♫anna♫
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karma:
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 5, 2012 23:31:51 GMT
www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/05/nm-court-upholds-gay-discrimination-ruling/ QUOTE: NM court upholds gay discrimination rulingJune 05, 2012 Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A professional photographer who refused to take pictures of a gay couple's commitment ceremony violated state anti-discrimination laws, the New Mexico Court of Appeals has ruled. The court on Thursday agreed with a previous ruling, in which a district court judge said the photo studio is considered public, similar to a restaurant or store, and cannot refuse service based on sexual orientation, the Albuquerque Journal reported (http://bit.ly/JSAdE5 ). The photography studio had argued that its refusal was not an act of discrimination but a reflection of the owners' religious and moral beliefs. Vanessa Willock asked the studio, Elane Photography, in 2006 about taking pictures of a same-gender ceremony but was told it handled only traditional weddings. When her partner contacted the studio without revealing her sexual orientation, she was given a price list and sent a follow-up email. Willock filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, which ruled that Elane Photography violated the state Human Rights Act and ordered it to pay nearly $7,000 in legal fees. A district court later upheld the commission's ruling. Appellate court Judge Tim Garcia said a 1981 state Supreme Court case expanded the concept of public accommodation to include nontraditional and non-historic businesses. The opinion is in line with a national trend, said Tobias Barrington Wolff, a University of Pennsylvania School of Law professor who represented Willock on appeal. "I really think what's most important about this case is that it is the first time (New Mexico) appellate courts have talked about scope of the statute in a really comprehensive way," he said. The Alliance Defense Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based legal alliance of Christian attorneys and others that represented the studio, plans to appeal. Elane Photography argued that it provided discretionary, unique and expressive services that aren't a public accommodation under the Human Rights Act. The studio asked hypothetically whether an African-American photographer would be required to photograph a Ku Klux Klan rally. The court responded: "The Ku Klux Klan is not a protected class. Sexual orientation, however, is protected."
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Post by Hunny on Jun 6, 2012 0:50:39 GMT
Well, when blacks got their civil rights, the law that they could no longer be discriminated against had to be forced onto those who wanted to break the new law, so....same thing I guess.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2012 11:26:03 GMT
I'm in two minds about this. On one hand the court was absolutely right. On the other hand, who wants to hire a photographer who doesn't approve of the event he is taking pictures of? Though any honourable professional would either disguise this or sub-contract the job to someone who could enter into the spirit of the occasion.
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Post by iamjumbo on Jun 6, 2012 13:51:54 GMT
I'm in two minds about this. On one hand the court was absolutely right. On the other hand, who wants to hire a photographer who doesn't approve of the event he is taking pictures of? Though any honourable professional would either disguise this or sub-contract the job to someone who could enter into the spirit of the occasion. you're partially right, in that it shows how worthless these broads are to try to hire someone who despises them. the court was obviously wrong, however. a photographer is NOT public.
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Post by sadie1263 on Jun 6, 2012 15:56:06 GMT
I'm in two minds about this. On one hand the court was absolutely right. On the other hand, who wants to hire a photographer who doesn't approve of the event he is taking pictures of? Though any honourable professional would either disguise this or sub-contract the job to someone who could enter into the spirit of the occasion. True. Just asking for some really odd pictures!!!
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Post by mikemarshall on Jun 6, 2012 20:45:29 GMT
This is a difficult one. On the one hand I am against discrimination (including positive discrimination as it happens) and on the other hand I am in favour of liberty of conscience.
If an individual or group has an issue of conscience which makes it impossible for them to carry out certain actions then it is already recognised under the law that they have a right to refuse.
Conscientious objection is the most obvious example but others are nurses or doctors who refuse to perform abortions, Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions and so on.
Broadly speaking, I think the court has got it wrong.
If I were a professional photographer I would not have an issue about taking pictures of a gay couple going through a civil ceremony.
on the other hand, I might prefer to hand the assignment to someone else.
If the couple knew that the agency felt that gay unions were against their moral principles then IMO they acted with deliberate mischief and probably in the hope of obtaining financial compensation from the absurd culture of damages that exists within the law these days.
I would NOT have acted as the photographer did but then I would NOT have acted as the couple did either.
