Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Ending Property Rights: What "Add the Words" Really Means





New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez was a regular customer of Santa Fe hair stylist Antonio Darden. About two years ago, Darden decided that he would no longer accept the Governor as a client because of her public support for the conventional definition of marriage as a monogamous, heterosexual arrangement. This was a perfectly legitimate exercise of Daren's absolute property right as the owner of his business.

Six years earlier, New Mexico resident Elaine Huguenin, who runs a photography business, declined a request to photograph a commitment ceremony between two women. In doing so, Mrs. Huguenin broke no contract, violated no promise, and didn't defraud anybody. 


Like Darden, Mrs. Huguenin exercised her absolute property right as a business owner, which includes the unqualified freedom to accept or reject clients at her sole discretion. Darden was publicly praised for his decision. Huguenin was prosecuted. 

Rather than simply finding another photographer willing to take their business, the aggrieved women who had contacted Huguenin filed a complaint with a bureaucratic body calling itself the Human Rights Commission, which is more accurately described as the state's Social Relations Soviet. The agency ruled that Huguenin had committed an act of “sexual orientation discrimination” and imposed a fine of nearly $7,000. Part of that sum went to the plaintiffs. By then they had who found another photographer willing to make a record of their ceremony, which was performed by a female cleric in Taos.

The material outcome of that ruling – which was upheld by the New Mexico State Supreme Court – was not only to punish Mrs. Huguenin for peacefully exercising exactly the same right that Mr. Darden had invoked, but to force her to pay for a ceremony that embodied a religious view she does not share. As Thomas Jefferson would summarize the affair, Mrs. Huguenin and her husband (and business partner) were compelled “to furnish contributions of money to pay for the propagation of opinions” that violated their principles, an official action Jefferson described as “sinful and tyrannical.”

Not surprisingly, the Huguenin case may be headed to the US Supreme Court. The petition filed on behalf of her business, Elane Photography, lays great emphasis on the offenses committed by the government of New Mexico against rights supposedly guaranteed by the First Amendment – freedom of speech (including protection against compelled speech) and freedom of religion. 


The elemental question in this case, however, is a question of property rights and equal protection: Why can a gay hairdresser refuse business on the basis of the potential client's views of “same-sex” marriage, while a Christian wedding photographer is punished for using her property rights to withhold approval of that practice?

The answer to that question, in policy terms, is this: Eleven years ago, the State of New Mexico “Added the Words” – that is, it amended its Human Rights Act to include “sexual orientation” among the “protected classes of people” against whom discrimination would not be permitted.

Remember that phrase, “Add the words”; we’ll return to it shortly. 

In September 2006, Vanessa Willock sent an e-mail to Elane Huguenin inquiring about her services:

“We are researching potential photographers for our commitment ceremony.... This is a same-gender ceremony. If you are open to helping us celebrate our day we'd like to receive pricing information.”

Were this a civilized society, that message would have been seen as an invitation that could be accepted or declined at the choice of the recipient. Acting on the mistaken assumption that she was dealing with a peer and potential client, rather than someone assigned to a “specially protected class,” Mrs. Huguenin dispatched a polite reply: “As a company, we photograph traditional weddings, engagements, seniors, and several other things such as political photographs and singer's portfolios.”


“I'm a bit confused,” Willock stated in her follow-up email, somewhat disingenuously. “Are you saying that your company does not offer your photography to same-sex couples?”

“Sorry if our response was a confusing one,” Mrs. Huguenin said in her forthright reply. “Yes, you are correct in saying we do not photograph same-sex weddings, but again, thanks for checking out our site! Have a great day.”

According to Willock, whose sense of privilege appears to be as over-developed as her capacity for pointless drama, Huguenin's candid but friendly response left her “shocked, angered and saddened,” as well as “fearful, because she considered the opposition to same-sex to be so blatant.”  In addition to being alarmed by fact that somebody in New Mexico disagreed with her views, Willock interpreted Hugein's statement – which, it should be noted, said nothing about the reasons for her company's policy – was “an expression of hatred.”

On the basis of nothing she did or said, and motives imputed to her by a stranger who had never met her, Elane Huguenin was designated a Thought Criminal. 

A few weeks later, Willock's partner – following what has become the standard entrapment procedure in “hate crimes” cases of this sort – committed wire fraud by sending a bogus email inquiry to Elane Photography inquiring about services at a traditional wedding. This act of deception was an exercise in privileged malice, and a criminal conspiracy: The intent was to inflict a financial injury on someone who had peacefully exercised her unqualified right to withhold participation in a proposed business relationship.


