City Threatens To Arrest Ministers Who Refuse To Perform Same Sex "Weddings"

From the law suit against the City for forcing
the Knapps to violate their religion

The Hitching Post is one of the most well known chapels in the Inland Northwest. In its 95 years of operation thousands of people have been married in the small chapel. But the owners are willing to walk away if the ban on gay "marriage" is permanently lifted.
(kxly.com)

City threatens to arrest ministers who refuse to perform same-sex weddings




Two 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 a $1,000 fine, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing read the law suit Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene.

“Right now they are at risk of being prosecuted,” their ADF attorney, Jeremy Tedesco, told me. “The threat of enforcement is more than just credible.”

“The Knapps are in fear that if they exercise their First Amendment rights they will be cited, prosecuted and sent to jail.”

- Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, Jeremy Tedesco

According to the lawsuit, the wedding chapel is registered with the state as a “religious corporation” limited to performing “one-man-one-woman marriages as defined by the Holy Bible.”

But the chapel is also registered as a for-profit business – not as a church or place of worship – and city officials said that means the owners must comply with a local "nondiscrimination" ordinance.

That ordinance, passed last year, prohibits "discrimination" based on sexual orientation, and it applies to housing, employment and public accommodation.

City Attorney Warren Wilson told The Spokesman-Review in May that the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel likely would be required to follow the ordinance.

“I would think that the Hitching Post would probably be considered a place of public accommodation that would be subject to the ordinance,” he said.

He also told television station KXLY that any including Jewish ones wedding chapel that turns away a gay couple would in theory be violating the law, “and you’re looking at a potential misdemeanor citation.”

Wilson confirmed to Knapp my worst fear -- that even ordained ministers would be required to perform same-sex "weddings".

“Wilson also responded that Mr. Knapp was not exempt from the ordinance because the Hitching Post was a business and not a church,” the lawsuit states.

And if he refused to perform the ceremonies, Wilson reportedly told the minister that he could be fined up to $1,000 and sentenced to up to 180 days in jail.

Now all of that was a moot point because, until last week, gay "marriage" was not legal in Idaho.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an order on May 13 allowing same-sex "marriages" to commence in Idaho on Oct. 15. Two days later, the folks at the Hitching Post received a telephone call.

A man had called to inquire about a same-sex "wedding" ceremony. The Hitching Post declined, putting it in violation of the new law.

City officials did not respond to my requests for an interview, nor did they respond to requests from local news outlets.

“The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines,” Tedesco said.

“The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, and our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple’s freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected, just as the First Amendment intended.”

Alliance Defending Freedom also filed a temporary restraining order to stop the city from enforcing the ordinance.

“The Knapps are in fear that if they exercise their First Amendment rights they will be cited, prosecuted and sent to jail,” Tedesco told me.

It’s hard to believe this could happen in the United States. But as the lawsuit states, the Knapps are in a “constant state of fear that they may have to go to jail, pay substantial fines, or both, resulting in them losing the business that God has called them to operate and which they have faithfully operated for 25 years.”

The lawsuit came the same week that the city of Houston issued subpoenas demanding that five Christian pastors turn over sermons dealing with homosexuality and gender identity.

What in heaven’s name is happening to our country, folks? I was under the assumption that churches and pastors would not be impacted by same-sex marriage.

“The other side insisted this would never happen – that pastors would not have to perform same-sex marriages,” Tedesco told me. “The reality is – it’s already happening.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told me it’s “open season on Americans who refuse to bow to the government’s redefinition of marriage.”

“Americans are witnesses to the reality that redefining marriage is less about the marriage altar and more about fundamentally altering the freedoms of the other 98 percent of Americans,” Perkins said.

Why should evangelical Christian ministers be forced to perform and celebrate any marriage that conflicts with their beliefs?

“This is the brave new world of government-sanctioned same-sex unions – where Americans are forced to celebrate these unions regardless of their religious beliefs,” Perkins told me.

As I write in my new book, “God Less America,” we are living in a day when those who support traditional marriage are coming under fierce attack.

The incidents in Houston and now in Coeur d’Alene are the just the latest examples of a disturbing trend in the culture war – direct attacks on clergy.

“Government officials are making clear they will use their government power to punish those who oppose the advances of homosexual activists,” Perkins said.

I’m afraid Mr. Perkins is absolutely right.

No one should be discriminated against but have you noticed that any time a city passes a “nondiscrimination” ordinance, it’s the Christians and Jews who wind up being discriminated against?

