Further Erosion of Religious Rights
A restaurant owner can’t refuse to serve people based on their race or gender. It is considered a public business. But how about a photographer? Not just one with a studio open to the public, but one who you would hire to come out and photograph your wedding?
A New Mexico judge now says that they can no longer pick and choose which weddings they will work at.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A professional photographer who refused to take pictures of a gay couple’s commitment ceremony violated state anti-discrimination laws, the New Mexico Court of Appeals has ruled.
The court on Thursday agreed with a previous ruling, in which a district court judge said the photo studio is considered public, similar to a restaurant or store, and cannot refuse service based on sexual orientation, the Albuquerque Journal reported (http://bit.ly/JSAdE5 ). The photography studio had argued that its refusal was not an act of discrimination but a reflection of the owners’ religious and moral beliefs.
The state (New Mexico here, but all over the country) is trying to freeze out businesses that don’t toe the liberal line. Catholic adoption agencies who have the same religious objection, in many places, now have to either violate their principles or shut down to avoid lawsuits. Now we have photographers who have to do much the same thing. Sensing a trend here?
The Alliance Defense Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based legal alliance of Christian attorneys and others that represented the studio, plans to appeal. Elane Photography argued that it provided discretionary, unique and expressive services that aren’t a public accommodation under the Human Rights Act.
The studio asked hypothetically whether an African-American photographer would be required to photograph a Ku Klux Klan rally.
The court responded: “The Ku Klux Klan is not a protected class. Sexual orientation, however, is protected.”
So, you have human rights only if you’re one of the classes with special rights. Don’t we always hear how homosexuals just want equal rights, not special rights? Watch what they do, however. If you’re a Christian photographer, you can now be targeted, even if there is a photographer right next door who is more accommodating and doesn’t have the same moral qualms. This is fair?
Filed under: Doug • Government • Homosexuality • Judiciary
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There is a maxim that an affirmative statement of a right or power implies that the negative or opposite is excluded. For example, if the Congress is granted the power to regulate interstate commerce, the States do not have the power to interfere. Or, if an individual has the right to associate with whom he chooses, he also has the right NOT to associate with others.
The photographer also has this right, but it has been curtailed by New Mexico’s statutes. As to the racial example, photographers had the “right” not to associate with african americans pre 1861, but as a society we ended this “right” following the civil war.
What if the wedding party was not just two homosexuals, but two homosexual baalists, molokites or neo pagens, with homosexuality a part of their revived temple worship, and the photographer was a devout christian. As an attorney, I have the absolute right to reperesent the baalists, or to chose not to. Why is it different for the photographer?
As a country I’m sure we are ready to take up arms to defend our religious liberties, but are we ready to go to war to protect any other liberty?
Agree, Eric, though I’d wonder about the last sentence. Are we really ready to take up arms, as a nation, to defend religious liberties? They’re being eroded all the time, and the trend is towards the screwed up definition of “tolerance”.