Under New Mexico's “Human Rights Act” (NMHRA), however, Elane Huguenin supposedly has a legal and moral duty to surrender her property rights when approached by someone who numbered among what the state Supreme Court calls “protected classes of people.” 

In fact, according to the court, the entire purpose of the NMHRA is “to promote the equal rights of people within certain specified classes”; in practice, this nullifies the principle of equal protection for those not clothed in the government's favor. This is why a gay hairdresser can employ the issue of “same-sex marriage” to screen his client list, but a Christian photographer cannot do likewise.

Huguenin's “asserted right not to serve same-sex couples directly conflicts with Willock's right [under the NMHRA] to obtain goods and services from a public accommodation without discrimination on the basis of her sexual orientation,” the court piously pretends. However, there is no conflict, unless we assume that Willock had a property right in Huguenin's service – in other words, that when Willock approached Huguenin, the prospective client had the “right” to compel the photographer to serve her.

Slavery and involuntary servitude aren't identical, but both are prohibited by law in this country. Nevertheless, they are tolerated, and even required, by the Regime when those controlling it consider this to be necessary.

A slave is somebody who has no right to say “no” – to withhold his or her consent to a transaction, or to refuse participation in a proposed undertaking. Slaves do not own themselves or any property they acquire. Everything they are and have may be seized and employed to serve the will of others. This is the ineluctable product of government policies that assign some people to “specially protected classes.” Once that principle is established, any limits on impositions made in its name are provisional and fleeting.

Those who support coercive fine-tuning of social and commercial arrangements assume that rights can be “balanced” by bureaucrats blessed with infinite insight and bottomless wisdom. But the only way rights can actually be balanced is to recognize, and follow, three principles: 1) All rights are property rights; 2) property rights are absolute; and 3) aggression is always morally wrong and cannot be permitted. 

In its continuing campaign to re-indoctrinate wavering statists who are tempted by individualist heresies, Salon recently published an essay assailing libertarian views regarding anti-discrimination measures. In this case, Salon focused on a proposed measure in Kansas (which was subsequently defeated) that would recognize the right of business owners not to accept patronage from homosexual couples. 

The purported defects in this proposal were illustrated by a scenario in which a restaurant owner, offended by a group of customers who gathered to celebrate a same-sex wedding, ordered them to leave. Rather than doing so the celebrants dug in their heels to protest the owner's unacceptable political views. This prompted the owner to call the police, who – in Salon's rendering – were given the choice of either enforcing the owner's prejudices, or protecting the supposed rights of the now-unwelcome customers to be free from “discrimination.”

"Since it is the state that is ultimately tasked to bring out the violent enforcers who effectuate the discriminating intents of public accommodations providers, the state literally cannot get out of the way,” the homily concludes, reverently invoking the prophet of the divine totalitarian state: “As Vladimir Lenin once retorted, the question is not whether you support freedom or not; rather, the question is freedom `for whom? To do what?'”

This is only two-thirds of the Leninist formula, under which the chief political question is: “Freedom for whom to do what to whom.” As long as the “who” in that equation belongs to a “specially protected” class, the “what” is morally inconsequential – whether it is expropriation, the imposition of involuntary servitude, or physical liquidation.

Collectivism is an exercise in identity politics. For those who understand and cherish individual liberty – which means unconditional property rights – matters of identity are immaterial: What is being done, not who is doing it or to whom, is the chief concern. If the “what” is aggression, it is always morally wrong and cannot be countenanced.


In the case described by Salon, customers who ignore a request to leave are trespassing, thereby aggressively violating the business owner's property rights. If they refuse to leave peacefully, the owner is morally entitled to use defensive force to evict them, should this prove necessary. 

If we are going to countenance the existence of a political government, its only legitimate function would be to protect property rights against aggression. This would mean helping the business owner deal with intransigent trespassers, just as it would mean coming to the aid of a gay business owner dealing with a threat to his property rights. 

As I’ve noted before, “anti-discrimination” measures institutionalize criminal aggression against property rights. This is compellingly explained in Our Secret Constitution: How Lincoln Redefined American Democracy, by George P. Fletcher, a Marxist Columbia University School of Law professor who supports this arrangement.

Since the Union’s victory in the War Between the States, Fletcher contends, the reconfigured United States has been ruled through a “secret constitution” that codifies an entirely different “consensus” than the original written document – one rooted in open-ended and, in principle, unlimited government aggression against the citizenry. 

