Our Founding Fathers believed religious liberty is the first liberty. Our current Republican Party leaders nationwide need to wake up, go to school (on this an many other issues), and stop things like this from happening. From Conservative.org:
Photo Refusal Costs $7,000
What’s that? You say you have a moral objection to lesbians getting married? You say you don’t think it’s appropriate for you to participate in the wedding as a paid professional? Well tough luck for you. Freedom of association is limited. Freedom to turn down an offer to accept a job is way too 90′s — 1890s.That’s what three New Mexico judges said.
You see, the photographers are Christians. Freedom of association does not extend to them.
You say this is discriminatory? Well, I hope you don’t live in New Mexico.
Here is the problem. Discrimination is an inescapable concept in New Mexico. If a photographer discriminates against lesbians by refusing to photograph the event they call a wedding, because a photographer is a wedding photographer, and he does not beieve this is a wedding, then he gets fined.
On the other hand, if he is forced to shoot the wedding, then he gets discriminated against. His right of association is violated.
Here is the dilemma: laws against discrimination discriminate. This is not a sophist’s argument. It cost the photographers $7,000.