(Fox News) highlights my additions

read this editorial from the daily beast showing how liberals want to force you to violate the Torah

Refusing to Marry Same-Sex Couples Isn’t Religious Freedom, It’s Just Discrimination

A ‘Christian or Jewish’ wedding chapel—a private business—in Idaho is suing for the right not to "marry" gay couples. There is no such right. Yet.

The first thing you need to know is that most “wedding chapels” are not actually chapels. They are private businesses, sometimes run by ordained ministers who are thus licensed to perform marriage ceremonies, but just as often run by Elvis impersonators. Thus, the question of how so called "marriage"-equality laws apply to private wedding chapels is ostensibly a question of under what circumstances the government can lawfully step on a for-profit company’s blue suede shoes.

Ground zero for this debate is now Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. There, the city is apparently requiring the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel to officiate gay weddings. Now, it’s hard to imagine any gay couple wanting to get "married" at the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel. Their website talks about “the difference between men and women because we all know men and women are identical in all ways including anatomically” and says “women respond to love positively because they were created that way” and “men respond to respect because that is the way they are created.”

Yeah. And the private “chapel” reportedly gives its newlyweds a conservative Christian CD with hetero-reinforcing marriage sermons. Then again, given the über-butch Paul Bunyan log-cabin façade, if some gay men mistook the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel for a for a Western bar, that would be understandable.

Anyway, after a court effectively made so called "marriage" equality the law of the land in Idaho a week ago, it appears some misguided gay couple wandered into the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel. The owners, Evelyn and Donald Knapp, apparently declined to marry the couple and instead filed a federal lawsuit to stop the city of Coeur d’Alene from enforcing its non-discrimination law. Yup, Evelyn and Donald Knapp are “ordained Christian ministers” suing for the right to discriminate.

State and federal laws generally exempt only religious institutions from having to perform gay "marriages". Yet the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel is not a church or a synagogue or a mosque but a private business—apparently one in the newly created categorical mold of Hobby Lobby, a “for-profit religious corporation.” If you wondered what the slippery slope of the Hobby Lobby decision might entail, here’s a good look. In the Hobby Lobby ruling, Justice Alito wrote that the decision does not “provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice.”  We’ll see about that. The faith-based legal advocacy group defending the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel will undoubtedly lean on Hobby Lobby to make its case.

Either way, it’s worth noting that the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel is at this point being required to officiate same-sex "weddings" not because of any federal or state law, but because of local non-discrimination laws passed in Coeur d’Alene. So much for all those conservatives who want the federal government to butt out and let local jurisdictions rule. I guess that’s only when they agree with the local jurisdictions.  showing the first amendment is irrelevant 

By the same token, conservatives seem to only support government forcing people to do things when it comes to requiring that doctors read out loud misleading information written by abortion opponents to any women patients contemplating terminating a pregnancy like many women regretting this after the fact. That kind of government coercion of speech and action seems a-OK to the conservative liberty crowd like how the liberals did with repairetive therapy or MBP. But forcing a religious person to violate their religion by requiring a private business to provide unequal accommodation to all Americans, including the gay ones? Tyranny! first amendment be darned

Mind you, just as Hobby Lobby initially covered the forms of contraception that it later stopped covering and objected to when filing suit, the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel entirely reincorporated its business just last month with a new business certificate and a new operating agreement that suddenly includes the religious values also asserted in their lawsuit to protect themselves from gay terrorist who want to force them to violate their religion. They now have a new Employee Policy and Customer Agreement saying they will only perform weddings “between one biological male and one biological female.” most likely (like every states original marriage laws) never dreaming years ago that the definition of marriage would need to be clarified

It’s hard to argue that opposing so called "marriage" equality is a central tenet of Christianity when majorities of Christian voters support same-sex "marriage".  just like it's hard for a Jew to claim that Judaism forbids lighting a fire on shabbos when most Jews break shabbos in and do so?

if you suspend the fist amendment Conservatives are already trying to conflate the issues here , saying that Coeur d’Alene is forcing “Christian pastors” to perform same-sex "weddings" or “face jail”—deliberately blurring the line between this for-profit chapel because religion only exist in officially sanctioned environments?  and actual religious institutions and entities so according to liberals anything that is not officially a religious institution can be forced to violate their religion. But regardless, even in the case of florists or cake makers or photographers who want to practice  their religion by "discriminate" against gay couples, their grounds for doing so are thin provided you don't believe in the first amendment. It’s hard not to argue that opposing so called "marriage" equality is a central tenet of Christianity when majorities of Christian voters support same-sex marriage like majority of all Jewish voters don't believe in torah mishamayim, as do an increasing number of denominations like "Reform-Judaism" is a branch of Judaism . In Kansas, where Republicans tried to pass a law legalizing discrimination by private businesses and individuals, the pastor of the state’s largest church took a stand for equal treatment, saying, “Jesus routinely healed, fed, and ministered to people whose personal lifestyle he likely disagreed with.” Reform Temple Emanuel is the largest "synagogue" in NYC do you think your rav should pasken based on them?

