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 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.”

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.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014...ters-who-refuse-to-perform-same-sex-weddings/


so this nation has become what many came here to escape from almost 400 ears ago

I don't know if they even teach students in the state run liberal schools why many settles came here to America and that was to escape religious persecution

So we are at a point now where we are threating jail for people who wont go against their religious beliefs

This isn't the America the founding father attended this isn't the America I grew up in and learned to love

I use to not give a dam about same sex marriage but what the issue has become makes me choose sides and I am choosing the side of religious freedom and I am willing to take up arms to insure that freedom is not getting trampled on like it is beginning to

You gay marriage advocates has started fight that you will not win and all you will accomplish is tearing this nation apart

why wont you gay marriage advocates settle with a JP wedding why do you want to force others to go against their religious beliefs do you think that is going to make society accept you it wont all you are doing is encouraging resentment an hatred

 

I disagree with this, even though i support sane sex marriage

The ministers should not be forced to do so. Same sex couples can find someone who will perform the ceremony for them.

 

ONE city takes a position that will almost certainly not survive legal challenge, and the OP claims "this is what our country has come to."

Conservatives are such drama queens.

 

I live in Boise and can assure these chapel owners that if they don't like the non-discrimination laws in Coeur d’Alene, there are a couple hundred other rural towns in Idaho around same size where they can relocate their business.

So, you would "take up arms" to defend homophobia -- REALLY?

 

Is this place tax exempt ? And as a "for profit" business, they are are not allowed to discriminate.

 

Yes, but as a rule the government cannot force religions to perform ceremonies that go against their beliefs. That trumps the "public accomodation" laws.

 

I will take up arms to defend one of the founding principals of this nation and that is religious freedom and not being persecuted for those religious beliefs this nation wasn't founded on gay marriage

 

The chapel is registered as a for-profit business – not as a church or place of worship. It has nothing to do with religion. If they want it to be about religion they need to register as a legitimate church instead of a wedding mill. Problem solved.

 

Jesus wasn't a homophobic. He just didn't approve of the homosexual act. Will same sex partners refrain from homosexual sex when they are married in the Lord's House? I also have to wonder just how many homosexuals who want to marry in a church really do believe in Jesus, God? Or are they just trying to make a mockery of the Christian religion? If they truly were Christians and read the Bible regularly they would know how Jesus feels about the homosexual act. They would be well versed in the demise of Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

then a black owned catering business would then have to do business with the KKK or a Jewish owned banquet hall would then be forced to rent it out for a Nazi meeting

 

what happens if a Church refuses to marry two Jews?

should they still have their minister arrested?

 

I would just do it under protest and give them the best fire and brimstone ceremony about the evils of sin, including every verse in the Bible that identifies homosexuality as a sin, condemn them to eternal damnation, and include a mandatory tip in the regular cost for the extra whistles and bells.

 

it always starts somewhere are you going to wait for it to become illegal to be a Christian like it was in the days of old before you admit it has gone to far?

 

Look at every opportunity as a blessing and just (*)(*)(*)(*) in the punch, and (*)(*)(*)(*) in the gravy, then end the day with a rendition of 'oh happy day'.

 

I warned everyone that this is the next step by the Authoritarian Leftists. If you don't perform our ceremonies we will imprison you, take away your tax status, and attack your character.

Once little tyrants have some power, they try and use it.

 

Question why hasn't the Gay Gestapo gone into a mosque and demand to get married? or a Muslim owned business and have them cater, bake a cake, or take pictures for a Gay Wedding

 

Then religious orgs shouldn't be tax exempt. They can't have it both ways. Plus, this chapel is "for profit" so they are not exactly a religion enclave

 

It's not a church, it is a wedding mill.

 

and im sure when you first warned this was going to happen you got replies about some slippery slope argument or it will never happen

 

If you can't tell citizens who they can get married to, how can you tell them who they have to marry together? Seems like a double standard.

 

Government at it's finest...

 

you do not even need to engage over the contrived word "homophobia"

the Bible is against homosexual sex. That much is clear. To ask a Christian to accept the act of homosexual sex is asking them to renounce their religion.

Leftists have used the current trend for all things homosexual as way to wage their war against Christianity.

 

You mean like when the little tyrants used the government to make laws based on lies, misinterpreted and defined, a natural plant and started putting freemen in jail under totally fabricated bigotry and false pretense?

 

ok.

but i think religious institutions should not be required to marry people that do not comply with their faith.

 

The "business" agreed voluntarily not to discriminate or break the law when they accepted the license. Should have read and understood the fine print.

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I do too, but when did that happen?