To me it seems that the court's ruling - however well intended it may have been and however much I applaud its opposition to discrimination - is a direct attack upon liberty of conscience.
And that troubles me greatly.
America, like Britain, has come under sustained attack in recent years from all kinds of groups who wish to subvert our democracy and our freedom.
The far left, the far right, religious fundamentalists and politically correct people are all seeking to overthrow our liberty and replace it with their own utopian visions.
I very much fear that this judgement, however much may be said in its favour - which is NOT a negligible amount - is an example of the wrong decision being reached for the right reasons.
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Post by trubble on Jun 7, 2012 10:06:36 GMT
This is a difficult one. On the one hand I am against discrimination (including positive discrimination as it happens) and on the other hand I am in favour of liberty of conscience. Then it should be quite easy for you. What liberty of conscience is removed by putting a system in place that makes sure your business does not discriminate against people based on your own whims and preferences? None, I would say. The photographer has not put such a system in place (as Skylark has pointed out, sub-contracting a job would solve the issue). The photographer wasn't ''marrying'' the couple, merely taking photographs of an event & it was possible to have someone on a team to take those photographs. I think the court has got it right. The wedding is legal and lawful. You can't have a situation where businesses can refuse services just because they don't agree with the law. You can't have a photographer who only photographs white people, for example. I more readily understand the cases where owners of small B&Bs (where someone effectively lets people stay in their spare rooms) feel unable to cope with gay couples staying there. You are inviting someone into your home and I think people must be allowed to choose who they invite into their home. However, it is really incumbent on the B&B owners to reconsider their choice of profession if they find it so difficult to do. And even more so with a wedding photographer. The law has changed, the world has moved on, and it's up to the businesses to cope with it. So you agree, then, that this photographer's choice was a little extreme? That's not impossible but do you have any proof or suggestion that they were not genuinely seeking the services of this wedding photographer, and then met with prejudice and discrimination? Maybe they are just fighting for civil rights - no mischief, just equality. I don't think damages were on the cards were they?? It was just a point of law being made with the loser paying the legal fees?? In other cases where ''mischief & money" is suspected as motivation, I've seen that damages paid have gone to charity etc. You might if you encountered discrimination enough times. I have some of the same worries but you have to weigh up both sides and choose which side's freedoms are being most attacked.I think a business has to comply with the law, and a couple that can marry lawfully should be able to expect to book photographers, caterers, venues, dressmakers, cake makers, invitation printers, flower arrangers, a big showy limo, and anything else that you or I could expect to book -- without fear of being turned away. If any of these services can't change to comply with the law, then they need to hire staff members who can deal with it, or sub-contract, or find a new profession! But really homosexual weddings don't subvert our democracy or freedom, in fact they extend it to its logical position. It's true that there's a militant aspect to movements, and I agree that we need sometimes to guard our freedom to disagree, which is why I don't think religious institutions should be bullied by state laws into a hasty re-think of their moral take on homosexuality. And likewise, state law - the people's law rather than God's - should guard everyone's freedom equally and not be bullied by claims that segregation laws are about protecting liberty of conscience. Some people think inter-racial marriages are immoral. They claim this is a practical belief as well as a moral judgement. Well, that's their prerogative, I guess. I don't understand it but...Go figure. But a business can't pick and choose like that. If we let businesses choose who to serve based on their owners' subjective moral positions then we are effectively allowing a lawless, mob-rule, segregationist society to develop -- the very opposite of what America and Great Britain stand for, by the way. Just imagine this case was about an inter-racial wedding and a photographer who refuses to serve mixed-race customers. It becomes very easy then, I think.
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Post by Hunny on Jun 7, 2012 10:52:20 GMT
You can't have a photographer who only photographs white people, for example. Exactly.
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Post by trubble on Jun 7, 2012 12:15:55 GMT
There's a blog discussing the case, and legal and ethical implications of compelling a photographer business to provide services for same-sex weddings in New Mexico. (Apparently New Mexico doesn't hold same-sex unions on the same footing as hetero-marriage, doesn't afford them equal rights, and the blogger asks why a photographer should if the government doesn't. Interesting point, I thought.) It's quite detailed, I have only read a little of it, but it's very interesting & worth sticking with IMHO - asks more questions than it solves: volokh.com/tag/elane-photography-v-willock/Is it permissible for the law to require freelance writers, composers, artists, editors, and the like to create speech that they don’t want to create?