“The heart of the new consensus is that the federal government, victorious in warfare, must continue its aggressive intervention in the lives of its citizens,” writes Fletcher.  In the original concept, individual liberty was protected (at least, in theory) by limiting government involvement in property rights and private life. However, Fletcher insists, “the liberty that comes to the fore in the intended postbellum constitutional order and under the Secret Constitution requires the intervention of government. Liberty is born in the state's assertion of responsibility to oversee and prevent relationships of oppression.” (Emphasis added.) 


This is a precise application of Lenin's “who/whom” dichotomy – and an explicit endorsement of Lenin's ruling formula, under which government exercises “power without limit, resting directly on force.”

The purpose of “Human Rights Acts” like the one used against Elane Huguenin is to define “relationships of oppression” in order to decide who gets to enlist state aggression against whom. If Vanessa Willcock had made her email inquiry to Elane Photography in 2003, and been offended by the reply, she probably would have been able to arrange her commitment ceremony – but she wouldn’t have been able to inflict unconscionable misery on Mrs. Huguenin as punishment for disagreeing with her. That’s because prior to that year, Willcock was not a member of a “specially protected class”; she received that status because the state legislature decided to “add the words.”

Here in Idaho for several years, a well-funded and well-organized pressure campaign calling itself “Add the Words” has been demanding that the Idaho Human Rights Act likewise inscribe “sexual orientation” among the protected categories. Rather than “adding the words,” the legislature should delete the law and reinvigorate the principle of equal protection of property rights. That isn’t going to happen, of course. 

During the current legislative session, protesters from the “Add the Words” movement have thrown tantrums in the State Capitol and held vigils state-wide, where they can bask in their mutually-reinforced, self-absorbed sanctimony while indulging their fantasies of righteous victimhood. Former Republican Governor Phil Batt, who wrote the 1969 Human Rights Act, has endorsed the “Add the Words” campaign.


“I would like to have somebody explain to me who is going to be harmed by adding the words to our civil rights statutes,” Batt groused in an Idaho Statesman op-ed column. “Oh, I forgot – that might hurt the feelings of gay-bashers.”

Elane Huguenin didn’t bash anybody, and the injuries she suffered at the hands of New Mexico’s Tolerance Cheka were much more substantial than mere hurt feelings. But Batt and people of his totalitarian persuasion aren’t interested in hearing from people like Huguenin; they’re the “whom,” rather than the “who,” after all. 

Update: Salon's Casual Totalitarianism 


In the most recent in its continuing series of totalitarian parables, Salon published an essay by Brian Beutler making use of a familiar trope: An American expat creates a colony on an uninhabited island, and decides to "start from scratch." 

Displaying the impoverished imagination that typifies statist thinking, Beutler assumes that the "new" society would inevitably recreate the existing system, which, after all, is a product of irresistible historical forces and embodies the best of all possible worlds. This means that "starting from scratch" must include "government subsidy" for hospitals and schools, and a ruling authority that dispenses "privileges" as it sees fit. And the ruler of this "new" society -- presumably, the reader to whom the parable is directed -- will wind up "balancing" rights and assigning "privileges" according to the state's "compelling interest." This is because the state encompasses all social activity -- or, as Mussolini summarized the matter in his familiar totalitarian formula: "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." 

In matters of discrimination, the state will countenance the limited exercise of discretion by people who operate businesses over such matters as customer decorum ("No shoes, no shirt, no service"), or allowing them to refuse to conduct business with members of groups that have earned society's disfavor, such as Klansmen. But this is a privilege to be defined by those operating the state, not a property right exercised by the business owner.

As a result, Beutler informs the reader, "you’ve decided that the state has a compelling interest in protecting LGBT people from discrimination that doesn’t extend to Klansmen or people who go shirtless. You will use state power to remove a Klansman from the store if he won’t leave voluntarily, and simultaneously use state power to make sure you serve the same-sex couple. And there’s no contradiction here" -- because, of course, the question is "who does what to whom," with the state identifying the "who" and "whom" in that equation. 

"Store owners need to have a great deal of control over their properties — otherwise they won’t be able to run their businesses — but they can’t have complete control, or else you’ll be compelled to enforce broadly discriminatory rules, and you won’t do that," Buetler concludes, tacitly -- and, for all I know, ignorantly -- embracing the fascist economic model in which private "ownership" of property is graciously permitted, but only to achieve state-ordained outcomes. 

