Like the recent cases involving a florist, a baker, and a wedding hall owner (Links below), the totalitarian state is fast coming to fruition. In the case of a photographer in New Mexico, it was that state's supreme court that handed down this despicable decision.
Those who still hold that we still have a chance of repairing the terrible breach between the two Americas have little on which to base their opinion..
"It is a state court decision that could have national reach. In the words of Red State’s Erik Erickson, “You will be made to care.”
The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Christian wedding photographer violated the state’s human rights law by refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony.
This shouldn’t be the end of the matter, said Ken Klukowski, the director for Center for Religious Liberty at the conservative Family Research Council.
“This decision would stun the framers of the U.S. Constitution, is a gross violation of the First Amendment, and should now be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court to reaffirm the basic principle that the fundamental rights of free speech and the free exercise of religion do not stop at the exit door of your local church, and instead extend to every area of a religious person’s life,” he said in a written statement.
Klukowski added, “Rather than live-and-let-live, this is forcing religious Americans to violate the basic teachings of their faith, or lose their jobs.”
The Albuquerque-based photography studio Elane Photography did not want to photograph the ceremony between Vanessa Willock and Misti Collinsworth because studio co-owner Elaine Huguenin said it would violate her Christian beliefs and that the company only photographs traditional marriages.
The majority opinion for the court stated that the studio violated the rights of the lesbian couple “in the same way as if it had refused to photograph a wedding between people of two different races.”......."
In the United States, the velvet-covered glove on the totalitarian fist will not send one to the gulags or consign the accused to a bullet in the head by one of Beria's henchmen, but you will be ruined financially. Today, if you have any desire to avoid comprising your beliefs or your integrity, you are left with no option but to shut yourself up inside your own home - one that you will not be likely to afford since you will have very few employment options.
Unlike the other cases noted above, which are linked below, this New Mexico case should make one realize how dreadful the situation has become. In the others, the cases are in their early stages. This case, though has gone as far as it can within the State of New Mexico. The Supreme Court of that state has declared that a citizen has no right of discretion whatsoever. With this precedent, I find it hard to argue that anyone has the right to refuse to participate in anything that runs contrary to his beliefs. A baker will now likely be prohibited from refusing to make a cake with writing stating that God does not exist. The radical gay agenda appears to be the most vindictive and intolerant movement that this nation has seen in a very long time.
The :Left and their radical allies will not brook any offer of dialogue or an attempt to reach a middle ground. No, what they want is everything. In this case, they demand the legal allowance (euphemistically called a "right" as if rights have their origin with governing bodies) for an institution that predates governments themselves and legal prohibitions of opting to refrain from providing a service for something that would effectively make one complicit in the act itself. In work environments, people have already been informed that failing to speak (Read keeping your mouth shut) with someone about their "marriage" as if it is authentic will be perceived as "disapproval"** - itself the new high crime of our era. Soon, churches will be subject to penalties from refusing to perform these ceremonies and the people will be prohibited from noting that these acts are not only immoral but in fact do not exist despite the exercise of legislative and judicial play-acting.
Even if the person does not contest the legitimacy of the ceremony but just wants to refrain from being a part of the act, he is in trouble.
Don't kid yourself - this and more is on the way.
http://www.redstate.com/2013/08/22/losing-the-battle-winning/
"My friends, the case of Elane Photography v. Willock has been decided. As I tell you regularly, you will be made to care.
The case centered around Elaine Huguenin, a Christian in New Mexico who owned a photography business. She was asked to provide services to a gay commitment ceremony between two lesbians, Vanessa Willock and her partner. Ms. Huguenin and her husband declined to provide their services because they are Christians and the orthodox tenets of their faith tell them that marriage is between a man and a woman. See e.g. Matthew 19.
Vanessa Willock, in an act of spite and retribution, decided to file a discrimination claim and punish Mrs. Huguenin for adhering to her religious beliefs. In a very profound decision, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that Christians, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and others must surrender the faithful practice of their religion in the name of citizenship.
Note that the tolerance is one way. In the name of tolerance, Mrs. Huguenin can be compelled by state power on pain of punishment to provide her services to Ms. Willock against Mrs. Huguenin’s several thousand year old orthodox religious beliefs, but Ms. Willock is under no obligation to simply tolerate those who disagree with her and find someone who is happy to provide the service....."
This appears to be headed to the Federal Courts of Appeals. I don't know what district New Mexico falls within, but there is no question that the case-has to be fought until the right side wins (Probably ending with the Supreme Court of the United States) or the people give up the delusion that this republic can be salvaged as an intact entity.
-Excerpts from previous posts:
In most states, hunters are protected by law from being harassed while they are hunting. Anti-hunters are also barred from walking through the woods blaring horns and blowing whistles to drive away game animals. An anti-hunting vendor who runs a printing shop or one that makes T-shirts cannot refuse service to a customer simply because he hunts, but if the hunter wants to order a bunch of shirts or have pamphlets made to promote an actual hunting event, no one would bat an eye if the vendor refused to fill that order - and rightly so. I do hunt and I also respect that some people are quite uncomfortable with anything related to that type of activity.
One writer noted a few months ago in The American Thinker that, if a vendor happened to be a Muslim, not only would he never be requested to provide a service for such a ceremony in the first place, no one would line up to initiate attacks against him for his certain refusal of service. Citing his beliefs, the state would not sue or prosecute him for discrimination and no coward that attacks Christians because they are perceived as weak would be bold enough to attack him.
In the US, only Christians and Jews can be subjected to routine, vicious attacks.
-------------------------------------------------------
...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.
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?
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