BOOM! Courthouse Hands Christian Business Owner A VICTORY In The Name Of Religious Freedom!

by Margaret M. | May 17, 2017 5:42 pm

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After years of hearing about the abuse of Memories Pizza and Sweet Cakes by Melissa by groups looking to make examples of Christian-owned establishments, this is great news. These establishments refused to serve potential clients due to the fact that their products were to be purchased for gay marriages, an institution generally frowned upon by many Christian sects. Why you’d want pizza at your gay wedding, or why you’d want a cake decorator who disagreed with your life choices to make the cake you planned to share with your beloved, is beyond me.

Trump’s birthday is coming up in June and I can’t imagine being shocked if any service provider to that party would prefer to refuse service on their political grounds. If you don’t want to be forced to make 4,000 MAGA themed cupcakes, you shouldn’t have to. And now, this level of common sense is being seen in the courts where a print shop’s right to refuse to spread a particular message is in the news.

As reported in The Lexington Herald Leader:

In a 2-to-1 decision, a panel of appeals judges affirmed an earlier decision by Fayette Circuit Judge James Ishmael, who struck down a finding by the Lexington Human Rights Commission that the business violated the city’s fairness ordinance.

Hands On Originals’ managing owner, Blaine Adamson, refused to print T-shirts for the 2012 Lexington Pride Festival because he disagreed with the shirt’s gay pride message.

“Because of my Christian beliefs, I can’t promote that,” Adamson told a Human Rights Commission hearing officer. “Specifically, it’s the Lexington Pride Festival, the name and that it’s advocating pride in being gay and being homosexual, and I can’t promote that message. It’s something that goes against my belief system.”

Chief Judge Joy A. Kramer wrote the decision, stating that refusal to print shirts for a Pride parade is not the same as refusing to serve them due to the sexual behavior of their members, since printing on a shirt is a message that falls under speech (emphasis mine):

A Christian who owns a printing company should not be compelled to spread a group’s message if he disagrees with it, Kramer wrote.

“The right of free speech does not guarantee to any person the right to use someone else’s property,” Kramer wrote.

“In other words, the ‘service’ Hands On Originals offers is the promotion of messages,” she wrote. “The ‘conduct’ Hands On Originals chose not to promote was pure speech. There is no contention that Hands On Originals is a public forum in addition to a public accommodation. Nothing in the fairness ordinance prohibits Hands On Originals, a private business, from engaging in viewpoint or message censorship.”

That was simple, wasn’t it?

Now, give me a call when one of these Pride parades call up a Muslim-owned print shop and demand for their shirts to be made.

h/t The Blaze[2]

Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-451474560-1280x720-e1495136572109.jpg
  2. h/t The Blaze: http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/05/15/kentucky-court-hands-christian-business-owner-huge-victory-in-fight-to-preserve-religious-freedom/

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