In an article titled "Colliding causes: Gay rights and religious liberty (click HERE for original article), Deseret News writer Sara Israelsen-Hartley discussed a lawsuit brought against Albuquerque, NM photographer Elaine Huguenin.
Huguenin's crime? She declined a prospective client who wanted her to take wedding photos of their same-sex marriage. Her reason for not taking the shoot was that it conflicted with her religious beliefs. The New Mexico Human Rights Commission found in favour of the plaintiff and fined Huguenin $6000; the cost of the plaintiff's lawyers, for discrimination.
My question for you is: Should photographers be forced to accept photo shoots that conflict with their personal tenets?
Answer the survey and feel free to leave a comment. Please keep it nice folks - any inflammatory comments will be deleted, as will comments containing foul language.
5 comments:
Well, she should have simply declined the shoot, and not gone on to say that "We do not photograph same-sex weddings." That is, after all, discrimination in its most base form.
Let's try parsing that a different way. "We do not photograph interacial weddings." Would that be an appropriate answer? Would it, in fact, be cause for a lawsuit?
Just because it happens to be your bias doesn't make discrimination any less ugly.
NC - you have a point; maybe she should have just said no without the comment. But really, it's not quite the same as interracial marriage, because you can't choose how you're born. And we're not discussing whether or not homosexuality is a choice.
Same-sex marriage is a choice, just as heterosexual marriage is a choice. Why did the couple choose to sue her as opposed to choosing to simply finding another photographer?
In what way were they different from the photographer? They chose to pursue the offense that they felt and force their beliefs on her.
Actually, according to the American Psychological Association:
No, human beings cannot choose to be either gay or straight. For most people, sexual orientation emerges in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed.
All credible medical bodies agree with the APA. So there's that.
Now, let's look at your last two paragraphs. Let's see if I can reword it a little.
Riding in the back of the bus is a choice, just as riding in the front of the bus is a choice. Why did Ms Parks choose to be arrested, as opposed to choosing to simply sit in her proper place?
In what way was she different from the photographer? She chose to pursue the offense that she felt and force her beliefs on the other passengers.
There. Does that help any?
NC - I fundamentally disagree with your argument - and it has nothing to do with the gay vs. not gay aspect. I just think your argument is irrelevant to the question.
This is similar to the recent debate about insurance coverage of contraception and whether or not religious entities to whom contraception is a mortal sin should be required to provide such coverage to their employees. It's not a matter of discrimination, but of conviction. Why should a business be forced to violate their own convictions because a potential client disagrees with those convictions?
Tom - Because a business may have convictions above and beyond the minimum set out by law - a business might hold "Green" convictions, for instance.
But what you're talking about here is discrimination, pure and simple.
In New Zealand, we have a law saying businesses can't discriminate against people. It's rather long and explicit, because frankly, people are always looking to marginalise some group of Not-Us.
(It's here, btw: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM304475.html )
The New Mexico laws seem to agreed, since they awarded a discrimination finding.
So to answer your question "Why should a business be forced to violate their convictions..." the answer is "Because they are legally obliged to."
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