Hattip to Ace at Ace of Spades. Apparently the New Mexico Supreme Court desperately needs to have a copy of the US Constitution sent to them.
The court said that Elaine Huguenin, the photographer, had discriminated against gay customers for not photographing their weddings, even though she had said she would be happy to take their pictures in different contexts. The court also refused any differentiation whatsoever between homosexual and heterosexual conduct under the law, despite the fact that same-sex marriage is not licensed in the state of New Mexico. Justice Edward Chavez wrote, “The difficulty in distinguishing between status and conduct in the context of sexual orientation discrimination is that people may base their judgment about an individual’s sexual orientation on the individual’s conduct. To allow discrimination based on conduct so closely correlated with sexual orientation would severely undermine the purpose of the NMHRA.” In other words, orientation and conduct are so intertwined that to discriminate against activity would be to discriminate against the person — an odd line of logic, given that it would then follow that discriminating against religious activity would constitute discrimination on the basis of religion, making the court’s logic self-defeating.Justice Richard Bosson wrote, in concurrence, that the Huguenins are “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.” He concluded, “The Huguenins are free to think, to say, to believe, as they wish; they may pray to the God of their choice and follow those commandments in their personal lives wherever they lead. The Constitution protects the Huguenins in that respect and much more. But there is a price, one that we all have to pay somewhere in our civic life.” That “compromise,” he wrote, “is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people. That sense of respect we owe others, whether or not we believe as they do, illuminates this country, setting it apart from the discord that afflicts much of the rest of the world. In short, I would say to the Huguenins, with the utmost respect: it is the price of citizenship.”
The response of Ace to the supercilious and asinine statement of Justice Bosson is priceless: Yeah, they could compromise their religious beliefs, or, you know, the gay couple could simply find another photographer. No, by all means, let’s use the power of the state to reach as deeply as possible into people’s lives instead of just telling the gay couple to “Look online for ten minutes and find someone else.”
Well, I think the New Mexico Supreme Court decision tells us just how much protection real freedoms, such as freedom of religion, will be accorded by Democrat controlled courts when they run afoul of any little thing the Gay lobby wants. Elections have consequences folks. Every Justice on the New Mexico Supreme Court is a Democrat. Any Catholic who votes for Democrats is voting for persecution of members of their faith.
This is going to continue. Corporations – especially heavily regulated ones like banking, airlines, medical, nuclear, etc. – will require employees to sign statements supporting gay marriage / gay rights under penalty of loss of employment, and this will be a part of the tolerance and non-discrimination policies and programs that will be federally mandated.
This is the start of persecution. Incarceration, torture and execution usually follow, sometimes in decades, sometimes less. Yes, I know I am a pessimist. Yes, I know that I should look forward to the 2014 mid-term elections, but frankly, I think we are over the crest and have now started an irreversible slide.
🙁
I pray I am wrong, and it won’t hurt my feelings one bit to be wrong.
My comments do not come from an agreement with this injustice against Elaine Huguenin, who has my prayers, but from a desire to point out the big picture which all too often gets ignored.
“Yeah, they could compromise their religious beliefs, or, you know, the gay couple could simply find another photographer.”
You’re absolutely right. Unfortunately, that’s democracy for you. Once people get it into their heads that their choice is their “right”, they tend to stick it out until they get what they want–or else have made the person who wouldn’t give it to them suffer for failing to.
It doesn’t help that the above quote, while completely true and just, can seem to such people like a flippant attitude. “You don’t like it? Tough!”
I’m still praying, and I still have faith in the Lord to see us through whatever happens, but I have very little faith in democracy–democracy is what got Barabbas free and our Lord crucified, let us never forget that. Jesus is our King of Kings, not President of Presidents.
To be honest, I think the “freedom of religion” ship sailed with the establishment clause–that stifles the religious freedom of the Congress, after all.
“To be honest, I think the “freedom of religion” ship sailed with the establishment clause–that stifles the religious freedom of the Congress, after all.”
It most certainly does not, unless you think that religious freedom includes establishing a state church which I think is absurd.
“This is the start of persecution. Incarceration, torture and execution usually follow,”
Not if faithful Catholics “man up” Paul and stop conceding the field to the enemy before the battle begins.
While thinking of forms of insanity, I conclude that the following response of Ace is healthy, sane, logical, reasonable, and economical (these cases cost money which is in a sense non-existent). The opinion of the court isn’t.
The response of Ace to the supercilious and asinine statement of Justice Bosson is priceless: Yeah, they could compromise their religious beliefs, or, you know, the gay couple could simply find another photographer. No, by all means, let’s use the power of the state to reach as deeply as possible into people’s lives instead of just telling the gay couple to “Look online for ten minutes and find someone else.”