This little exercise in casual totalitarianism, like everything else Salon has recently published in the subject of individual liberty and discrimination, is intended to reassure wavering believers, not to persuade those who don't belong to the cult of the state.


Folks, we're desperate -- and I know there's a lot of that going around. Anything you can provide to help keep Pro Libertate on-line will be very much appreciated. Please note that we're now accepting Bitcoin, as well. Thanks, and God bless! 







Dum spiro, pugno!

22 comments:

  1. Mr Grigg, do you have to compare "gay" to "Christian"? A non-Christian, ie Buddhist or atheist photographer may believe in heterosexual marriage. A gay can also be Christian.

    ~~
    LAVA
    ~~

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  2. LAVA, the false dichotomy you identify was imposed on this controversy by the anti-discrimination police in New Mexico (and elsewhere). I suspect, but can't prove, that if Elane's Photography had been owned and operated by a non-Christian entrepreneur who refused to acknowledge same-sex marriage, the New Mexico "human rights" apparat wouldn't have pursued this case so zealously -- but that hypothetical question isn't germane to the property rights question.

    I'm not dealing with matters of identity and labels, or in personal opinions regarding marriage, but rather in questions of property rights.

    And as a believer who understands that there has only been One exception to the category "sinner," I would never define fellowship to exclude anybody who is earnestly seeking redemption.

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  3. Mr Grigg, Salon might be told to imagine a GAY restaurant owner trying to refuse any or all members of the Fred Phelps family or the members of their "church" !

    I suppose comments are still open on their article.

    Do you know how "Huguenin" is pronounced?



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  4. This is a country at war against it's citizens. And the rule of law is dead so we have no obligation any longer to obey the law or to represent ourselves honestly to the system. People need to use the tools of our oppressors against our oppressors. Just as a POW has no obligation to tell his captors the truth, our jail keepers don't deserve our respect or our honesty. We can no longer afford to give strangers the benefit of the doubt: they need to earn our trust. Every stranger is now a potential enemy. Otherwise, those without honor will use the truth against us.

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  5. I suspect that once the new privileges are well promulgated, there will be more pay in advance deals, with poor quality service and product the result.

    There are still ways to say no, while saying yes. In economic terms, it is called "the slave's secret". It is why free labor is always an economic threat to involuntary servitude. Incentives matter.

    Personally, I wouldn't want a cake from a baker who didn't like me. But now the baker won't tell me that he doesn't like me. So, "let them eat cake".

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  6. Absolutely brilliant, Mr Grigg!

    I liked this best:

    "Those who support coercive fine-tuning of social and commercial arrangements assume that rights can be “balanced” by bureaucrats blessed with infinite insight and bottomless wisdom. But the only way rights can actually be balanced is to recognize, and follow, three principles: 1) All rights are property rights; 2) property rights are absolute; and 3) aggression is always morally wrong and cannot be permitted."

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  7. The next logical step here, of course is to stop restricting the abridgement of choice to businesses.

    We should force consumers to choose between business owned by the protected ones. Receipts could be color coded: Black, yellow, white, lavender etc and people would have to prove that they spent their money at establishments in proportion to the representation of protected class business owners in the community.

    I envision Annual spending report enforced by the IRS

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  8. There is no such thing as an absolute property right in American law. Where did that absurd idea come from? Property--personal or business--is subject to law. The Huguenins believe themselves above the rule of law and that their personal religious beliefs free them from any obligation to obey public laws that regulate business. They're going to find out the hard way that the law says otherwise. Maybe absolute rights based on personal beliefs are the order of the day in libertarian La-La land, but here in the real world the law is supreme.

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  9. The forgoing comment makes perfect sense if one subscribes to the idea that government defines law, rather than being defined by it. On that construction, the "rule of law" is whatever government ordains, which is a roundabout way of endorsing Lenin's formula ("power without limit, resting directly on force").

    Mark's comment is a direct transliteration of criticisms hurled at abolitionists in the 1850s who invoked the higher law -- that of self-ownership and non-aggression -- as they systematically undermined a measure called the "Fugitive Slave Law." That disreputable movement likewise invoked personal religious and ethical beliefs in defiance of their supposed "obligations" under what was called the law.

    The Fugitive Slave "Law," like the arrangement Mark is defending, was based on the false assumption that some people could claim a property right in the involuntary service of others. So Mark's perspective has a long pedigree, albeit a thoroughly disreputable one.

    All legitimate law is rooted in the principle of non-aggression. This doesn't limit property; it protects it.

