An odd legal case-Only in America??

I see no reason why a photgrapher can't turn down a job without having to offer a reason. It appears to me this "same sex" couple were just looking for a fight. Maybe the photographer giving her reason was what set the whole thing off - there are those around who will jump at any religiously motivated action.

Are we to believe that no other photographers were available?

But again, this is a news story, and newsnoses have a way of interpreting things the way they see fit.
 
Ducky said:
As the OP, I'd say the discussion is now way OT and should be shut down.
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OT? Shutdown? This isn't a comunist country where you just put an end to what you disagree with. These are the conversations and opinions of people that decide important issuse in this country. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't read it.
 
dll927 said:
It appears to me this "same sex" couple were just looking for a fight.
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This may well be true, but please consider that gays and lesbian have been subjected to much hate, discrimination and persecution in the not so distant past (and even now in some countries being gay is punished with death).

So after years of abuse, once a law is passed that protects them, they find the smartass that refuses to take their picture because their being gay is immoral.

They probably felt that they had been subjected to enough $h1t in their life and were not prepared to take anymore.

That's why I am somehow sympathetic and understand them being so thin skinned.
 
jack palmer said:
OT? Shutdown? This isn't a comunist country where you just put an end to what you disagree with. These are the conversations and opinions of people that decide important issuse in this country. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't read it.
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It doesn't make me uncomfortable and it did not go in a direction I don't like.
The h**l with it, I'll take my drink and see what is being discussed over there in the other corner.:cool:
Sheeesh, some guys.
 
Ducky, sorry, I forgot that it was you who started the thread. I thought it was just some johnny-come- lately to the fray telling us to shut it down.:D
 
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Rupert along with Paul Hogan is probably Australia's most notable export. We breathed a huge sigh of relief when he took out US citizenship! :p
 
MichaelHarris said:
Awww man who brought Fox Noise into it? Now you're really gonna piss me off!
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We should get back to the Ducky (no offense oh yellow rubber one :D) talk. There has to be Bert and Ernie jokes just waiting to rain down on us.

(note, I have been up since 4am so my tired meter indicates I can only go on with significant lack of seriousness from this point forward.)
 
Keith said:
Rupert along with Paul Hogan is probably Australia's most notable export. We breathed a huge sigh of relief when he took out US citizenship! :p
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Speaking of which, you guys send us Ruppie, Canada boxed up and mailed us Celine Dion....... I have a long list of personalities that I am just waiting for approval to ship out..... ya all better be careful, payback is coming.
 
rover said:
We should get back to the Ducky (no offense oh yellow rubber one :D) talk. There has to be Bert and Ernie jokes just waiting to rain down on us.

(note, I have been up since 4am so my tired meter indicates I can only go on with significant lack of seriousness from this point forward.)
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In that case:

A priest, a rabbi and a lawyer walk into a bar, and the bartender says: "what is this, some kind of a joke?" :angel:
 
Update: The photographer lost her case.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200804/CUL20080416a.html

Christian Photographer Accused of 'Discriminating' Against Same-Sex Couple
By Pete Winn
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
April 16, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - The New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled on Wednesday that an evangelical Christian photographer discriminated against a lesbian couple by refusing a job to photograph the couple's same-sex commitment ceremony. Religious rights attorneys plan to appeal.

The commission ordered Elaine and Jon Huenins, owners of Elane Photography in Albuquerque, N.M., to pay the lesbian couple $6,600 in attorney fees.
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Click the link to read the rest.
 
So, once you hang out a shingle as a photographer, you cannot chose whom you offer your services to? That seems a basic violation of my right to 'speak' freely - in this sense, being compelled to provide 'speech' I do not wish to provide.

What if she were a freelance speechwriter hired by a white supremacist to write a hate-filled treatise against blacks. Could she have refused that?

Frankly, I'd have no problems shooting a gay 'wedding' or whatever. But that's me. Others feel differently. Last I heard, we photographers could choose the jobs we took. Except, apparently, in New Mexico.
 
I don't think we need to rehash the hypothetical situations raised earlier in this thread. The relevant new information is that the New Mexico Human Rights Commission made two specific determinations:
  1. Sexual orientation is a protected class under New Mexico state law
  2. Elane Photography constituted a public accommodation
From there, the situation becomes analogous to any other public accommodation refusing service based on any other protected class.
 
shenkerian said:
I don't think we need to rehash the hypothetical situations raised earlier in this thread. The relevant new information is that the New Mexico Human Rights Commission made two specific determinations:
  1. Sexual orientation is a protected class under New Mexico state law
  2. Elane Photography constituted a public accommodation
From there, the situation becomes analogous to any other public accommodation refusing service based on any other protected class.
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That being the case, I am glad I no longer live in New Mexico. I would not wish to run a business where I was forced to provide services to people I did not wish to provide services to. I have no problems with homosexuals. I do not believe they are entitled to protected status.

I wonder when we'll stop fining and start putting people in prison for refusing to accommodate lifestyle choices that their own religion puts them in opposition to?

I find it interesting that a photographer could refuse a job because the person wanting the work done was too ugly, too fat, too obnoxious, or a whole raft of other reasons, but not because they were gay.

Well, my answer to New Mexico...nonservium, baby. Good luck to all ya'll.
 
bmattock said:
That being the case, I am glad I no longer live in New Mexico. I would not wish to run a business where I was forced to provide services to people I did not wish to provide services to. I have no problems with homosexuals. I do not believe they are entitled to protected status.

I wonder when we'll stop fining and start putting people in prison for refusing to accommodate lifestyle choices that their own religion puts them in opposition to?

I find it interesting that a photographer could refuse a job because the person wanting the work done was too ugly, too fat, too obnoxious, or a whole raft of other reasons, but not because they were gay.
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If this thread veers toward whether sexual orientation should be a protected class, it'll lose whatever tangential relation to photography it might've once had. I'm happy to discuss the rest of this privately.
 
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