Washington State Sues Florist for Gay Wedding Non-Participation

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/10/wash-state-suing-christian-florist-after-she-refuses-to-provide-flowers-for-gay-wedding/

...in the Orwellian twilight of the West....

Colin McEvedy applied this phrase to the economic and political conditions of the last centuries of the Western Roman Empire. The Roman republic had collapsed  in the period of the 1st Century BC - early 1st century AD and devolved into the Principate. When the Empire found itself unable to deal with the decline in revenues, foreign invasions, and the enervation of the people (Which paved the way for the former two), it was totally reformed under Diocletian, who became the first true emperor. Gone were even the trappings of the old Republican government, which had at least had some functions during much of the Principate. The ruling court of Rome would henceforth be run in the manner of that of an eastern despot.

Diocletian enacted a series of reforms, making the empire far more restrictive than it had ever been. Prices were fixed, the people were taxed to the nth degree , the bureaucracy soared in size and power, persecutions of Christians began again, and the people were required to assume the occupations of their parents.

-Nothing was outside the reach of the civil arm.

A florist in Washington State is being sued by the State, not for actually discriminating against gay customers, but for refusing to participate in an event of theirs that goes against the owner's beliefs; the florist simply refused to fill an order for flowers for a gay wedding. For this the State is seeking and injunction to force the vendor to abandon any principles if she wants to continue being a florist.

As noted in the above paragraph, if vendors refuse to sell to gays simply due to the customer's sexual practices, then they clearly would be in violation of the law. What Washington State wants is to expand the scope of laws protecting people from discrimination to force anyone who operates a business to engage in actions that may be completely contrary to one's principles.

Nazism is not illegal in the US. If a member of a neo-Nazi Party walks into a store owned by a Jewish person, or anyone else for that matter, and orders a product or service custom-made for Hitler's birthday, then the vendor should certainly be within his rights to refuse to fill that order. A vendor cannot refuse service simply  because of someones affiliations, but the law cannot rightly be held to force a vendor to participate in an event for that organization.

Want something less severe? OK, how about a vendor that refuses to make t-shirts sponsoring a Harbor Seal hunt? The vendor would not be able to refuse to make t-shirts with other messages/logos for a customer solely due to his grisly occupation, but the law again cannot be used to force someone to take actions that would effectively  make one complicit  in the smashing of little seal heads.

This is how the State crushes the liberties of the people- making you powerless to stand up in any way for your principles. Tying this method of control to one's occupation is the most oppressive means of doing so.

The Left needs to turn the people into slaves who have no say whatsoever in what they say, learn, or produce. As I noted in previous posts, measures such as this one are only the beginning. Soon, speaking publicly against fake marriages will be illegal. Next, Churches will be penalized for refusing to perform fake weddings. They will either lose their tax-exempt status or their authority to officiate recognized weddings altogether. If this happens, a married couple will, after a church wedding, have to schlep down to town hall to have a civil ceremony if they want their marriage recognized by the state.

-From a previous post:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/02/baker-refuses-cake-for-fake-wedding.html

"Applying this reasoning, atheists will now be able to make Jewish or Christian bakers make cakes with writing that denies the existence of God.

It's the new price of doing business - your dignity.

One must keep in mind that governments do not have creative powers. They cannot bring rights into existence. The State is given the power to regulate and protect institutions such as marriage to prevent abuses. These would include underage brides, one spouse who is still legally married to another, etc.

Marriage existed long before any government; therefore a government cannot,despite any legislative hoop-jumping, create the legality of a marriage that, by its very nature, cannot exist. Any law that presents itself as such is nothing more than play-acting by the State.

I once believed that the primary reason for using statutory powers to pretend that same-sex marriages exist was to destroy the family While I still believe that this is the primary purpose for some, I have come to think that others have a more insidious purpose for this.

-The purpose is to establish full governmental control of society and all of its people.

Think about it. If the State can force people to act as if a government can bring the impossible into existence, and force everyone to go along with it, then what is it incapable of doing or forcing? If a society accepts that the State can conjure up institutions by going through the motions of making laws, what can stop them from removing rights or creating others that infringe on the Liberties of the rest of the people?