772 Businesses fined under anti-discrimination law for not servicing same-sex weddings

Businesses fined  under anti-discrimination law for not servicing
same-sex weddings

Newsletter published on 6 November 2015

(1) Businesses fined  under anti-discrimination law for not servicing
same-sex weddings
(2) Don’t Mess with Marriage booklet could breach Anti-Discrimination Act
(3) Same Sex Marriage: Who will be prosecuted?
(4) Canada: basic freedoms lost since same-sex marriage came to town
(5) UNITED STATES: "first same-sex marriage, now The Equality Act"
(6) The same-sex marriage debate and the right to religious belief

(1) Businesses fined  under anti-discrimination law for not servicing
same-sex weddings

http://www.family.org.au/marriage/fined/Businesses_are_being_fined_over_same-gender_weddings.pdf

Businesses Are being fined for not servicing same-sex weddings

Professional photographers, wedding reception agencies and others are
being prosecuted for not providing their services/facilities for
same-sex weddings.

Ashers family bakery, owned by the McArthur family in Northern Ireland,
has been found guilty under anti-discrimination law for declining to
decorate a cake with a pro-same sex marriage slogan. They were fined
£500. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-32913283

Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes in Oregon, USA, say that
the US$135,000 fine they are facing under anti-discrimination law would
“definitely” be enough to bankrupt them and their five children. They
declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/sweet-cakes-by-
melissa-bankrupt-_n_5916226.html

Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, of Lakewood Colorado, USA, was
told by a judge either to bake a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding or
face fines under anti-discrimination law.
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/colorado-baker-cakes-
gay-weddings-panel-rules-article-1.1811676

The parliament is the defender of free enterprise and freedom of speech.
So why would the parliament support legislation that will see bakers,
photographers, wedding planners, wedding reception venues, restaurants,
accommodation places prosecuted because these business people declined
to provide their services for same-sex weddings?

(2) Don’t Mess with Marriage booklet could breach Anti-Discrimination Act

http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/tasmania/don-t-mess-with-marriage-booklet-could-breach-anti-discrimination-act-18069.html

by Cec Busby

LAST UPDATED // Wednesday, 24 June 2015 15:14

1000s of school children have been distributed copies of a booklet –
Don't Mess With Marriage – which demeans children with same-sex parents
and encourages homophobic behaviour.

LGBTI and marriage equality advocates have warned Tasmanian Catholic
school principals and teachers that distribution of the booklet is
likely  to breach the Anti-Discrimination Act.

The booklet was launched at  The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference
and presents the church's opposition to same-sex unions. Its last page
urges Catholics to lobby local MPs to oppose changes to Australia's
Marriage Act and nd urges Catholic families to stand up for the
traditional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. It is
being distributed at schools, churches and Catholic community group's
across the nation.

Australian Marriage Equality national director, Rodney Croome, described
the booklet as  denigrating and demeaning of same-sex relationships and
suggested it was harmful to children with same sex parents or young
people who identified as LGBT.

"The booklet likely breaches the Anti-Discrimination Act and I urge
everyone who finds it offensive and inappropriate, including teachers,
parents and students, to complain to the Anti-Discrimination
Commissioner, Robin Banks."

Croome said he has received several complaints from teachers in Catholic
schools who were horrified to learn at staff room meetings that the
booklet will be distributed.

"The Catholic Church has every right to express its views from the
pulpit but it is completely inappropriate to enlist young people as the
couriers of its prejudice."

"The booklet says to gay students in Catholic schools that their
sexuality is wrong and that their aspiration to marry is a danger to
marriage, religion and society."

"Any principal or teacher who exposes vulnerable children to such
damaging messages not only violates their duty of care, but is a danger
to students,” Croome concluded.

(3) Same Sex Marriage: Who will be prosecuted?

http://www.family.org.au/marriage/Who_Will_Be_Prosecuted.pdf
http://www.family.org.au/national-campaigns/446-ssm-who-will-be-prosecuted

(4) Canada: basic freedoms lost since same-sex marriage came to town

http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=57042

by Terri M. Kelleher

News Weekly, August 29, 2015

Canadians have faced disciplinary action, termination of employment or
prosecution by government tribunals since same-sex marriage was
legalised in 2005 and protected attribute status was granted to sexual
orientation and gender identity in anti-discrimination laws. 1,2

Since being made legal, same-sex marriage has been treated identically
to traditional marriage in law and public life. A corollary is that
anyone who rejects the new orthodoxy must be acting on the basis of
bigotry and hostility toward gays and lesbians.

