I’m bowing out of the thread then, since if enforced that rule makes discussion of this issue basically impossible.
I agree with this. The service being provided by the business (Elane) is not camera rental. The service is photography, which is an art. Expression is the reason art exists, no?
Some people have said she should just say she’s booked or make another excuse. That’s not good either, really, is it? Fraud? Lying? That’s better?
If she was in the business of renting cameras, it would be discrimination, clearly. She’s an artist.
Could it have worked out worse than admitting she was discriminating against gay couples?
Wasn’t there a straight guy trying to sing in a gay man’s chorus on Will & Grace once? Hmm, so I tried to see if gay choruses could exclude straight men and lo and behold, Bricker appeared. The Googs freaks me out sometimes. Yeah, they’re not businesses (the one in NM is a non profit) but I’ve been mulling over this discrimination thing all day long.
There are photography and wedding businesses that cater to gay couples. For all I know, they only hire gay staff. (I know there are also some Deaf-owned businesses that aim to have a lot of Deaf employees.)
The idea that someone would hurt my gay friends makes me angry. The idea that people may have to put their religious beliefs aside to prevent the loss of livelihood is alarming. I could see how the photographer was shocked at the complaint. And a $6k price tag? Photographers don’t really make that much money.
What if a photographer in San Francisco said they didn’t want to take pictures of a bris (well, the afterpart) because they didn’t believe in circumcision? Or more likely - can a doctor refuse to circumcise a baby because of his personal beliefs? Doctors in CA can’t refuse in vitro to lesbians, even when they’re willing to refer them to their partners.
I’ve been scoffing at the religious right’s claims that the big bad Liberal Gubmints were trying to encroach upon their religious freedom, but now I don’t know anymore.
Yeah, and doesn’t she have the right to make a living off of it? In order for her to operate, she has to be an LLC, but now she’s part of state commerce, which is apparently the issue here. Bit of a pickle if you’re a Christian artist in New Mexico, I guess.
nm. saw mod note.
You should try to do that here, once in a while. 
Piffle.
Posters wander in here, all the time, spouting nonsense about Conspiracy Theories and they get every bit as much attention as you do. Less frequently, we get promoters of woo spouting nonsense about “psychic” matters, and they also get all the attention that you have.
This place has a low tolerance for wild claims that fly in the face of evidence and logic and if that is what you post here, that is the sort of response you will get.
Strident nonsense never gets ignored, here. Too many posters have too much fun pointing out the errors to ever ignore someone spouting nonsense.
It kinda does.
Finally had time to finish reading the thread and apologize again for my cluelessness about the off-topic posts. I do have a question, however, for those of you with knowledge of the law.
While searching for objective information about the case (the original ruling came down in 2008), I came across this PDF link, which begins with the following paragraph.
According to this, the defendants were asked to photograph a commitment ceremony, which the company declined to do because of “its policy of refusing to photograph images that convey the message that marriage can be defined to include combinations of people other than the union of one man
and one woman.” Since the plaintiffs were not having a marriage but a “commitment ceremony,” and since New Mexico law does not allow for the performance of same-sex marriages within its borders (at least from my understanding of the Wikipedia page on those laws), the photography studio can hardly claim that taking photographs of that ceremony would promote same-sex marriage, no? To the contrary, it would seem to be promoting a differently named, differently perceived and, IMO, inferior form of public commitment between same-sex partners, something many Christians claim to favor.
TLDR version: How can they refuse service on the basis that they’d be forced to take photos promoting something that is not represented in the photographs and that effectively does not exist within that state?
This whole foo-foo-raw reminds me of when a friend was in training to be a masseuse. She really enjoyed the classes, she said, but she would be happy when she was done with school and didn’t have to work on clients with back acne or other gross skin conditions. She soon found she could not find such clients on her own, so she now works in a nursing home. Since it seems New Mexico law is pretty clear on whether a public accommodation (which I believe includes any business that advertises its services to the general public) is allowed to refuse that service based on sexual orientation, these people might want to restrict their advertising to places restricted to like-minded citizens.
I shudder to think what those places look like, though :eek:.
If I understand what’s been said, being a Christian artist isn’t the issue, it’s being a Christian artist for general hire. If the form of her art involved shooting subjects of her choosing and selling the photos to interested buyers the same pickle wouldn’t arise.
(She could still run afoul of the law if she refused to sell to a protected class customer, but wouldn’t be required to shoot subjects she found offensive, yes?)
The photographer’s religious freedom hasn’t been encroached upon one bit. She (?) can worship as she see fit and hold whatever beliefs she sees fit. What she cannot do is allow those beliefs as justification to discriminate against protected classes as a general business person. She can’t make personal the professional in a way prohibited by law.
If the conservative right are being encroached upon then so are the leftists, equally. The photographer couldn’t refuse to photograph a protected class they don’t like either. It’s not discrimination if applied equally and fairly.
Did he originally agree to print the job and then at the last minute say “psych! You’re not getting your prints after all! Good luck finding another printer!”
We need to convene a meeting of Atheists of America, obviously we’ve not gone far enough yet. Making Christians photograph gay weddings just isn’t enough, we need to force Christians to have gay sex, or be fed to lions.
Fed to lions… while having gay sex!
Mightn’t he refuse it on the grounds that it’s hurtful, or hateful, or offensive, in generic terms, and defend this because he would refuse any design that said any religious figure “is a demon?”
Let me get this straight, I am not allowed to make mocking comments about atheists, but you freely break this rule here. Ok, thank you for proving that this forum is hardly fair to a Christian.
Since the atheists here have made it clear their extreme hostility to the gospel of Jesus Christ, why in the world would I expect the enemy to ever give me an ounce of credibility? The replies here only strengthen my faith in regards to John 15:19 .
Wait… Is it the Christians or the lions who are having teh gay sex?
I’m concerned by this statement. What offensive act are you referencing here? Compelling someone to witness two people having sexual congress of any sort could definitely be construed as a violation of that person’s rights. But AFAIK the “offensive act” is a commitment ceremony, in which two people pledge the sort of fidelity and mutual support that is the hallmark of a healthy marriage. In what way does this become offensive?
The enemy, for fucks sake? Not people with opinions that differ from your own? Because I do not subscribe to your religious beliefs I’m the enemy?
Why not relocate to a theocracy?
Just so we are clear on this, my intent was quite similar to the point you make – you may not take Romans 1:26-27 out of context, but must consider it in relation to the extended argument which Paul advances in the first fifteen chapters of Romans. You may not pick two random verses about judging out of context, but must consider them in the context of Jesus’s teaching about sin and judgmentalism, including his repetitive condemnation of the behavior of (a certain self-righteous subset of) the Pharisees.
You appear to be drawing a bright-line us/them dichotomy between ‘Christians’ and everyone else, which is not substantiated by the teachings of either Jesus or Paul, insofar as I can tell.
there is a distinct difference between being a bottom and being an ass. 