The following comes from a Dec. 8 email sent by Alliance Defending Freedom.
Allied Attorneys:
You have probably already heard about the pastors in Houston and the Knapps in Idaho.
Sexual orientation, gender identity ordinances – like the ordinances in Houston and Coeur D’Alene, Idaho – are designed to legally compel Christians to accept, endorse, and even promote messages, ideas, and events that violate their faith – all under the guise of “anti-discrimination.”
These ordinances elevate sexual politics over our fundamental freedoms, especially the freedom of speech and religion.
Ministries that remain true to Scripture’s teachings about sexuality and gender may find themselves threatened, or even punished, by these ordinances. But there are steps that ministries can take to lessen the likelihood that will occur.
ADF has developed a free legal guide explaining how churches, Christian schools, and Christian ministries can prepare for the threat these ordinances pose. We hope you’ll distribute this to pastors, school administrators and other ministry leaders in your sphere of influence. We also invite you to familiarize yourself with the legal guide’s recommendations so you will be prepared to help churches, Christian schools, and Christian ministries that seek your counsel.
Download your free electronic copy by clicking here.
Floral Quarrel: AG Threatens to Close Shop over Marriage
(Family Research Council FRC.org)
Lots of families take a trip to grandma’s house over Christmas — but in Washington State, Barronnelle Stuzman may not have a house to host people! In an outrageous lawsuit from the state attorney general, the Christian florist stands to lose everything — including her home — because of her beliefs on marriage.
As if it weren’t enough that Barronnelle is being sued by a long-time customer, the state is bringing a second wave of accusations that the owner of Arlene’s Flowers somehow “discriminated” by turning down an order to serve a same-sex “wedding.”
Now, the florist of 40 years is being hauled before a court in a Christian inquisition that could cost her the business she spent decades building.
Last Friday, a court heard the state’s arguments for suing Barronnelle as a private citizen — something officials can only do under very special circumstances. Although the judge didn’t issue a ruling on the state’s motion, another hearing is scheduled for December 19.
In the meantime, Barronnelle could very well be enjoying the last Christmas in her home if Washington manages to move the case forward.
“In America,” her attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) argued, “the state shouldn’t jeopardize your personal assets just because it disagrees with you…”
ADF Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner told reporters. “the state attorney general insists on going after — not only her business, but her personal finances as well.”
It’s not taking action just because, as ADF says “it disagrees with you”. It is taking action because the florist refuses to serve certain members of the community in violation of anti-discrimination law. Disagree all you want, that is your right. Refuse service because you like some people more than others, and you are so adamant about it that you want to risk your livelihood, then you run afoul of the law.
This is a good idea. To have pamphlets available. There are other legal services that offer pro-Bono help. Pacific Legal and St. Thomas More law center. Just a few more to name.
“…. are designed to legally compel Christians to accept, endorse, and even promote messages, ideas, and events that violate their faith – all under the guise of “anti-discrimination.”
Actually, violating FREEDOM of RELIGION is DISCRIMINATORY.
Yes
Jail Time 4 Thought Crime in ‘Catholic’ Academentia:
“Catholic profs told to report opposition to ‘gay marriage’ as harassment
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholic-profs-told-to-report-opposition-to-gay-marriage-as-harassment-29598/
Milwaukee, Wis. 12/0/14 (CNA/EWTN News).
An anti-harassment training presentation at a Catholic college encourages employees to report critics of “gay marriage” – and could reflect recent federal decisions that the belief in marriage as a union of a man and a woman is discriminatory.
“Hans is right to report Maria and Becky’s conversation,”
The presentation shares the federal government’s new understanding that beliefs about marriage as a union only of one man and one woman can be a source of discrimination and illegal harassment.
Since 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has held “sex stereotypes” like “the belief that men should only date women or that women should only marry men” to be illegal discrimination on the basis of sex.
