Attorney General Bob Ferguson of Washington State is suing Arlene’s
Flowers & Gifts for refusing to provide flowers for a same-sex
wedding. The owner of the flower shop, Barronelle Stutzman, says she is a
Christian and cannot in good conscience participate in a same-sex
wedding ceremony. Nevertheless, Attorney General Ferguson says the
refusal is illegal and told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the following:
As Attorney General, it is my job to
enforce the laws of the state of Washington. Under the Consumer
Protection Act, it is unlawful to discriminate against customers based
on sexual orientation. If a business provides a product or service to
opposite-sex couples for their weddings, then it must provide same sex
couples the same product or service.
So Ferguson is suing to fine Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts for every
infraction of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. It would cost the
company $2,000 per infraction. That means that, if enough gay couples
were refused service, Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts could go out of
business.
Robert Ingersol and Curt Freed are the gay couple in question, and
they had been customers of Stutzman for over ten years. So the florist
wasn’t refusing service to gay people in general. The florist simply
didn’t want to participate in a same-sex ceremony. She describes what
happened when Ingersol asked for her to provide flowers for his wedding:
He said he decided to get married and
before he got through I grabbed his hand and said, ‘I am sorry. I can’t
do your wedding because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.’ We hugged
each other and he left, and I assumed it was the end of the story. Continue at Denny Burk
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