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  10. Loved reading this article! Brilliant takedown of the blatant hypocrisy of how gays can refuse to serve people based on their political or moral views, yet non gays cannot escape the barrel of the government's implied gun. The point about Lincoln the tyrant is also true - though the leftists who worship Lincoln are always embarrassed and start making excuses when the facts about Lincoln wanting to kick out every black person, his support for an amendment to the constitution allowing slavery, his enforcing of the fugitive slave act even during the war, how the emancipation proclamation did not free a single slave bc it only applied to the areas not under Lincoln's control, and his many racist statements about the inferiority of the black race.

    I also really enjoyed seeing your takedown of Mark in the comments section!

    I will be donating tomorrow what i can, but wish it was more.

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  11. I just donated $20. I sure wish i could give more, but I think if most of your readers gave 20 a month you would be in ok shape. Your work is easily worth 20 a month, and i hope others can contribute. Heck, this article was worth 20 by itself!

    I will be praying for you, and hope you are able to continue your one man war against the police state. It reminds me a lot of Ron Paul crying out in the wilderness by himself for decades about The Fed - the rest of the country will one day catch up to your position.

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  12. Washington D.eath C.ultMarch 15, 2014 at 1:47 PM

    Will, love you man, hang in there.
    I've donated before, but have been financially impoverished myself for much too long and am unable to help you in that regard for the time-being.


    "All legitimate law is rooted in the principle of non-aggression. This doesn't limit property; it protects it."

    Great truth you've uttered there.

    Seems the State has usurped that true purpose of law and legally deformed it for it's own benefit.

    Will, there's a website I think you should peruse, if you haven't already - http://servantking.info/

    It's authored by a former attorney (simply identifies himself as Marcus) and I think you'll find it worth your time to check out. In particular, a couple video series he's put together called "Confusion" and "Unraveling".

    Like to hear your thoughts sometime, on his perspective.

    Please Carry On, Brother.

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  13. The irony here is strong. Here we have an apparatus allegedly constructed to enhance tolerance, yet for it to operate it requires the supposed "victims" to act intolerantly!

    That is, Huguenin was being perfectly tolerant; in fact tolerance does not even require her to be polite to those she rejects, though she was. It only requires she not attack them. On the other hand, Willock, rather than being tolerant, actually was intolerant of Huguenin, in employing the state agency as her attack dog.

    As to rights, I don't believe in them. That's just a notion invented a couple of hundred years ago to enhance liberty, but since then appropriated by the state for its own purposes. There are no rights to this or that. There is only will. As Frederick Douglass said, "Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." Rights are simply irrelevant in this picture.

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  14. Ms. Huguenin's mistake was made at the very beginning, when she replied to the email. That email said IF you will serve, we would appreciate prices...
    All Huguenin had to do was delete the email without comment.
    I understand the desire to acknowledge a person and thank an enquiry, but "we won't serve you" was a slap in the face to those she refused to serve. That hurts! No matter whether the language of it be polite or curses. THAT is why the lawsuit came about.
    Had Huguenin simply deleted the mail, the ladies would have been looking elsewhere and found what they wanted without difficulty.

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  15. Yup. One is a homophobic bigot, the other was making an important point about LGBT rights. The homophobe is on the wrong side of history, the other represents a modern morality.

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  16. ... and people on the "wrong side of history" are just fodder for the guillotine, the gulag, or the gas chamber.

    There's nothing novel about the "modern morality" you describe: The same argument was offered even more forcefully in a 1920 editorial by Krasni Mech (The Red Sword), a publication of the Soviet Cheka secret police:

    "Our morality has no precedent, and our humanity is absolute, because it rests on a new ideal. Our aim is to destroy all forms of oppression and violence. To us, everything is permitted, for we are the first to raise the sword not to oppress races and reduce them to slavery, but to liberate humanity from its shackles .... Blood? Let blood flow like water . .. for only through the death of the old world can we liberate ourselves forever."

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  17. So if gays have rights and private businesses cannot refuse service to them - while apparently gay bars and hairdressers can refuse service based on beliefs - do the same leftists believe all businesses should be forced to serve gun owners? That no business can deny entry from someone with a conceal carry license? After all, even almost all of the gun banners claim they believe the 2ns amendment is an individual right out of political necessity.

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  18. Blogger Mark said...

