‘This involved what, to me, is an event of unique spiritual significance’
By Bob Unruh
November 14, 2016
‘Small-town florist’ warns: ‘Gay’ art mandate threatens ‘everyone’
Don’t kid yourself: The government that gives itself the authority to order a “small-town florist” to advocate a message that violates her faith isn’t going to be satisfied with controlling one “small-town florist.”
That’s the warning from Washington state entrepreneur Barronelle Stutzman as the state Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in her discrimination case on Tuesday.
She was penalized by the state for declining to promote a homosexual wedding through her floral artistry.
The state Supreme Court last winter agreed to hear the case in a terse note signed by Barbara Madsen, the chief justice.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending Stutzman in court, explained a lower court ordered her to pay penalties and attorneys’ fees “for declining to use her artistic abilities to design custom floral arrangements for a longtime customer’s same-sex ceremony.”
The lower courts ruled that not only was Stutzman liable as a business operator, but her personal assets and property also were at risk.
Stutzman had referred the customer, Rob Ingersoll, to several other florists who would provide him with quality products and services.
“Does anyone really believe that a government that gives itself the power to force people to believe (and not believe) things and can order artists to create state-sanctioned messages will only use that power to bend one small-town florist to its will – and then leave everyone else alone?” she wrote in a recent commentary in Spokane’s Spokesman-Review newspaper.
“What our state Supreme Court will decide is whether the government has the power to separate my creativity from my soul – by compelling me to create artistic expressions that celebrate something that goes against my conscience.
“To enforce that separation, they’ll have to violate my constitutional rights to free expression and free exercise of religion. Doing that imposes an unrealistic expectation on what customers can expect from creative professionals … and, in this case, what a friend can ask of a friend,” she said.
“Rob Ingersoll and I have been friends since very nearly the first time he walked into my shop. I always thought that must be because Rob ‘gets it’ – what it means to be a particular kind of artist, working to create beautiful messages through flowers and the talents God has given me. All those years, he always asked for me, when he could easily have gone somewhere else for his arrangements. There was never an issue with his being gay (nor has there been with any of my other customers or employees). He just enjoyed my arrangements, and I loved creating them for him.
“Since I never hid my faith, I always figured Rob understood that my beliefs shape not only how I look at the world, but how I envision and create my art – the art he appreciated for so long. So it wasn’t that I wouldn’t create something to celebrate his same-sex wedding – I couldn’t. This wasn’t about selling
To read this article in its entirety, go to: http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/small-town-florist-warns-gay-art-mandate-threatens-everyone/