Colorado is once again the battleground in the latest case before the court, brought by graphic designer Lorie Smith. Smith, like bakers Jack Phillips and Aaron and Melissa Klein, and florist Barronelle Stutzman before her, is a Christian business owner who says her religious beliefs prevent her from creating custom websites for a same-sex wedding. But her stance could violate Colorado's public accommodation law, which prohibits businesses open to the public from refusing service because of sexual orientation and announcing their intent to do so. (CBS News)=====Imagine if we changed the words SAME-SEX to the words INTERRACIAL MARRIAGES. Are we to take for granted that a self-declared Christian who swears his or her Bible is the law of the land, does not find passages relating to the sin of different races marrying?
Waggoner (Smith’s attorney) replied that the speech would still be Smith's, comparing her service to the work of a newspaper editor or ghostwriter: "What matters is what the objection is that the speaker is being asked to create ... If you don't believe they should be telling their story, and what they're asking you to do is tell their story, then you don't have to do that." (CBS News)=====Imagine if it was Jews or Muslims who wanted to tell their stories, wanting to express their points of view on marriage, divorce, and abortion rights. Imagine if he or she felt that those religions did not represent the One True God, Jesus.
"If the government can censor and compel my speech, it can censor and compel anybody's speech," she told CBS News before the arguments. "We should all be free to live and work consistently with our deeply held beliefs."===== Imagine if the South maintained their deeply held beliefs that Colored Folk needed to sit at the back of the bus, drink from their own fountains, not eat at certain restaurants, attend their own schools, and live in their own neighborhoods.
I CAN NOT AND WILL NOT IMAGINE ANY OF THIS. Call it Segregation, Apartheid, or simply Religious Bigotry, BUT DO NOT CALL IT THE LAW OF THE LAND!
