Farming Couple Fined $10,000 For Refusing Gay Marriage

Encroachment on private business is nothing new for government liberals, but the latest example of politicians choosing ralph lauren outlet the gay agenda over religious freedom is as whacko as you can get. Sadly, it’s also the state of things is what used to be the United States of America.

Christian farm owners Cynthia and Robert Gifford have been fined $10,000 by the State of New York for declining to host a lesbian wedding on their property in 2012. The couple was approached by Jennifer McCarthy and Melisa Erwin two yearscanada goose jackeets saleago with the request. The Giffords, who hold about a dozen weddings a year on their Liberty Ridge Farm outside Albany, told the couple that they would be happy to hold the reception but not the wedding itself.

The Giffords, proudly Christian, cited their belief that marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman in declining to host the lesbian wedding. That belief was apparently not enough for New York authorities. Administrative Law Judge Migdalia Pares ruled that the farm qualified as a public accommodation and therefore could not be considered a private domicile, despite the fact that the Giffords live nobis canadathere. In addition to the $10k fine, the Giffords have also been forced to pay the discriminated couple $1500 a piece.

The Giffords’ lawyer insisted that they were not bigoted against gays. “Liberty Ridge Farm has employed gay people and has conducted events for same-sex couples. The Giffords’ objection was to hosting and participating in the wedding ceremony itself and not to providing service in general to lesbians.”

One wonders what the response from Migdalia Peres and the New York Division of Human Rights would have been had the Giffords been Muslim. What would have been the response if Gay Farms, Inc. had refused to host a heterosexual wedding? There’s something to be said for sticking up for minorities in certain instances, but there’s also something to be said about Constitutional freedoms. When the two come into conflict with each other, true American freedom often loses the battle. This, of course, is exactly what liberals want.

Anti-discrimination laws have become so prevalent that we barely bat an eye when we see someone get pinched for violating them. “Oh yeah, you can’t do that,” we say, flipping to the next story. We barely bother anymore to take a moment and wonder if these canada goose jacket pricelaws are relevant to a strong, healthy United States to begin with. Or are they just one more example of government trying to control the lives of its populace?

The biggest argument for legalizing gay marriage has always been, “What do you care?” It’s a simple, powerful argument, but cases like this one demonstrate that the gay agenda isn’t as “live and let live” as it claims to be.