"Say you’re a freelance writer, who holds himself out as a business offering to perform a service. Someone tries to hire you to write materials — press releases, Web site text, and the like — for a same-sex marriage planning company, a Scientology book distribution company, a state branch of the Socialist party, a company that gets its income through legal prostitution, or whatever else. (Note that some jurisdictions ban discriminate based on “political affiliation” and “source of income” as well as religion, sexual orientation, and the like.)
May the government force you, on pain of damages liability, to write those materials, even if you would prefer not to because of the sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, or whatever else to which the materials would be related? That’s what the trial court decision seems to hold. Or do you have a First Amendment right to choose which words you write and which you decline to write?" Post Script: (Looking at the case in more detail, I am beginning to question the court after all. My previous reply still stands when it comes to the principle of the matter, but maybe once I've read the details I will change my mind about this case.)
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
e x a l t | s m i t e
karma:
Posts: 11,769
|
Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 7, 2012 13:30:01 GMT
I suppose if the photographer wanted to avoid problems a claim like: "Oh sorry! I have another appointment during your ceremony!" would have avoided the troubles. The system here makes being honest an infraction of the rules!
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Post by sadie1263 on Jun 7, 2012 13:50:10 GMT
I think there is a difference here though.
If I am a "for hire" writer, photographer, etc......then I am saying my services can be bought and paid for..........by anyone.
If I do my own subject matter for my photography and then sell those.....I can choose what I take pics of.........same as for writing.
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Post by trubble on Jun 7, 2012 13:55:35 GMT
That's the distinction the court makes in its judgment apparently.
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Post by toby on Aug 10, 2012 15:15:03 GMT
trubble posted.:-I think the court has got it right. The wedding is legal and lawful.
Toby comments.:- It's not a ,'wedding', though is it ? only Hetero folk can get ,'married'. and you must have a male and a female.
""But really homosexual weddings don't subvert our democracy or freedom, in fact they extend it to its logical position."
I always say, thank God practitioners of strapadicktome cannot breed, your sort is doomed like the dinasour ! It's not a matter of subverting our democracy, it's all about repulsive acts being committed which normal folk find extremely distasteful, I know that queer folk cannot help doing what they do but don't expect the rest of us to fall in line and agree with it !
Anyway, Scientists in the USA are working on a cure and maybe soon they will find what went wrong and work out how to correct it.
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Post by toby on Aug 10, 2012 15:28:12 GMT
Trubble posted.:-Just imagine this case was about an inter-racial wedding and a photographer who refuses to serve mixed-race customers. It becomes very easy then, I think.
Toby comments.:- In this case I would say that if the Photographer was offended as most folk would be, then they could certainly refuse on the grounds of personal prejudice. You cannot legislate that folk may not be prejudiced and any Photographer has the right to withdraw his services if he/she feels they cannot do a good job due to (for example), laughing at the couples antics so much they cannot make a steady shot, that's for starters.
I suppose it must be the most horrendous thing in all the whole wide world to be mixed race and queer, because you must experience such a gamut of prejudice that your entire attitude to life would be seriously warped. !
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2012 20:04:30 GMT
Trubble posted.:-Just imagine this case was about an inter-racial wedding and a photographer who refuses to serve mixed-race customers. It becomes very easy then, I think. Toby comments.:- In this case I would say that if the Photographer was offended as most folk would be, then they could certainly refuse on the grounds of personal prejudice. You cannot legislate that folk may not be prejudiced and any Photographer has the right to withdraw his services if he/she feels they cannot do a good job due to (for example), laughing at the couples antics so much they cannot make a steady shot, that's for starters. I suppose it must be the most horrendous thing in all the whole wide world to be mixed race and queer, because you must experience such a gamut of prejudice that your entire attitude to life would be seriously warped. ! Believe it or not, Toby, most people don't feel the way you do.
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Post by chips on Aug 10, 2012 23:09:01 GMT
Sounds like a case of a Muslim Cafe owner being forced to make Pork sandwiches.
