The Washington State florist went to the Supreme Court last week, by the way. We don’t hear about the enormous impact her story has had on this year’s election nearly often enough. There’s real rage and real anxiety attached to this story for a great number of people.
The National Latino Christian Caucus is on Barronelle’s side, by the way. Talking about the Latino vote, this is what gets Latinos on your side, and not the dumb Latinx thing.
Clarissa's Blog 
“The National Latino Christian Caucus is on Barronelle’s side”
I’m neither Latino nor Christian and I’m on her side too. She’s not a government employee and she did nothing to try to stop the wedding or prevent other florists from working it (even suggested some). She just personally didn’t want to do flowers for it (noting that if she did do it her religious views would probably prevent her from doing her best work).
Those suing her seem really infantile and unaware of how punitive and petty they’re looking.
LikeLike
I agree! It’s a 71-year-old lady. Why hassle her in such a vindictive way? Of course, it riles people up when they see this because this is no longer about gay rights. It’s about pure vindictiveness.
LikeLike
Yes — I can’t imagine suing for this. Although I guess it is why people don’t alays give their real reasons for not doing something. “You know I love you but I am just so absorbed in Project Y … “
LikeLike
“Although I guess it is why people don’t alays give their real reasons for not doing something. “You know I love you but I am just so absorbed in Project Y … “”
LikeLike
There’s real rage and real anxiety attached to this story for a great number of people.
Yes, public accommodation laws cause real rage and anxiety for people. Putting that aside…
I find it simply astonishing is that she continues to call herself a “friend” to this couple. What does “friendship” mean to this woman? She was perfectly happy to take their gay money for years but now she’s standing on principle? And if “friend” is what she calls “a long standing business relationship” what exactly did she expect would happen once she refused that order in that manner? I’m curious. If I really felt that way, I’d contrive another reason not to take their order or any orders from them.
LikeLike
If a friend (or an acquaintance or whatever) said she can’t do the flowers for my wedding because N and I cohabited before getting married and she disapproves of that on religious grounds, I would just move on to another florist. I can’t imagine giving it a second thought.
LikeLike
\ You don’t work that long in a small town … Even setting aside my warm feelings for them, I wouldn’t have deliberately taken actions that would mean the end of being able to do the work I love or risk my family’s home and savings.
Even before reading this, I thought designing flower arrangements for a gay wedding would hurt her business badly in a small conservative town. Now she is a hero. Had she sold – she could’ve lost clients.
I think she is aware of it herself, but it suits her to present the thing in the opposite way of “not selling = risking.”
LikeLike
She is not going to have any business or any pension if she loses the court case. And it looks like she will lose.
LikeLike
\ She is not going to have any business or any pension if she loses the court case.
Are you serious? Can somebody really take her entire pension? How does it work – by taking all money from her retirement account and forcing her to rely only on the federal Social Security system? How can the former be legal at all? It’s her pension, not a car or usual money in a bank.
LikeLike
If she is found to be at fault, she will have to pay the complainants’ legal fees and court costs, and that’s a huge amount of money. Her pension is her savings. And those will be gone.
This is not the first such case, either. And what is being achieved, exactly, by hounding the old lady?
LikeLike
“If she is found to be at fault, she will have to pay the complainants’ legal fees and court costs,”
That sounds more British than American, are you sure?
” And what is being achieved, exactly, by hounding the old lady?”
Letting everyone know that dissent from the party line will not be tolerated….
LikeLike
The man’s partner subsequently spread the word via social media. As a result, the attorney general of Washington State sued Stutzman for violating the state’s anti-discrimination law. The two men also sued her in their personal capacity and were represented by the ACLU. As a result of these lawsuits, Stutzman stands to lose her business, her home, and her personal savings. Her whole life hangs in the balance with this case.
Yesterday, a Washington State judge issued a summary judgment that went against her. Stutzman’s legal team put out this statement explaining what this means:
A state judge ruled Wednesday that Washington floral artist and grandmother Barronelle Stutzman must provide full support for wedding ceremonies that are contrary to her faith.
The court also ruled recently that both the state and the same-sex couple, who each filed lawsuits against her, may collect damages and attorneys fees not only from her business, but from Stutzman personally. That means the 70-year-old grandmother may not only lose her business, but also her home and savings because she lives her life and operates her business according to her beliefs.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/20/living/stutzman-florist-gay/
LikeLike
Here is a more recent article:
“Instead of saying, ‘I understand. We’re going to go our separate ways,’ he started talking about it to the media. The state attorney general (Bob Ferguson) heard about it and made an issue out of it, even suing Barronelle. The ACLU soon joined the lawsuit, and Barronelle now stands to lose not just her business but also her home and her life savings,” Keim said.
Prior court rulings have ordered Stutzman to pay Ingersoll’s legal fees. Keim estimates that total could run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars after several rounds of the case in court, even though a previous court found that Ingersoll and Freed suffered eight dollars in damages.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/florist-who-refused-gay-wedding-makes-case-to-state-supremes/#Q7SGMWBRXh4De7jm.99
LikeLike
“The man’s partner subsequently spread the word via social media. ”
Okay with that information it’s clear: They’re shysters who probably shopped around for a florist to refuse them so they could sue her for a payday.
No person with any integriy would pursue this.
LikeLike
“They’re shysters who probably shopped around for a florist to refuse them so they could sue her for a payday.”
I think so, too. This was a lawsuit in search of a dupe. And this old lady got trapped. I hate this kind of thing because it tarnishes the very idea of gay rights.
LikeLike
And because I feel bad for the old lady.