Pastor Andy Stanley, head of the second-largest evangelical church in America, said, “Serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity. Jesus died for a world with which he didn’t see eye to eye. If a bakery doesn’t want to sell its products to a gay couple, it’s their business. Literally. But leave Jesus out of it.” In other words, using Christianity to rationalize discrimination against one’s fellow human beings doesn’t seem very, well, Christian.

Jesus also spoke very clearly about the dangers of private profit (“You cannot serve God and money.”), but I don’t see any of these so-called religious businesses rushing to embrace those teachings.

The Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel is a for-profit business, just like the Elvis Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas that also wants to "discriminate" against gay couples in violation of local, state, and federal laws and deeply held principles of fairness and equality on which our country was founded Liberals forget this country was founded on freedom of religion and speech not fairness and equality, fairness and equality the way liberals understand is closer to Marxisim . The image of an Elvis impersonator trying to claim religious exemptions should strike us all as a hunka-hunka burning crap.

These entrepreneurs have chosen to incorporate as private businesses, with all the legal rights and privileges that entails. That means they have to follow the laws that apply to private businesses and suspend their first amendment rights?. Don’t wanna "marry" everyone who are entitled to "marry" legally under the law? Then don’t run a wedding business. After all, the government isn’t forcing you to be in that line of work.

Wedding businesses under liberal rule

(thedailybeast) highlights my additions

Solider Being Forced Out Of The Military For Opposing Same Gender "Marriage"

Airman Punished for Objecting to Gay "Marriage" in Military Chapel

A 27-year veteran of the Utah Air National Guard said he was reprimanded after he wrote a letter objecting to a gay "wedding" in the West Point chapel and was later told to prepare for retirement because his personal beliefs about homosexuality were not compatible with the military’s policies.

“The military is trying to make examples of people who have religious beliefs that homosexual conduct in the military is wrong,” said John Wells, an attorney representing TSgt. Layne Wilson. “The end game is to force conservative Christians out of the military.”

Last December Wilson wrote a letter to a person believed to be a chaplain at West Point. He stated his displeasure at news of a same-sex ceremony held in the Cadet Chapel.

“This is wrong on so many levels,” Wilson wrote. “If they wanted to get married in a hotel that is one thing. Our base chapels are a place of worship and this is a mockery to God and our military core values. I have proudly served 27 years and this is a slap in the face to us who have put our lives on the line for this country. I hope sir that you will take appropriate action so this does not happen again.”

Instead of responding to the private email, the Commandant of Cadets notified the Utah Air National Guard – leading to an accusation that he had brought "disgrace" and "discredit" upon the Air National Guard and his conduct was inconsistent with the United States Air Force.

The Air National Guard determined that Wilson’s email “failed to render the proper "respect" to a commissioned officer.”

“You are hereby reprimanded,” read a letter from Lt. Col. Kevin Tobias. “As a noncommissioned officer you are expected to maintain a standard of professional and personal behavior that is above reproach. You have failed!”

A public affairs officer with the Utah Air National Guard told Fox News they could not comment on pending litigation.

Ironically, Wells pointed out, the Defense of Marriage Act was still the law of the land and TSgt. Layne was simply reporting “what he believed was a violation of the law.”

In addition to his reprimand, the Air National Guard terminated a six-year reenlistment contract. Instead, they gave Layne a one-year extension.

“Due to the fact that I expressed my views on homosexuality in uniform; Lt. Col. Tobias stated that I was no longer compatible with further military service,” Wilson wrote in a letter detailing the discrimination allegations.

Tobias confirmed Wilson’s allegation in a memorandum dated June 19, 2013 and obtained by Fox News.

“We talked about his feelings about DADT and how he doesn’t agree with it,” Tobias wrote. “I then told him that maybe this is a good time for him to move on because we’ve been ordered to not have an opinion about Gays in the military and we need to treat them as we would treat anyone else in the service of our country.”

“I also reiterated that I respect his feelings but I’m not comfortable reenlisting him with his strong feelings about this matter,” he additionally wrote.

Col. Ronald Blunck concurred with Tobias – noting that “Your right to practice your religious beliefs does not excuse you from complying with directives, instructions and lawful orders.”

“Lt. Col. Tobias is correct in demanding that TSgt. Wilson refrain from expressing opinions contrary to Air Force guidance while in uniform,” Blunck wrote. “The Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was directed by law.”