Agreed, Donald: “Not if faithful Catholics ‘man up’ Paul and stop conceding the field to the enemy before the battle begins.”
I will concede nothing. Furthermore, I oppose mistreating or demeaning homosexual persons. Everyone should be treated with the dignity inherent in being a human being creating in the Image and Likeness of God. But while I won’t shove my beliefs down anyone else’s throat, I won’t on the other hand sign on any dotted or solid line saying that I agree with “gay rights” or “gay marriage”. (Well, it’s all electronic signature now.) And that, my friend, in a corporation regulated by the Federal government may one day cost someone his only means of employment, and to lose it for “intolerance” and “discrimination” is to be black-balled forever. 🙁
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For some reason the militant gay agenda believes that persecuting believers for their faith will endear them to all people. Even in Hilter’s Germany there was an undeground resistance to the nazis. The catacombs prove that there was a resistance to religious persecution in the early days of the church. Marriage under duress is no marriage. A contract made under duress is no contract. It is not potographs the gays want. The gays want to own persons and the court just gave the gays the power to own people, body, soul and Faith. Belief in God is the virtue of Faith. The court cannot decide how an individual will exercise his virtues. The court is to decide how to enforce laws against vice. If and when the court redefines our exercise of virtues, the exercise of Faith, the court violates the principles of separation of church and state.
Should the worm turn, the legal profession will have much occasion for regret.
“It most certainly does not, unless you think that religious freedom includes establishing a state church which I think is absurd.”
Treating blasphemy and idolatry as though they were comparable to the Way, the Truth, and the Life is hardly kosher. We’re Americans, but we must be Catholic first–or else we’re Catholics not at all.
The pendulum always swings back. There is going to be some harsh backlash when the 97% get fed up with the tantrums of the 3%.
“Treating blasphemy and idolatry as though they were comparable to the Way, the Truth, and the Life is hardly kosher.”
Freedom of religion means that people get to practice the religion they choose and not what we would choose for them. I shudder to think what religion the politicians in Washington would ultimately impose upon the country if part of their duties was to establish a state church. No doubt one of its sacraments would be large cash payments to incumbents. Politicians should be kept far away from having any control over religion, which is the genius of what the Founding Fathers sought to establish for the Federal government.
What part of “free exercise thereof” is confusing to these people?
Secret minutes of a February 2009 WH meeting among Obama, Biden, Holder, et al, “We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty. Our MSM cheerleaders will ignore it. The rubes won’t see it until it’s too late.”
This is just one more example of something that goes back to Eden, which is the desire to have what one knows in the depths of his soul – illuminated by the scintilla conscietiae – affirmed by others in the foolish – nay, the insane – belief that if you can get enough people to agree that it is not a sin it will not be such. The first thing Eve did after tasting the fruit was to share it with Adam, who, abdicating his role of God’s viceroy for creation and choosing a lesser good (his relationship with Eve) over a greater (his relationship to God), cravenly ate some himself.
The problem is, of course, that what is intrinsically wrong can never be made right, no matter how many laws are passed or how many hearts and minds won (and thereby corrupted).
I have often wanted to ask these in-your-face pansexualists why it is that, if they believe what they are doing is good and right in the face of God (or Whatever), they need anyone’s approval for it. The fact that they seem to require it is an evidence of just how weak-kneed they really are. Which should be no surprise when one considers that lack of virtue is, by philological derivation, lack of strength. In the end, they are nothing but bullies, and all bullies, being cowards at heart, will collapse if opposed with sufficient courage.
What intellect could conceive this tyranny to be “the price of citizenship”?
It’s a price I refuse to pay. It wasn’t in the social contract I “signed.”
Try silent, dogged resistence at every opportunity.
No, it is the yoke of serfdom.
Who will pay the price of freedom?
Should they be forced to go through with the session, it will be interesting to see how finely the pictures and the behavior of the photographers while on-site will be scrutinized. Can the NMSC rule on artistic capacity? Or how “happy” they were while there?
What if, during the photo shoot after the “wedding,” the photographers are hassled or abused because of their moral stance? is that a hate crime? Are their civil rights being violated?
This judge is an insult. Please, Lord, let sanity work just once in the next election and have him ousted in as undignified a way as possible.
When the matter of abusive legislation and practice in Canada, Britain, and Sweden is raised, you get these responses along the lines of ‘well, they do not have the 1st Amendment’. When the legal elites are great manufactories of humbug, the protections of the 1st Amendment have no more durability than the constitutional allocation of discretion to state legislatures re the protection of the unborn. What matters is salable excuses. They only have to sell the excuses to each other, and since the circles in which they run are culturally uniform, this is not difficult.
