a citizen to violate her Christian faith.
Affirming the aim
of “eradicating discrimination,” McCloud wrote in her opinion that
the state’s nondiscrimination law takes precedent over religious belief,
even if it “substantially burdens” constitutional, religious, free-exercise
rights.
The case is over Washington
floral artist Barronelle Stutzman’s refusal to support same-sex “marriage” with
her artistry. She was sued by the state for her decision, which was
based on her sincerely held religious faith.
Stutzman’s advocates immediately
announced they will seek a review at the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse
a decision “that concluded that the government can force her – and, by
extension, other Washingtonians – to create artistic expression and participate
in events with which they disagree.”
“This case is about crushing
dissent. In a free America, people with differing beliefs must have room to
coexist,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner, who argued before the court
together with co-counsel George Ahrend in November of last year. “It’s wrong
for the state to force any citizen to support a particular view about marriage
or anything else against their will. Freedom of speech and religion aren’t
subject to the whim of a majority; they are constitutional guarantees.”
She continued: “Our nation has a
long history of protecting the right to dissent, but simply because Barronelle
disagrees with the state about marriage, the government and ACLU have put at
risk everything she owns. This includes not only her business, but also her
family’s savings, retirement funds, and home. It’s no wonder that so many
people are rightly calling on President Trump to sign an executive order to
protect our religious freedom. Because that freedom is clearly at risk for
Barronelle and so many other Americans, and because no executive order can fix
all of the threats to that freedom, we will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear
this case and reverse this grave injustice.”
It was a lower court in Washington
state that ordered her to pay penalties and attorneys fees in the
case brought by longtime customer Rob Ingersoll, who wanted her to provide
her artistry for a same-sex “wedding.”
She declined, instead referring
Ingersoll, whom she considers a friend, to other florists.
“Rob Ingersoll and I have been
friends since very nearly the first time he walked into my shop all those years
ago,” said Stutzman. “There was never an issue with his being gay, just as
there hasn’t been with any of my other customers or employees. He just enjoyed
my custom floral designs, and I loved creating them for him.
“But now the state is trying to use
this case to force me to create artistic expression that violates my deepest
beliefs and take away my life’s work and savings, which will also harm those
who I employ. I’m not asking for anything that our Constitution hasn’t promised
me and every other American: the right to create freely, and to live out my
faith without fear of government punishment or interference.”
The Washington state Supreme
Court said the state’s non-discrimination demands can be enforced to benefit
homosexuals and harm Christians “because it does not infringe any
constitutional protection.”
“And assuming it substantially
burdrens Stutzman’s religious free exercise, the [law] does not violate her
right to religious free exercise under either the First Amendment are article
1, section 11, because it is a neutral, generally applicable law that serves
the government’s compelling interest in eradicating discrimination in public
accommodations,” the judges claimed.
The judges noted Stutzman is an
“active member of the Southern Baptist church.” “It is uncontested that her
sincerely held religious beliefs include a belief that marriage can exist only
between one man and one woman.”
But that was of no account, they
said. Instead, the judges said what was important was “the ’emotional toll’
Stutzman’s refusal took on Freed and Ingersoll.” The toll was so severe, the
opinion said, that “they ‘lost enthusiasm for a large ceremony’ as initially
imagined.” The incident also “caused them to be concerned for their own
safety,” according to the judges.
Meanwhile, “Stutzman also received a
great deal of attention from the publicity surrounding this case, including
threats to her business and other unkind messages,” they said. The Family Research Council also
sounded off on the opinion, charging the court is trampling “on our
nation’s long held tradition of respecting the freedom of Americans to follow
their deeply held beliefs, especially when it comes to participating in
activities and ceremonies that so many Americans consider sacred.”
“The court also ignored an
opportunity to reaffirm the basic principle that the government may not trample
on the constitutional rights of free speech and the free exercise of religion. These
rights do not stop at the door of your local church, and instead extend to
every area of a religious person’s life,” FRC said.
“The government has no authority to
force Americans like Barronelle Stutzman to engage in speech and events with
which they morally disagree.
“Americans were told repeatedly that
redefining marriage would have little impact on their lives. Yet now courts are
seeking to drive families from their businesses – and now today even their
homes as the result of crippling government imposed fines designed to force
them to deny their faith.
Barronelle knew her customer and
friend identified as gay, yet happily served him for years; she just didn’t
want to be involved in his wedding. But the ACLU and the Washington State
government couldn’t stand this, and decided to make an example out of her.”
The state office of the attorney
general first sent her a letter trying to force her to sign away her religious
rights, but she refused to sign. Then the fight moved into the courts.
WND
reported in November Stutzman’s warning that any
government that gives itself the authority to order a “small-town florist” to
advocate a message that violates her faith isn’t going to be satisfied with
controlling one “small-town florist.”
She pointed out the lower courts
ruled that not only was Stutzman liable as a business operator, her personal
assets and property also were at risk.
“Does anyone really believe that a
government that gives itself the power to force people to believe (and not
believe) things and can order artists to create state-sanctioned messages will
only use that power to bend one small-town florist to its will – and then leave
everyone else alone?” she wrote in a commentary in Spokane’s
Spokesman-Review newspaper.
“What our state Supreme Court will
decide is whether the government has the power to separate my creativity from
my soul – by compelling me to create artistic expressions that celebrate
something that goes against my conscience.”
She predicted what the justices
would have to do.
“To enforce that separation, they’ll
have to violate my constitutional rights to free expression and free exercise
of religion. Doing that imposes an unrealistic expectation on what customers
can expect from creative professionals … and, in this case, what a friend can
ask of a friend,” she said.
