I told you last year that the New Mexico Court of Appeals rules that the state can require Christians to violate their conscience in order to provide business services to homosexuals. Though the judge in the case, Tim L. Garcia imposed a penalty of almost $7,000 on Elane and Jonathan Huegeunin of Elane Photography based on the unconstitutional claim that they were “discriminating,” the couple took the case higher and the ruling has been upheld as illegal.
According to Reuters:
A New Mexico event photographer’s refusal on religious grounds to shoot the commitment ceremony of a same-sex couple amounted to illegal discrimination, the state’s highest court ruled on Thursday.
take our poll - story continues belowCompleting this poll grants you access to DC Clothesline updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to this site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.New Mexico, along with 20 other states and the District of Columbia, has a law that explicitly protects individuals from being discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. Another 29 states have no such protection.
In refusing to photograph the ceremony, Elane Photography violated the New Mexico Human Rights Act in the same way that it would have if the company had refused to photograph an inter-racial wedding, the New Mexico Supreme Court said.
The judges ruled, “We conclude that a commercial photography business that offers its services to the public, thereby increasing its visibility to potential clients, is subject to the anti-discrimination provisions of the and must serve same-sex couples on the same basis that it serves opposite-sex couples.”
Justice Richard C. Bosson, writing for the unanimous court decision, said that the case, “provokes reflection on what this nation is all about, its promise of fairness, liberty, equality of opportunity, and justice.” In addition, the case “teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others. A multicultural, pluralistic society, one of our nation’s strengths, demands no less.”
Elane and Jonathan Huegeunin of Elane Photography
He went on to state that the Huguenin’s “are free to think, to say, to believe, as they wish.” However, he wrote that in the “world of the marketplace, of commerce, of public accommodation, the Huguenins have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different.”
According to Bosson, that is “the price of citizenship.”
Oh where should I begin? First this judge and the rest of the court needs to be immediately impeached and removed from office as they have no idea what the First Amendment is about.
Second, how in the world did the Huguenins not “leave space for other Americans who believe something different?” As far as I know, the lesbians who brought the lawsuit are still living and still carrying out their perverted lives and apparently still remarkably able and willing to take to the courts. They have not been harmed in the least.
Third, what is this “price of citizenship” BS? You either are a citizen or you are not. This is a ridiculous statement. Furthermore to tie that to claiming that they are “free to think, to say, to believe, as they wish” is merely Orwellian doublespeak. Apparently in the eyes of this court they are not free to do those things when it comes to dealing with homosexuals.
As many of you know, I do not hold to a libertarian view on homosexuality or the redefining of the institution of marriage as some do. With that in mind, it is those that continue to tolerate homosexuality that also continue to allow this movement to redefine words like “gay” and “marriage.” They also allow them to teach in the public school system and infiltrate it with the doctrine that homosexual behavior is normal and acceptable.
At our nation’s founding, these individuals would have had their genitals cut off for engaging in such behavior, and believe me that would have been merciful for their crimes. Furthermore, if they had engaged in such activity in the military they would have been humiliated by the military and dishonorably discharged. Oh how far we have come!
As I’ve said before, if we would deal with homosexuality, we would never have to deal with the bastardizing of marriage. Marriage is what it is, between a man and a woman, not members of the same sex. We would refer to their activity as an abomination, sin, criminal, perverted and that which brings judgment upon a nation.
I’ve thought about this case for a while now and ran across an excellent comment about the couple taking the job and on every photograph watermarking the text of Romans 1:24-27 on every photo, then giving it to the individuals free of charge.
“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”
While I did chuckle at the cleverness of the recommendation, I think the more proper thing to do would be to ignore the court’s ruling and pull a “Hank Rearden” (from Atlas Shrugged) and call them out, telling them to “bring guns” to enforce their ruling. After all, their ruling and the law that they cite are immoral and unlawful.
Discrimination is something we all engage in all of the time, and it isn’t a terrible thing. We discriminate when we determine who comes in our homes. We also do it when it comes to business, and we do so for the same reasons as we do in our homes because our property comes with certain rights and responsibilities. What this court has done is provided special rights to lesbians, but in the process they violated the rights of the Huguenins, specifically freedom to exercise their religious beliefs, freedom of association, free speech.
If a business suffers financially for a particular discrimination it wants to engage in, so be it, but my guess is that businesses like Elane Photography would be richly rewarded by customers who admire them for doing so.
Of course, there will be a higher appeal, and that was promised by Alliance Defending Freedom Attorney Jordan Lorence. “We believe that the First Amendment protects the right of people not to communicate messages that they disagree with,” he said.
“If Elane Huguenin does not have her rights of conscience protected, then basically nobody does,” he told Fox News. “What you have here is the government punishing someone who says, ‘I, in good conscience, cannot communicate the messages of this wedding.’”
This is what many in the libertarian movement do not understand about homosexuality. They think this is about individual rights. It isn’t. It’s about criminal activity. Do not confuse liberty with licentiousness. Yes, there is most certainly a spiritual aspect, and one in which those engaged in homosexual behavior should repent, but it is a crime against nature and it is a crime against nature’s God. Sadly, if Americans don’t stand up for righteousness on this issue now, their children will pay for it at the hands of the sodomites and lesbians of the culture in the future. We’re already witnessing it.
Tim Brown is the Editor of Freedom Outpost and a regular contributor to The D.C. Clothesline.