Any reasoned explanation – for example, that conjugal marriage is best
for children because it preserves their biological relationships with
their mother, father, siblings, grandparents – is dismissed as a
straightforward manifestation of hatred toward a minority sexual group.3

Such dissent is now deemed intolerable. Many of those who have persisted
in voicing their dissent have been subjected to investigations by
human-rights commissions and (in some cases) proceedings before human
rights tribunals.

Civil marriage celebrants were the first to feel the hard edge of the
new legal system. Several Canadian provinces refused to allow celebrants
a right of conscience not to preside over same-sex weddings, and
demanded their resignations.4

The Catholic Church’s Knights of Columbus were fined for refusing to
rent their facilities for post-wedding celebrations.5

Those who are poor, poorly educated, and without institutional
affiliation have been particularly easy targets – anti-discrimination
laws are not always applied evenly. Some have been ordered to pay fines,
make apologies, and undertake never to speak publicly on such matters
again.6

Targets have included:

Individuals writing letters to the editors of local newspapers;7
Ministers of small congregations of Christians;8 A Catholic bishop who
faced two complaints – both eventually withdrawn – prompted by comments
he made in a pastoral letter about marriage.9

To engage in public discussion about same-sex marriage is to court ruin,
costing money and time.

Although the Parliament of Canada did revoke the Canadian Human Rights
Commission’s statutory jurisdiction to pursue “hate speech”, in reality
similar legislation remains in place in several Canadian provinces.

Professional governing bodies – such as bar associations, teachers’
colleges, and the like – have used statutory powers to discipline
members for conduct unbecoming of the profession.10

Expressions of disagreement with the reasonableness of
institutionalising same-sex marriage are understood by these bodies to
be acts of illegal discrimination, which are matters for professional
censure.

Teachers are particularly at risk for disciplinary action. Even if they
only make public statements criticising same-sex marriage outside the
classroom, they are still deemed to create a hostile environment for gay
and lesbian students.11

Other workplaces and voluntary associations have adopted similar
policies as a result of their having internalised this new orthodoxy
that disagreement with same-sex marriage is illegal discrimination that
must not be tolerated.12

Parental rights gone

Parental rights in public education since the legalisation of same-sex
marriage have subtly but pervasively changed. Same-sex relationships
must be treated like natural marriage. Same-sex marriage and parenting
must be treated in the classroom the same as heterosexual marriage; and
this permeates all areas of the curriculum. Curriculum reforms in
jurisdictions such as British Columbia now prevent parents from
exercising their long-held veto power over contentious educational
practices.13

Courts have been unsympathetic to parental objections and parental
attempts to remove their children from the public school system. Parents
are forced to accept conflicting views from home and school over
same-sex marriage, and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI).

Same-sex marriage/SOGI ideology has been put into the curriculum under
the guise of anti-bullying programs.14

This has proved to be a gross violation of the rights of the family. It
is nothing less than the deliberate indoctrination of children (over the
objections of their parents) into a concept of marriage that is
fundamentally hostile to what many parents understand to be in their
children’s best interests.

It teaches children that the underlying rationale of marriage is nothing
other than the satisfaction of changeable adult desires for companionship.

Religious institutions have been particularly vulnerable, despite
so-called protections. The grand bargain of the same-sex marriage lobby
was that houses of worship were supposed to exempt from same-sex
marriage law.15

This protection has proved to be very narrow. It only prevents clergy
from being coerced into performing marriage ceremonies. It does not
shield sermons or pastoral letters from the scrutiny of human-rights
commissions. It leaves congregations vulnerable to legal challenges if
they refuse to rent their auxiliary facilities to same-sex couples for
their ceremony or reception, or to any other organisation that will use
the facility to promote a view of sexuality at odds with their own.

Provincial and municipal governments can withhold benefits from
religious congregations because of their marriage doctrine. For example,
Bill 13, the same Ontario statute that compels Catholic schools to host
“gay-straight alliance” clubs (and to use that particular name), also
prohibits public schools from renting their facilities to organisations
that will not agree to a code of conduct premised on the new
orthodoxy.16 Given that many small Christian congregations rent school
auditoriums to conduct their worship services, they are vulnerable.

