Same-sex marriage headed to the Supreme Court

Wyoming throws in the towel and agrees to allow ranchers to formalize what they've been doing on the range. http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL2N0SF1W720141020?irpc=932

@Tex and @Storm are green with envy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-usa-gaymarriage-idaho-idUSKCN0I92GO20141020

Proprietors of a for-profit wedding chapel in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho are preemptively suing to stop enforcement of a municipal non-discrimination ordinance. Right wing sources are reporting it as "Idaho City To Christian Pastors: Perform Same-Sex Weddings Or Face Jail." I'm curious if they refuse to perform weddings for divorcees, mixed faith couples, or non-virgins.

SCOTUS declined to hear a similar challenge after a photographer in New Mexico lost their case.

Why did the Idaho city only address it to Christian pastors and not Muslim imams?

Do you have a link to a for-profit wedding mosque in Idaho City that discriminates against gays?

I looked but couldn't find any, probably because it's too expensive to meet environmental regulations and sanitation guidelines on the disposal of headless corpses.

I read about this a few days ago. Apparently before the court ruled, the chapel performed civil marriages, too, for anybody who wanted to use the location and facilities but did not desire any religious trappings. They had no issue with marriage as a non-religious right... until the gheys got involved. I think they will have trouble with this new effort to claim religious exemption.

[edit]
Here's some more info:

http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_yo...ed-website-to-make-more-solid-legal-case.html

A federal judge in Puerto Rico has dismissed a lawsuit regarding the territory's ban on same-sex marriage. From the judge's decision:

He cites Baker v Nelson, a case from the 1970's where the SCOTUS dismissed a challenge against Minnesota's refusal to grant a marriage license to a same-sex couple, "for want of a substantial federal question." Obviously the legal landscape has changed significantly since 1972. Puerto Rico is covered by the 1st Circuit. All states within the 1st Circuit already have marriage equality.

I was not expecting things to move this fast.

This Puerto Rico case is interesting, since the challenge was denied essentially on the basis of an Alito decent.

Wait, what?

gul, there is nothing at all decent about Samuel Alito.

no need. as gul's link shows, the Muslims - and folks of most other non-christian faiths - could get a marriage from these devoted take-their-doctrine-seriously (non-)pastors (i.e props, in this situation)

An update. A Boise Public Radio story says The Hitching Post has been exempted from the gay-rights ordinance.

Er, no. It says that the Hitching Post must adhere to the law, and give up its secular, for profit operations, because only religious not-for-profits are exempt from compliance (by design).

That was the city's stance last week. Now they've changed their tune.

Earlier this week, Coeur d'Alene city attorney Mike Gridley sent a letter to the Knapps’ attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom saying the Hitching Post would have to become a not-for-profit to be exempt.

But Gridley said after further review, he determined the ordinance doesn’t specify non-profit or for-profit.

“After we've looked at this some more, we have come to the conclusion they would be exempt from our ordinance because they are a religious corporation,” Gridley explained.

Right, and so long as they only perform religions ceremonies, they are fine. But no more civil ceremonies. Don't let the tax status confuse you.

technically they were never not exempt. The whole situation is rife with Pharisee generated lies.

1. Back in May, Knapp said in a TV interview that if he, personally, were required to preform a same sex union he'd close or sell out BUT also allowed he would rent space if they wanted to bring in their own officiant. Something they'd been doing all along for people of other faiths. That alone would have solved any conflict.

2. No one has been turned away, and no complaint has been filed with the city.

3. The city's position was always "IF a complaint occurs, we will investigate according to the situation ad decide THEN on whether or NOT to impose a penalty." No specific threat, or official position beyond that has been stated.

4. The business'' website very clearly stated - until ADF scrubbed it in the wake of the suit - that they offended civil ceremonies that were non-religious as well as those of many faith traditions, so it has never been a "Christian stuff only!" location. The dishonesty of ADF is encapsulated in the need to change the website.

5. the ACLU said from the jump that in their view the religious exemption would apply.

But to repeat, it's not been tested because there WAS NO COMPLAINT.

ADF used these old folks as PAWNS in order to file a pre-emptive suit for the purpose of public relations and fund raising.

Now, of course, all the Pharisee media will crow "City backs down in wake of ADF lawsuit! Religious freedom successfully defended!!!

Even though it was never under any threat and only the ill-informed and the gullible ever thought it was.

They can still hold civil ceremonies, because freedom of religion includes holding civil ceremonies. Christians aren't forbidden from engaging in civic life.

if they have civil ceremonies they must allow same sex civil ceremonies since civil marriage has no religious component, even if a third party officiant does the honors. Which Knapp has said months ago was fine.

There was NEVER an actual conflict. The whole story is manufactured MANIPULATIVE BULLSHIT WHICH ON THE ILL-INFORMED AND GULLIBLE WERE TAKEN IN BY.

Well, now the city's attorney has ruled that they don't have to perform gay civil unions because they're registered as a religious corporation. Sadly, gays in Idaho don't have any other way to get married other than this one Western wedding chapel. If only people in Idaho had Internet access so they could click this link and become an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church (with about three more clicks). Strangely enough, my housemate became an ordained minister there just so he could marry one of his smokin' hot lesbian friends, if need be. They came over once after he had put up a badminton court in our back yard, and a bunch of us got to watch hot lesbian late-night co-ed drunken badminton. I was scorekeeper, and at one point I turned to one of his other friends and whispered "If you build it, they will come."

Idaho State Senator Steve Vick proposes taking his ball home rather than share it with the icky gays.

Off topic but The Hitching Post and The Hitching Post II are two extremely famous restaurants in Santa Barbara county serving Santa Maria style pit roasted BBQ. They're great and they've been featured in several films.

Some libertarians would actually be all for that, even if it's not for the bigoted reasons this senator is suggesting.

If you think the states aren't going to make up that lost revenue some other way...

I wouldn't oppose it under the provision that civil unions and civil unions only be granted to any couple that wanted it, and that marriages and other church ceremonies would not automatically imply the benefits of civil union.

I still think this whole issue comes down to the word "marriage" meaning both civil and religious meanings. If every state changed terminology from marriage to civil union, I think we'd still call it marriage though.

I think that is the way it should be. Church ceremony is different than governmental one.

right, who's going to say "we got unioned last night!"


On another note, wouldn't it be better for minsters to say "by the power invested in me by God" (laying aside the Bible doesn't say ministers CAN preform weddings, which i a whole other kettle of fish) rather than "...by the state of.."?

After all, if you are acting as an gent of the state, how can you deny state authority to regulate it and you?