“Rob Ingersoll and I have been
friends since very nearly the first time he walked into my shop. I always
thought that must be because Rob ‘gets it’ – what it means to be a particular
kind of artist, working to create beautiful messages through flowers and the
talents God has given me. All those years, he always asked for me, when he
could easily have gone somewhere else for his arrangements. There was never an
issue with his being gay (nor has there been with any of my other customers or
employees). He just enjoyed my arrangements, and I loved creating them for him.
“Since I never hid my faith, I
always figured Rob understood that my beliefs shape not only how I look at the
world, but how I envision and create my art – the art he appreciated for so
long. So it wasn’t that I wouldn’t create something to celebrate his same-sex
wedding – I couldn’t. This wasn’t about
selling him flowers, or celebrating a birthday. This involved what, to me, is
an event of unique spiritual significance – a sacred covenant. Art, like faith,
comes from the heart, from who I am. I couldn’t deny my faith – even for so
dear a friend – without damaging the very creativity he was asking for.”
She said the case reveals the
state’s intention “to force me to create artistic expressions that violate my
deepest beliefs.”
She pointed out that what she’s
seeking is only what the Constitution provides.
During administration of
ex-President Obama, officials were trying to force religious believers to
violate their beliefs to accommodate “nondiscrimination” laws that give
privileges to homosexuals and transgendered persons.
WND
reported at that time a federal commission has
proposed codifying the discrimination.
Obama even has characterized the
Constitution’s protections for “freedom of religion” as the seemingly innocuous
“freedom of worship.”
But Rafael
Cruz, the father of one-time GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, has
warned that Cuba, even at its most
repressive, claimed to allow “freedom of worship.”
The author of the book “A
Time for Action: Empowering the Faithful to Reclaim America” contends such an interpretation of the Constitution would
be devastating for America.
“Most Christians don’t realize the
danger of freedom of worship,”
Rafael Cruz said in an interview on
“Hagee Hotline” with pastor Matthew Hagee. “Freedom of worship is not the same
as freedom of religion. Every communist country around the world has freedom of
worship. What freedom of worship means is you can worship inside a house of
worship.”
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
even lamented back then that there are restrictions on how much government
can burden religion.
The agency’s recent
report, “Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with
Civil Liberties,” gets immediately to the point.
Religion ‘infringes’ on civil
rights
In the first of 306 pages, the
“letter of transmittal” to Obama stated at that time, “Religious exemptions to
the protections of civil rights based upon classifications such as race, color,
national origin, sex, disability status, sexual orientation, and gender
identity, when they are permissible, significantly infringe upon these civil
rights.”
It says the fault lies with the
First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which “constricts the ability of
government actors to curtail private citizens’ rights to the protections of
nondiscrimination laws and policies.”
“Although the First Amendment’s Free
Exercise Clause and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act … limit the ability
of government actors to impede individuals from practicing their religious
beliefs, religious exemptions from nondiscrimination laws and policies must be
weighed carefully and defined narrowly on a fact-specific basis,” states the
letter.
The plan then was that federal
legislation “should be considered to clarify that RFRA creates First Amendment
Free Exercise Clause rights only for individuals and religious institutions and
only to the extent that they do not unduly burden civil liberties and civil
rights protections against status-based discrimination.”
“States with RFRA-style laws should
amend those statutes to clarify that RFRA creates First Amendment Free Exercise
Clause rights only for individuals and religious institutions.
States with laws modeled after RFRA
must guarantee that those statutes do not unduly burden civil liberties and
civil rights with status-based discrimination.”
‘War on religious freedom’
The nonprofit legal group Liberty Counsel called
the commission’s recommendations “a shocking example of the war against religious
freedom in America.”
“The commission’s report is a
shameful anti-American and anti-God document that trashes religious freedom,”
said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. Staver charged that
the commission’s chairman, Democrat Martin Castro, is “out of touch with
reality and with our Constitution.”
“He and the other members of the
commission who agree with him want to throw out the First Amendment and trash
religious freedom whenever faith and practice collides with an intolerant LGBT
agenda,” Staver said. “The report is a declaration of war against religious
freedom. George Washington said anyone who works against the twin pillars of
religion and morality cannot be called a ‘Patriot.’ This report is
un-American.”
In
the Stutzman case, ADF explained: “The
case boils down to this question: Is there room in our tolerant, diverse, and
freedom-loving society for people with different views about the nature of
marriage to establish their ‘religious (or nonreligious) self-definition in the
political, civic, and economic life of our larger community…?’
The trial court’s and [the state’s
and the ACLU’s] answer is ‘no….’ This is contrary to the best of our historical
and constitutional traditions, which mandate that citizens who hold
non-majoritarian views be given room to express them and not be coerced,
punished, and marginalized through force of law.
“The trial court’s and [the state’s
and the ACLU’s] view – that there can never be a free speech exception to public
accommodation laws – endangers everyone,” the brief continued. “If correct,
then the consciences of all citizens are fair game for the government. No
longer could a gay print shop owner decline to print shirts adorned with
messages promoting marriage between one man and one woman for a religious
rally. Nor could an atheist painter decline to paint a mural celebrating the
resurrection of Christ for a church.
Indeed, no speaker could exercise
esthetic or moral judgments about what projects to take on where a customer
claims the decision infringes on his or her rights under the WLAD [Washington
Law Against Discrimination].”
http://www.wnd.com/2017/02/judges-gays-feelings-trump-christians-faith/
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