Media: Under the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications
Commission, any media airing content considered “discriminatory” can
have its broadcasting licence revoked. Human-rights agencies can charge
fines and restrict future programs/publications.17

Is this how they think of the children?

Children’s rights compromised: When same-sex marriage was legalised,
parenting was immediately redefined to erase the term “natural parent”
and replace it across the board with gender-neutral “legal parent” in
federal law. By legally erasing biological parenthood, the state ignores
children’s foremost right: their immutable, intrinsic yearning to know
their biological parents.18

Wedding planners, rental hall and bed-and-breakfast owners, florists,
photographers, and bakers have already seen their freedoms eroded,
conscience rights ignored, and religious freedoms trampled. In fact
anybody who owns a business may not legally permit his or her conscience
to inform business practices or decisions if those decisions are not in
line with the tribunals’ decisions and the government’s sexual
orientation and gender identity anti-discrimination laws. This means
that the state basically dictates whether and how citizens may express
themselves.19

Freedom to assemble and speak publicly about man-woman marriage, family,
and sexuality is now restricted.

If a person’s beliefs, values, and political opinions are different from
those of the state, they risk losing their professional licence, job, or
business.

Canada’s imposition of same-sex marriage, gender identity and sexual
orientation laws in the cause of “sexual autonomy” has trampled freedom
of speech, association and religion and the rights of parents to educate
and raise their children as they choose.

_____________________

[1] Bradly Miller, “Same-sex marriage ten years on: lessons from
Canada”, The Public Discourse, November 5, 2012. Miller is an associate
professor of law at the University of Western Ontario and a 2012-2013
Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and
Institutions at Princeton University.

[2] Dawn Stefanowicz, “A warning from Canada: same-sex marriage erodes
fundamental rights”, The Public Discourse, April 24, 2015. Dawn
Stefanowicz was raised by a gay father and is now married with children.

[3] See, for example, the comments of Justice LaForme in Halpern v.
Canada (AG), 2002 CanLII 49633 (On SC), paras. 242-43.

[4] See, for example, Saskatchewan: Marriage Commissioners Appointed
Under the Marriage Act (Re), 2011 SKCA 3.

[5] Smith and Chymyshyn v. Knights of Columbus and others, 2005 BCHRT 544.

[6] See the remedy ordered by the Alberta Human Rights tribunal (later
overturned on judicial review) in Lund v. Boissoin, 2012 ABCA 300.

[7] Kempling v. British Columbia College of Teachers, 2005 BCCA 327
(CanLII);

[8] Lund v. Boissoin, 2012 ABCA 300.

[9]Fred Henry, Bishop of Calgary, Alberta, “Bishop Henry calls for
overhaul of human-rights commissions”; note also the experience of Fr.
Alphonse de Valk, editor of Catholic Insight, who spent $20,000
defending a human rights complaint that was eventually dismissed.

[10] For example, Kempling v. British Columbia College of Teachers, 2005
BCCA 327 (CanLII).

[11] Ibid.

[12] For example, the dismissal of Ontario sportscaster Damian Goddard
by Rogers Sportsnet for tweeting his support of traditional marriage:
“Broadcaster fired after controversial tweet files human rights
complaint”, National Post, June 23, 2011.

[13]Glen Hansman, “Parents cannot ‘opt out’ of provincial curriculum:
clarifying alternative delivery”, BC Teachers’ Federation Teacher
Newsmagazine, vol. 19, no.2, October 2006.

[14]See the legislative preamble to Ontario’s Accepting Schools Act,
S.O. 2012 C.5. See also Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36,
[2002] 4 S.C.R. 710. The same fault lines are visible in S.L. v.
Commission scolaire des Chenes, [2012] 1 S.C.R. 235.

[15] Civil Marriage Act, S.C. 2005 c. 33, ss. 3 – 3.1.

[16] Accepting Schools Act, S.O. 2012 C.5.

[17]Dawn Stefanowicz, op. cit.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

(5) UNITED STATES: "first same-sex marriage, now The Equality Act"

http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=57042

Only weeks after the US Supreme Court legalised same- sex marriage in
June, Democratic Party law makers have proposed a bill to introduce a
new Equality Act to elevate sexual orientation and gender identity as
“protected attributes”. The Equality Act combined with same-sex marriage
would take the US down a similar path to Canada.