One feature you see in liberal fora is the pro forma obeisance to ‘free speech’ conjoined to vitriolic language directed against fairly innocuous and obscure characters – like a photographer in New Mexico or the owner of a Chicken dinner franchise or an evangelical pastor with a congregation numbered in two digits. They are down with this, in spite of their denials, and do not expect to be injured by it.
The legal profession may discover one day that there are rough men who will deal with them lawlessly, because said shysters have ruined what law there was.
“One feature you see in liberal fora is the pro forma obeisance to ‘free speech’ conjoined to vitriolic language directed against fairly innocuous and obscure characters – like a photographer in New Mexico or the owner of a Chicken dinner franchise or an evangelical pastor with a congregation numbered in two digits.”
They will defend to the death Art our right to agree with them. Liberals have a let’s pretend view of the world and language. To most of them, with certain honorable exceptions, Nat Hentoff is a glorious one, words like freedom and liberty are without content except what they give to such concepts on a purely ad hoc basis. That is why liberal jurists love a “living constitution” which transforms the constitution into a tabula rasa on which they write their will. It is a fun game as long as their adversaries do not adopt their practices and adhere to such old fashioned rules as one law for all, and strict adherence to the Constitution. That is my position and it is a great handicap in battling what these people are doing. Eventually they will face adversaries who will adopt their methods to checkmate them, and the country will be the worse for such methods being universally accepted as the proper way to treat laws and constitutions: as mere props in ongoing political warfare.
[…] Fr. Z’s Blog Gov. O’Malley’s Dereliction of Duty – Matthew Hennessey, Crisis Magazine Dear New Mexico: First Amendment? Hello? – Donald R. McClarey JD Contraceptive Eating – Randall Smith, The Catholic Thing […]
I would like to see this issue discussed with reference to the idea of “forced speech.” For example, if a Jewish signpainter refused service to a Muslim who orders a banner saying “Happy Birthday,” that might be discrimination; but what if he ordered a sign saying “Down with Israel”? Should the signmaker be forced to comply (as part of the “glue that holds us together” etc.)? This is how I see the photographer’s refusal.
Good point Smitty. The original purpose of these anti-discrimination laws in regard to public vendors was the old Jim Crow situation where blacks simply were shut out of most of the market place in some states. Now these laws have been twisted to allow certain protected groups to harass people who do not agree with their agendas. Another example would be to force a Muslim caterer to serve pork at a meal, or an observant Jew to provide professional services on a Saturday. These anti-discrimination laws now serve no purpose except to allow activists to harass people by compelling them to violate their consciences.
You have Hentoff, and Jeralyn Merritt, and Harold Pollack, and Alan Dershowitz, and KC Johnson who are advocates of particular policy perspectives and adhere to the idea that political society and social organisms have to adhere to procedural rules which are not simply the rubrics of power games.
They are no longer the norm in liberal political discourse. “Liberals” now constitute a self-aggrandizing social subculture – a bunch of Byzantine Blues telling the world how much they despise the Greens.
One interesting aspect of the contemporary liberal worldview is how much it appears derived from high school social relations. Liberals seem to conceive of themselves as, at different times, occupying each side of the social transaction between adolescent and school administrator. On the one hand, we see the celebration of the expressive malcontent. On the other, we see a concept of political society which looks upon elected institutions as if they were student governments – toy telephones subject to the limits placed on them by school administrators. Principal Anthony Kennedy makes the rules.
Every human being comes into existence through one man and one woman. The newly begotten human being invents one father and one mother. The Supreme Court for the United States of America interprets the U.S. Constitution according to the Ten Commandments engraved in stone in their chamber. The atheist cannot remove the Ten Commandments from the Supreme Court without perjuring himself and contradicting himself using God’s Name: “I AM” (an atheist) in vain. “Honor thy mother and thy father”, the Fourth Commandment decidedly prevents any celebration of same-sex action. No court can order a person to “celebrate” same sex action, in thought, word or deed, indeed. If the photographer cannot, in good conscience, celebrate same sex action, the person who has constituted our nation with his sovereign personhood and who is a citizen by virtue of his belonging to our people, cannot be forced, bullied or coerced into celebrating, not for love or for money. If the citizen must submit to a cruel and wrongful law, let him not take any compensation or partake of the fruits of such evil or become an accomplice to the violation of truth, Justice and the American way. Let the damnation of the violation of the Supreme law of the land through perjury, that is, lying to the court about honoring his parents, or consummating the marital act, and further violating the Fourth Commandment and the community who has brought him into citizenship be the perjurer’s alone. Human existence is the criterion for the objective ordering of human rights.