Wilson also discussed concerns he had about a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” repeal briefing in 2011. He told his superior officers he found the briefing to be “very disturbing” and “conflicting with my moral rights of conscience.”

“My issue is so much about homosexuals serving in the military, but rather that it is being forced upon as an acceptable lifestyle abandoning our traditional values,” he wrote.

He said the military has created an atmosphere where those who do not approve of homosexual conduct “must remain disapprovingly silent or face reprisal to our careers.”

“It is evident those who refuse to affirm homosexuality and openly oppose it are being severely punished,” he wrote.

Attorney Wells told Fox News he wants the military to rescind the reprimand and reinstate the original six-year reenlistment contract.

“This was an executed contract,” he said. “But they just went in, tore it up and issued a new one.”

Wells said his client’s only “crime” was registering his opinion that a gay "marriage" in a military chapel was a violation of the law that existed at that time.

“His actions were proper within the scope of the Uniform Code and the Manual for Courts-Martial,” Wells said. “While his interpretation of the law may or may not have been correct, his actions should not have given rise to the firestorm of reprisals that he has suffered.”

Wells said he believes the military is trying to send a message to other troops- and incidents like this are just the “tip of the iceberg.”

“They’re trying to make examples of people early on who have religious beliefs that homosexual conduct in the military is wrong,” he said. “When these people assert their First Amendment rights, they are getting slapped down and slapped down hard.”

Wells isn’t alone in his fears.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said there is a clear and present danger to religious liberty within the military.

“Christians who choose to live out their faith find themselves incompatible with the secular view of this administration,” said Perkins. “We’re establishing a beach head for religious liberty and the evidence points to a very deliberate attack.”

Representatives of 14 groups concerned about religious liberty joined Reps. John Fleming R-La., Jim Bridenstine R-Okla., and Louie Gohmert R-Tex. on Capitol Hill to urge support for Fleming’s military religious freedom amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

The amendment protects the rights of servicemembers to not only hold religious beliefs but to act on them and speak about them. Fleming’s amendment has bipartisan support but the Obama Administration issued a statement “strongly objecting” to the legislation.

The amendment comes as more than 170,000 Americans signed petitions calling for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to protect the religious liberties of military personnel through policies that guarantee those liberties.

“We want to make this the first key battle to restore religious liberty back to the American people,” Fleming told Fox News. “It sets the tone for a broader war to fight back against this government that is infringing on our religious liberty.”

Perkins and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, the FRC’s executive vice president, released a nine-page document detailing anti-religious behavior in the military.

“Unfortunately, pressures to impose a secular, anti-religious culture on our nation’s military services have intensified tremendously during the Obama Administration,” the FRC report states.

“We will stand with servicemembers who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights of religious liberty,” Boykin said. ‘We must do all we can to ensure that our servicemembers have the right to practice the very freedoms that they risk their lives to defend.”
(townhall)

Northern Ireland Defeats Attempt To Allow Same Gender "Marriage"

Using TV Characters In Ireland to Promote Same Gender "Marriage"

Final Vote Was
53
For Real Marriage
 to 
42
For Marriage Redefinition

Gay marriage has been defeated in Northern Ireland following a block vote of major Unionist parties against it.

Sinn Fein introduced the bill in the Northern Irish Assembly and had the backing of the SDLP the other main nationalist party, the Alliance Party, and the Green Party. Three independent unionists also voted for it.
However the combined unionist vote of the Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist party defeated the bill by 50 to 45.

Pro-gay marriage advocates now expect a court challenge against the ban in both Britain and at the European Court on the grounds that it is allowed elsewhere in the United Kingdom, reports the Guardian.
Amnesty International stated the prospects of a gay couple taking a legal case to the European Court of Human Rights is now a distinct possibility.

Sinn Féin Assembly member for South Down Caitriona Ruane stated: "Attitudes in Ireland are changing because people do not want to see people discriminated against.
"The gay community has said enough is enough. They are standing up for themselves and their communities."
She claimed young gay people were turning to suicide because of rampant discrimination and bullying. "If they don't have an alternative voice to the vitriolic gay-bashing they will internalise it," she said.

All the main churches, Protestant and Catholic, opposed the bill. But the gay Christian lobby group “Changing Attitudes Ireland” condemned the unionist veto.

Church of Ireland minister Canon Charles Kenny, the secretary of Changing Attitudes Ireland, stated: "The year is drawing nearer when the love and justice expressed in the gospels will win out and sweep away the faith-based prejudice against gay and lesbian couples."

Democratic Unionist finance minister Sammy Wilson said the unionist parties would always vote to defeat "reckless" legislation.

(irishcentral)