LikeLike
The man’s partner subsequently spread the word via social media. ”
Even if there was no law and I didn’t sue I’d still spread it around my social media, if only to warn people about what happened. They probably referred people to her over the years since they wanted her services for the wedding, so it’s logical they’d tell the same people what happened.
I do agree, she films very well.
LikeLike
\ You don’t work that long in a small town … Even setting aside my warm feelings for them, I wouldn’t have deliberately taken actions that would mean the end of being able to do the work I love or risk my family’s home and savings.
This is why she is really either really dumb or wants to retire and doesn’t care what happens to the business. She knew the law. Absent the law, she knows Yelp exists (note what the reviews say when they’re not pontificating). You just don’t piss off a bunch of long-standing clients that way, because most people who buy flowers don’t buy them on a regular basis and they don’t buy them from independent florists. I have a real hard time feeling sorry for anyone involved in this case, to be honest. Nobody with a lick of sense gets involved in civil rights lawsuits for the money. She’s not representing herself out of her own pocket because she would’ve settled a long time ago. She was making quite a bit of money ($174,000) from her GoFundMe page before the service shut it down and she has quite a bit of money coming in from Alliance Defending Freedom org.
LikeLike
“This is why she is really either really dumb or wants to retire and doesn’t care what happens to the business. She knew the law. Absent the law, she knows Yelp”
LikeLike
You are forgetting that she is religious. Religion is a higher authority for her than Yelp. It does still happen that there are genuinely religious people. They are a dying breed. A true minority under threat of extinction.
Do you have any idea how ridiculous this argument sounds to actual religious minorities in this country? Or how this suit sounds to Christian people abroad who are being persecuted for their religion, regardless of which side they’d take? I know genuinely religious conservative people and they are not a dying breed by any means. Ask yourself why she’s not getting amicus briefs from conservative Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Mormon organizations, who do not approve of homosexuality at all. I know people who center their social lives around their religion and they are not consumed with consumerist choices.
LikeLike
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous this argument sounds to actual religious minorities in this country? Or how this suit sounds to Christian people abroad who are being persecuted for their religion, regardless of which side they’d take?”
What does it matter, though? People feel how they feel. The “think of the starving children in Uganda” argument will only alienate them. Why not give them a guarantee that they can believe what they want, teach it in their tiny, insignificant colleges, practice it in their few flower shops, and get their votes in return? How is it an electorally smart decision to push them away with this kind of lawsuits, with toilet laws, with trying to take away funding from their colleges whose name nobody even remembers?
As the link I posted the other day said, is this helping win Iowa? If not, then why are we doing it?
LikeLike
Making a big legal fuss over isolated, ridiculous situations like this worked for ambitious state attorneys-general during the Obama era because of the then-prevailing political winds — which were expected to continue under Hillary. (Remember Loretta Lynch going on television and passionately comparing the transgender bathroom issue to be the struggle for black civil rights?)
Now that Trump is going to create a reliably conservative Supreme Court, running cases like this through the courts could backfire in a major way, if the Supreme Court reacted by explicitly endorsing “religious liberty” laws.
LikeLike
Yes, I was shocked by Loretta Lynch’s performance. It was a case of unforgivable obliviousness. And then people wonder why 80% of Evangelicals voted for Trump.
LikeLike
As a gay man, I have to say I agree that suing this florist was just a dumb, dumb idea. I think most Americans nowadays already support LGBT rights (or at least LGB rights), but this lawsuit is exactly the type of thing that leads some ambivalent people to conclude that we really are trying to force our “lifestyle” down everyone else’s throat…
LikeLike
Exactly. Great comment.
LikeLike
” this lawsuit is exactly the type of thing that leads some ambivalent people to conclude that we really are trying to force our “lifestyle” down everyone else’s throat”
I’m completely in favor of gay rights (including same sex marriage) but with rights come responsibilities, number one of them is Don’t be a Giant Douche-bag.
The most charitable explanation for the mens’ lawsuit is they’re channeling unresolved anger at some family member (who rejected them) toward the florist.
But I still think they startd this looking for a pay day (and may have shopped around looking for a refusal to sue).
LikeLike
The viciousness and the extent of the attack against the old woman — the attorney general of Washington State suing Stutzman for violating the state’s anti-discrimination law, followed by personal lawsuits against her filed by the two young men with the help of the ACLU, followed by a state court stating that she “must provide full support for wedding ceremonies that are contrary to her faith,” and adding the requirement that both the state and the same-sex couple “may collect damages and attorneys fees not only from her business, but from her personally,” clearly adds up to a political vendetta aimed at her from multiple directions.
The attorney general, the ACLU, and the state courts involved aren’t simply trying to slap her on the wrist to teach her a lesson. They’re on a political mission to CRUSH her permanently — either because they sincerely believe that her religious beliefs are evil and must be made an example of by their utter destruction — or because they sense political blood in the water that will be a big boost to their careers.
They may find that the tide is about to reverse direction, and that very few members of the public will care when they get swept out to sea and drown in the rip tide of their own greed.
LikeLike
Once you get in a rut, it’s hard to get out..The gay rights movement is so used to fighting for marriage that some people can’t stop fighting for it long after winning.
LikeLike
What do you think of this explanation of Clinton’s loss?
http://www.technologyasnature.com/the-real-reason-dems-lost/
LikeLike
Of course, the premiums going up was a huge hit. I wouldn’t say that nobody discussed it because there was wall-to-wall coverage of the issue. Even Bill Clinton said on the campaign trail that Obama care is a disaster.
However. Simple, straightforward materialism doesn’t work. We have no budget in Illinois, yet the likelihood that people will reelect the governor who keeps us without a budget, without any health insurance, etc is high. If it only were as simple as give them goodies and they’ll vote for you.
LikeLike