Archeuland and Baughistan wrote:Source:
1. http://www.nationstates.net/page=rmb/postid=8184357
2. http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/city-threatens-to-arrest-ministers-who-refuse-to-perform-same-sex-weddings.htmlTwo Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in daily fines, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.
Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Donald and Evelyn Knapp, two ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene.
“Right now they are at risk of being prosecuted,” attorney Jeremy Tedesco told me. “The threat of enforcement is more than just credible.”
The wedding chapel is registered as a “religious corporation” limited to performing “one-man-one-woman marriages as defined by the Holy Bible.”
What say you?
Okay, having found a source that's just a teensie bit more reliable than Faux News (no great feat, mind you!), here's what I have to say:
(1) This isn't a Federal, nor even a State, ordinance. It's a too-broadly written local ordinance.
(2) The defendants - the two ministers - will win under the same precedent set by Hobby Lobby. Unlike Hobby Lobby itself, I'd agree that they're right to do so - this ordinance (particularly this application of it) crosses any reasonable compromise between individual right to marry and religious freedom.
(3) Do note: No gays were involved in this. The local government has sued the ministers for breaching the ordinance, but no potential customers (aka the "gay mafia") have done so.
(4) Speaking of teh gheyz, I don't notice any of us doing anything to these people but rolling our eyes (faaaabulously, don't you know?) and shrugging. Your friend's strawmanning and ranting about "gay mafia" aside, you'd be hard-pressed to find a gay person who'd want to be married by someone who didn't want to. We want our marriages to mean something for us, not to mean misery for others. Get over yourselves, homophobes - you're just not that central to our thinking.
Oh, and:
(5) Tell "rides a dark horse" to take some Valium and calm the fuck down about "gay mafiosi" and so on.