Favored Rights vs. The Rest of Our Rights

It is an interesting game when government decides to strip some citizens of their rights in favor of a "protected" class of citizens.

This is an interesting story which was brought to my attention by commentator George F. Will whose commentary follows the news report.

Snippets from the news report.

A right to discriminate against gay couples?

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for a Christian wedding photographer say they will appeal a New Mexico court decision that ruled she violated anti-discrimination laws by refusing to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony.

The controversy began in 2006 when Elaine Huguenin, co-owner of Elane Photography, refused to photograph a “commitment ceremony” for Vanessa Willock and her partner. Huguenin claims her refusal was rooted in her Christian faith that views marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman.

The Thursday (May 31) decision by the New Mexico Court of Appeals upholds a 2008 ruling by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission in favor of the same-sex couple that was subsequently upheld in district court.

New Mexico law does not recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions for same-sex couples, but its Human Rights Act requires that places of public accommodation not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Washington Post

The tangled web of conflicting rights

Elaine Huguenin, who with her husband operates Elane Photography in New Mexico, asks only to be let alone.


But instead of being allowed a reasonable zone of sovereignty in which to live her life in accordance with her beliefs, she is being bullied by people wielding government power.


The Huguenin case demonstrates how advocates of tolerance become tyrannical. First, a disputed behavior, such as sexual activities between people of the same sex, is declared so personal and intimate that government should have no jurisdiction over it. Then, having won recognition of what Louis Brandeis, a pioneer of the privacy right, called “the right to be let alone,” some who have benefited from this achievement assert a right not to let other people alone. It is the right to coerce anyone who disapproves of the now-protected behavior into acting as though they approve of it, or at least into not acting on their disapproval.

So, in the name of tolerance, government declares intolerable individuals such as the Huguenins, who disapprove of a certain behavior but ask only to be let alone in their quiet disapproval. Perhaps advocates of gay rights should begin to restrain the bullies in their ranks.

FULL COMMENTARY

The FULL COMMENTARY is well worth reading.