This is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the commission said in a news briefing on enforcement protections for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) workers…
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a Dec. 5 statement, said:
“In particular, they appear also to prohibit employers’ religious and moral disapproval of same-sex sexual conduct,
which creates a serious threat to freedom of conscience and religious liberty,”…
the bishops said that “under no circumstances” may Catholics approve of homosexual conduct.
Manipulation of Judicial Elections by the Bought and Paid for ‘free press’ has again been ignored, even by the ‘Watchdogs’ at ABA.
The 2010 Alameda County CA Judicial Election was ‘influenced’ by the then ‘Singleton Propaganda System’ (AP, MediaNews, BANG, Trying Times…) – Deliberately Censoring information about a (self mutilating male drag queen) – whose Voter Guide Candidate Statement said it was time to put “Another Woman” on the Court.
The east bay ‘news’ completely Censored such Facts, and only printed an endorsement for His Opponent (containing the Facts) – in that part of the Electoral District where it was likely to help the Hormone Abusing Male Drag Queen…
In other parts of the Same Electoral District the Facts & Endorsement were completely Censored, particularly areas where printing such Facts would have probably cost the male drag queen the election if published. Hence the ABA Story is really just another coverup:
SEE
“Are courts for sale? Study sees influence of judicial campaign ads in criminal appeals
10/28/14 ABA Journal Debra Cassens Weiss
…blaming Citizens United for the influx of outside money into judicial races and are raising questions about the impact:
Are courts for sale?
Columns in the New York Times and Mother Jones assert that outside money is pouring into judicial elections… from people who will appear before them, raising questions about impartiality…
“Either judges are fearful of making rulings that provide fodder for the ads. Or the TV ads are working and helping get certain judges elected.”
Catholic Bishops: Obama’s ‘Gender Identity’ Regulation ‘Serious Threat to Freedom of Conscience’
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/catholic-bishops-obamas-gender-identity-regulation-serious-threat
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) condemned new regulations to implement President Obama’s July 21 executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating “on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
These regulations were put in place by the Department of Labor last week in an update “to add gender identity and sexual orientation to the classes it protects” against discrimination…
-the bishops called these regulations “a serious threat to freedom of conscience and religious liberty.”
“Additionally, the regulations advance the false ideology of ‘gender identity,’ which ignores biological reality and harms the privacy and associational rights of both contractors and their employees,” the bishops noted.
“… it appears on an initial reading that these regulations would prohibit far more than that ‘unjust discrimination,’” the bishops said…
“In particular, they appear also to prohibit employers’ religious and moral disapproval of same-sex sexual conduct, which creates a serious threat to freedom of conscience and religious liberty,”
-regulations conflict with Church teaching against the approval of same-sex sexual conduct, quoting the Catechism, which says that “[u]nder no circumstances” may Catholics approve of such conduct”
“very many other people over a broad spectrum of different religious faiths hold this same conviction.”
Bishop Lori and Bishop Malone issued a statement – executive order was “unprecedented and extreme” and in effect “implements discrimination.”
‘Freedom of Conscience’ is an archaic notion in the Age of Abomination, and has been replaced by ‘Pander or Perish’ = the new ‘gospel’ of the Gaystapo Thought Police.
This is Not about the Traneeze (whether self mutilating Steroid Dykes or Male Drag Queens) – but about Forcing the Rest of Us to Deny our Immutable Inherited Genetic Gender…
– Or face harsh penalties, eventually leading to Jail Time for Thought Crime using Judicial ‘Contempt’ charges as the weapon.
Regardless of lacking any ‘Criminal’ Behavior – Anyone can be sent to Jail for ‘Contempt’ the moment they set foot in Any Courtroom, at the Judge’s Political Whim.
This phenomenon was perhaps best explained by author Theodore Dalrymple (Dr. Anthony Daniels) in an interview in FrontPageMagazine.com (August 31, 2005), when he said the Purpose of ‘Political Correctness’ is:
“…not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better.
When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity.
To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed.