Interesting thread though.
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Post by toby on Aug 13, 2012 9:39:09 GMT
Skylark posted.:-Believe it or not, Toby, most people don't feel the way you do.
Toby comments.:- Have you any figures to back this up ?
Most folk don't really mind what homosexuals get up to, the days when to be a practising homosexual could get you arrested are long over and that's a good thing ! but just as I don't go around wittering on to all and sundry that I am an active heterosexual, I don't see any reason why I should put up with anybody trying to promote homosexuality which is after all, a perversion. Homosexuals can do what they want, when they want, but for heavens sake, let them keep quiet about it and not try to tell the rest of us normal folk that we should like and accept what they are doing.
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Post by chips on Aug 13, 2012 11:45:55 GMT
I am not PC and I do hold a diploma of freelance journalism and no one is going to force me to write what I don't want
Integrity is more important than cash.
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Post by Hunny on Aug 13, 2012 13:00:16 GMT
To understand the opinion in the United States, one has to take into account that we had slavery here - that as recently as the 1960's the cops would turn their eyes when blacks were hung from trees, and told they can't eat in the same restaurant as white people*. It took laws and the National Guard to end that. Though to this day discrimination against them still lingers. But at least we made discrimination illegal, so they have recourse, and they have our shared sense of contempt when it happens. Shortly after blacks got equal rights by law, women's lot changed from a really backwards oppressed condition. ...And then gays were accepted. ...And a black man was put in the White House. One by one, we view what we're doing as ending the unfairnesses institutionalized against different segments of the people. If you consider -though it's years later and we who are alive now aren't the ones who actually did slavery- we do bear the shameful feelings about our past. And THIS is the feeling that gets activated when we see someone being discriminated against. -for any reason. THIS is us distancing ourselves from having any part of that awful past, by making sure we have no feelings of hateful exclusion in us, towards anybody. I'm 100% behind having the law guarantee that gays, like everyone else, can't be discriminated against for what they are. If the guy doesn't want to take their picture, they have legal recourse. He may not like it, and here and there some business owners won't, but over time, we're eliminating discrimination.And those who resist now will disappear into history,and things will be right,as they should be That's what we're doing. That's why we jump to their defense, so that we aren't like those who discriminated in the past. And by our constitution, by the principles our country was founded on, it's supposed to be that "all (people) are created equal" and guaranteed "the pursuit of happiness" and "justice". So we need to live by that. We were brought up reciting it in school. And we need to make it so. And this is why. (It's also why that chicken restaurant is getting such a hard time for discriminating against gays too, now. We just wont have it.) Sure there are hold outs -mostly religious nuts, who strangely act as if hate and exclusion serve the interest of a religion that boasts of "love and forgiveness". But there are people who will forever hold out against many things -for instance the Amish, who wont use technology. So no matter how much time goes by, there always remains some that are backwards, about lots of thing, but they just exist as a tiny minority without voice, while society itself has moved on. *{It might help to understand that the generation in power, making the decisions, now (the boomers) grew up hearing about, and feeling appalled by, separate water fountains for blacks, having to ride only on the back of the bus, not being able to go in a white restaurant, etc
We were taught about "Indian Reservations" (how we stole their land and gave them unfarmable plots of dust to live on). We saw that women had no equal rights. And we saw rebellion against so many of these unfairnesses, that went on in the 60's and 70's. We were affected by the values of that time (ie, "peace and love").
And we were taught to know "by heart" that in America, by its Constitution, all people are equal and have the right to the pursuit of happiness, and justice.
So those making and upholding laws against discrimination now are the result of kids being taught that.}
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Post by Hunny on Aug 13, 2012 13:21:52 GMT
Sounds like a case of a Muslim Cafe owner being forced to make Pork sandwiches. That's an interesting example to cite. There are exceptions to most any rule, even on this. But in the U.S., discrimination based on gender, race, or sexual preference is illegal. So the photographer is not within his rights to refuse him. Many Americans -certainly the generation which is in power now- are reminded of blacks being unallowed to eat in the same restaurant as whites when we hear of this kind of thing happening. It seems really wrong to us to exclude people for what they are.
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