Citizenship must meet the test of the human existence. If the same sex practitioner came into existence other than through a man and a woman, I, for one, want to know.
By the way, even those five named are probably content with misfeasance by appellate judges if it suits their objects. Raoul Berger was a critic of appellate judge nonsense as has been Michael Kinsley (intermittently) and R.M. Kaus. Kaus would be considered an apostate by most liberals who have heard of him and are familiar with his writings.
Not helpful in the broader sense but I suggest the couple go do the photo shoot (as they are being forced to do) and take the absolute. worst. photos. ever. Consider it a day wasted/a dollar wasted, as they would surely be fought tooth and nail to actually get paid for terrible “pretend wedding” pictures. Spiteful, yes. But I’d do it anyway.
There is merit in Elizabeth’s suggestion. Every time a Christian photographer is asked to do a photo shoot of a gay “marriage”, let him just muck up the pictures and say, “So sorry, so sad – technical difficulties. Here’s your money back.” Repeating this a few times will sink into the heads of these sexual idolaters that their forcing the rest of us to accept their sexual perversions isn’t going to work. Let’s beat them at their own game.
PS, I have nothing against gays arranging their own “ceremonies” in private with their own photographers, and being un-harassed, unmolested in so doing. Just don’t force Christians to accept this nonsense, and if you do, then you’ll get precisely what you deserve.
I disagree. To do that is to “spit in the water cup” before serving; any willful loss of dignity only serves the purposes of the instigators.
Instead, I would do my best work, audibly praising God for the gifts my talents and openly conversing about my marriage and my family. I would give nobody any cause to further pursue the farce, which is precisely what it is. By not bowing down, by being uncowed and unshaken in my faith by this derisible display, I would defeat them more handily.
“And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
“gifts ofmy talents” – oh, for an edit option . . .
I concur with the dire attack on freedom of religion this case involves. But perhaps more disturbing is the plain naked emperor illogic accepted in order to advance the cause.
This case, probably like all others similar to it, has nothing to do with the orientation of the plaintiffs. If either of the women returned and tried to order flowers for their wedding with a man, it would have gone down just fine. Now the women would argue they would never do that, but that misses the point, that their orientation is irrelevant. So there was no conflict with the law.
Similarly, if I and my buddy (both straight) sauntered down and tried to buy flowers for our wedding (say we wanted a tax break…), we would be refused as well.
This is stone cold logic 101. Yet it is flatly ignored, proving the case/law is not about equality but rather about tyranny and thoughtcrime.
From the indomitable Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online:
“Judge Bosson insists that the Huguenins must take the business of a gay couple as part of the price of citizenship. Well, what if the situation was reversed? What if it was the gay couple that refused to hire the Huguenins? After all, that would make more sense than the fact pattern of the actual case. Who wants to have their wedding photographed by someone who rejects its legitimacy? I married a Catholic girl. I looked for rabbis who’d officiate. They refused because they didn’t condone a mixed marriage. I completely understood their reluctance. It didn’t offend me in the slightest. But you can be sure I wouldn’t hire a photographer who passionately felt that what we were doing was disgusting or evil or wrong. So anyway, suppose the gay couple made the utterly reasonable decision not to hire a wedding photographer who passionately rejects the whole idea of gay marriage? Now imagine that the poor Hugenins really need the work. Should a judge march in and tell the gay couple you’ve got to give these people money to photograph a ceremony that disgusts them? The logic of Bosson’s decision would say yes. Everyone has to compromise. It’s the price of citizenship! In fact, as support for gay marriage grows and religious orthodoxy declines, it’s easy to imagine a world where the Huguenins are the minority — if they aren’t already. Do they suddenly merit intervention by a thumb-sucking judge simply because their views have become minority views? “
“it is the price of citizenship.” Good will is the price of citizenship. Neither the judge, nor the same-sex couple, have good will towards the citizenship and the civil rights of the photographer. With good will, the same-sex couple might have found a willing photographer. Of course, the pictures will not be the best. Force makes a sorry contract. Peace on earth to men of good will.
Donald,
“Freedom of religion means that people get to practice [AND LIVE] the religion they choose and not what we would choose for them.”
Had to add those two important words because too many, including our Dear Leader, believe freedom of religion means you can attend and worship on Sunday without being hassled by the government. For them, freedom of religion ends when the weekend is over. Trying to live your faith 7 days a week at home and at work is a foreign concept to them.
So, I try avoid using the phrase “practice their religion” and opt for “living their faith” or “living their religion.”
[…] Of course not. Just don’t tell that to Elaine Huguenin. […]