A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
“Disclaimer: This document is general in nature and is not intended to provide, or be a substitute for, legal analysis, legal advice, or consultation with appropriate legal counsel… not act or rely on…
Religious Freedom and Marriage in Federal Law
https://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/01/religious-freedom-and-marriage-in-federal-law
Abstract
Legal recognition of same-sex marriage will increase the potential for conflicts with religious freedom.
The recent Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor intensifies these concerns by characterizing traditional marriage policy as a form of irrational prejudice. Public policy should value, not condemn, those who uphold the ideal of a mother and father for children. Even public officials who support same-sex marriage, however, should support religious freedom.
At the federal level, policy should protect religious freedom and rights of conscience in areas that include tax exemptions, deductions for charitable contributions, conditions attached to government programs, federal spending in educational and social service programs, and accreditation of higher education institutions.
Legal recognition of same-sex marriage will increase the potential for conflicts with religious freedom. The majority opinion in the recent U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor intensifies these concerns by characterizing traditional marriage policy as a form of irrational prejudice.[1]
Public policy should value, not condemn, those who uphold the ideal of a mother and father for children. Public policy should not equate affirmation of the ideal of both a mother and a father with irrational prejudice.”
ObamAcorn Cheerleader High on Mandatory Pandering – or else!
Having seen the author of the below quote at spewing in public forums trashing Marriage, Family, Men, the Church and anything else of worth that could be spited, I can say that…
– Chai (looks like tea, sounds like high) Feldblum is a truly obnoxious radical gender feminist homosex Misandrist – whose Hatreds all but drip from hyr nostrils when snorting hyr Rage – usually while far gone in a deranged Mau Mau Rant against the despised ‘Herero-Patriarchy.
The Abomination Subsidizing such Hatred is little different that the prior Homo-Nazi reich of Ernst Rohm & his prostitute protege Hitler – destroying the Boy Scouts and forcing Boys in to a stable promoting ‘tolerance’ of Ephebophile Rape known as the ‘hitler youth’.
Ole Chai would have fit in with them like the completing part of a jigsaw puzzle, provided the Homo-Nazis toned down the ‘Jewish’ rants a bit – and even more heavily targeted Heterosexual Christians who fail to pander to their pederasty.
But thats par for the course with a ‘Civil Rights’ activists who promotes Homo-Anal Coprophile Rapists (Like Terry Bean & Larry Brinkin), as the only tolerant ‘solution’ to the Male Problem.
SEE
“There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win….”1
CHAI FELDBLUM
Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Even the ABA ran a story about the situation:
“Liberal 9th Circuit judges appear to get gay-rights cases in disproportionate numbers, brief asserts
OCT 14, 2014 BY DEBRA CASSENS WEISS
A Nevada group seeking to uphold a ban on gay marriages is using statistics to assert that a federal appeals court does not appear to be selecting judges hearing gay-rights cases in a neutral way.
The Coalition for Protection of Marriage questioned the neutrality of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a petition (PDF) filed on Monday seeking an en banc rehearing, report SCOTUSblog and BuzzFeed News. The Nevada-based group is defending the gay-marriage ban after Nevada officials determined they could no longer do so.
The petition says appeals judges Marsha Berzon (appointed by President Bill Clinton) and Stephen Reinhardt (appointed by President Jimmy Carter) have served on panels deciding gay-rights cases in disproportionate numbers. Both were on the panel that struck down Nevada’s gay-marriage ban, applying heightened scrutiny.
Since the beginning of 2010, Berzon has served on appellate panels in five of 11 cases involving federal constitutional issues of gay rights, while Reinhardt has served on four. “Statistical analysis demonstrates that the improbability of such occurring randomly is not just significant but overwhelming,” the petition said. “Thus, the odds are 441-to-1 against what we observe with the relevant cases.”
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/liberal_9th_circuit_judges_appear_to_get_gay_rights_cases_in_disproportiona/?
It didn’t run a story about “the situation”. It ran a story about the ridiculous accusations leveled in the brief, because the brief was an astounding attack on the judicial system.