    "There is no such thing as an absolute property right in American law. Where did that absurd idea come from? Property--personal or business--is subject to law. The Huguenins believe themselves above the rule of law and that their personal religious beliefs free them from any obligation to obey public laws that regulate business. They're going to find out the hard way that the law says otherwise. Maybe absolute rights based on personal beliefs are the order of the day in libertarian La-La land, but here in the real world the law is supreme."


    If Law is Absolute then we need to prosecute the Gays for sodomy in all the States that sodomy is illegal also same applies to the gay's in the military were sodomy is illegal in all branches. You cannot regulate or make Laws on morality issues unless that moral issue is agreed upon by the masses, i.e. Murder, Rape..... Most of these comments are great the others are idiotic people with blinders on... I like to call you all sheeple. Go ahead and follow the flock to the wolf...morons.

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  19. Billy, you're just a yellow journalist who isn't a good enough writer to get a real job. American patriots aren't even aware you exist.
    Loooooooooooooooooosseeeeeeeerrrrrr!!!!!!

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  20. Actually, I'm a very pleasant shade of brown -- and there are abundant rewards to be found in knowing that whatever minimal notoriety I enjoy is enough to provoke the hostility of cowardly, anonymous collectivist trolls. :-)


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  21. I am bisexual, I am pro gay marriage, I am very involved in the fight (and yes it IS a fight) for sovereignty for ALL. if these events occured as described in this article I am offended at the behaviors of the people who brought about this lawsuit against the wedding photographer. She shouidve just ignored the email, sadly. Even sadder is the fact that she was punished for her choice to not accommodate services for same sex weddings. Take your business elsewhere! Why bother giving them the time of day and there are plenty of gay friendly and gay owned businesses which will thrive if patronized! People have a right to be jerks provided they aren't violent or oppressive or cause harm. Having your feelings hurt in such a POLITE and acceptable way as far as I'm concerned is not damage. I'm offended that the photographer had to pay $7000 for this! Gay people have indeed suffered from stigmatization marginalization, they have been denied liberty on many fronts and worse- they've been categorized as mentally Ill (the DSM was updated to reflect that gay is not a mental illness) and they've been the victims of hate crimes including death. As a demographic they have indeed needed protection! And why shouldn't same sex couples be able to benefit the same as hetero couples in regard to tax breaks, inheritances, the right to be at your mates bedside at the hospital if they are sick and dying. How about fair housing? Employment? Lesbians and gays have had their children taken from them merely over their orientation where otherwise they had not shown themselves to be unfit parents.

    Yes, I'd say that some members of the LGBT community are a bit upset and out for blood. When you've grown up in a world that has sought to deny you at every turn, for reasons based in vastly religious ideologies, in a culture that hasn't thought twice about denying you your liberties merely based on your sexual orientation, what do you do? Lay down and take it- or start making waves and fighting back?

    I'm certain there are many amongst the LGBT community such as myself, who can't stand the government's behavior on just about anything, we are talking an extremely corrupt system. We don't want ANYONE'S liberties being infringed upon. We've experienced being disenfranchised and don't want to see this happening to ANYONE.

    I agree that situations like this are wrong. But are you also taking into consideration how the LGBT population has been consistently and vastly discriminated against in a multitude of ways? Do you blame them for fighting for their liberties which have been so often denied them?

    I feel that many don't understand the government or the workings of law well enough to understand all of the implications. I feel that after watching their peers commit suicide, watching their peers being denied access to their loved ones at hospitals, after being denied the liberties they see other people enjoying with impunity- those liberties which they have been denied based on religious ideologies they don't share, watching as other gays and lesbians have been assaulted and even murdered with no justice resulting- these are people who want TO LIVE AND BE WHO THEY WANT TO BE. perhaps had you walked a mile in their shoes you would understand. You talk as though these gays were just full of themselves as if they have no reason to be outraged.

    Where do you suggest they channel their feelings? What do you suggest they do to effect change for the better? Or should they just go away?

    How do you protect EVERYONE and honor EVERYONE? Or rather how does a so called government by the people LOL protect and honor all of its people- all of the diversity?

    That's the question I want an answer for.

    Frankly, I think religion and most ideologies need to go. But that's just me.

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  22. Thank you for your insightful comments. This is definitely history in the making for our time.

    The long list of invasive measures pushed by the gay lobby and embraced by politicians are fast encroaching our freedoms.

    Further sign our world is ripening in inequity = when the majority of the people choose wickedness over good then we know we are ripe.

    Get your life right with God and buy your canned wheat - 360 lbs per person = a year supply plus 25# beans. Canned dry beans, canned whole wheat (not flour).

    Cheers!

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