The Equality Act aims to place sexual orientation and gender identity
(SOGI) into the 1964 Civil Rights Act as protected attributes alongside
race, colour and national origin.20

In Australia in 2013, the federal Sex Discrimination Act was amended to
include SOGI as protected attributes. States and territories variously
cover SOGI to some extent. In those laws sexual orientation is generally
defined as heterosexuality, homosexuality, lesbianism and bisexuality.
Gender identity applies equally to: males who identify as female;
females who identify as male, and intersex people (i.e. people born of
indeterminate sex) who identify as male or female.21

However, some SOGI advocates are now claiming that there are 56
different forms of sexual identity.22 [...]

The law enshrines protections for man+woman marriage, because it
provides many protections to the next generation of the state’s
children/citizens – it defines the identity of children and their
inheritance rights.

The US Equality Act would:

• elevate SOGI to protected class status in all schools;

• shut down debate by treating SOGI protected attributes as topics
beyond debate;

• require all entities receiving federal funding not to consider SOGI as
a factor in their programs;

• require withdrawing any public funds from institutions that believe
that marriage is the union of one man and one woman or that question
SOGI protected attributes.20

(6) The same-sex marriage debate and the right to religious belief

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/the-same-sex-marriage-debate-and-the-right-to-religious-belief/story-e6frg74x-1227437429587

Paul Kelly

The Australian

July 11, 2015 12:00AM

The central issue in any Australian recognition of same-sex marriage
remains almost invisible — whether the state’s re-definition of civil
marriage will authorise an assault on churches, institutions and
individuals who retain their belief in the traditional view of marriage.

It seems to this point that none of the proposals for same-sex marriage
or related policy prescriptions are satisfactory laws for passage by the
Australian parliament. The real issue is conceptually simple — it is
whether same-sex marriage will deny conscience rights to much of the
population. The alternative is a new spirit of tolerance guaranteed by
law where same-sex marriage sits in parallel with undiminished
-religious liberty.

The omens are not good. As the years advance there has been -virtually
no debate about the real issues surrounding same-sex -marriage. The
campaign for change is strong and tactically brilliant based on the
ideological slogan “marriage equality”, one of the most effective
slogans in many decades.

The collapse of the moral authority of the churches, especially the
Catholic Church, driven above all by the child sexual abuse phenomenon
across a range of nations, has seen a depleted and often unchristian
response by the churches as they singularly fail to meet the demand of
same-sex marriage advocates.

Yet the majority media reaction to this situation — “let’s get on with
the change” — is ignorant and irresponsible. The real debate is probably
just starting. It poses an unprecedented challenge for our law-makers.
There has never been an issue like this, as the US -Supreme Court
decision made clear.

This week in The Australian and in an interview with Inquirer, Human
Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson, a strong supporter of same-sex marriage,
began to confront the choice our society faces.

Wilson advanced two propositions that shatter the haze of misinformation
and emotion that surrounds this issue. First, that none of the bills on
same-sex -marriage offers anything like the essential protection of
religious freedom and individual conscience. And second, that individual
belief and religious freedom must be seen as “equally important” as the
right to same-sex -marriage.

These principles have not been accepted in the debate. Indeed, they are
largely denied and fought. This is the reason Wilson has raised them.
The politicians will protest but their protests are worthless. Only one
thing counts — the policy and legislative stand the politicians take
and, so far, the protections of religion freedom are only tokenism.

“The primary problem is that people think of religious protection just
in terms of a minister of religion solemnising a marriage,” Wilson tells
Inquirer. “But this is a superficial analysis of the issue. The question
of religious freedom has not been taken seriously. It is treated as an
afterthought. We cannot allow a situation where the law is telling
people they have to act against their conscience and beliefs. We cannot
protect the rights of one group of people by denying the rights of
another group.”

If the Australian parliament intends to create a legal regime with this
consequence then the law-makers must justify this to the -people and
explain how such -calculated intolerance leads to a better society. The
legalisation of same-sex marriage means the laws of the state and the
laws of the church will be in conflict over the meaning of the most
important institution in society. This conflict between the civil and
religious meaning of marriage will probably be untenable and marked by
litigation, attempts to use anti-discrimination law and entrenched
bitterness. But an effort ought to be made to make it tenable on the
basis of mutual tolerance.

The Amici brief to the US -Supreme Court of four distinguished legal
scholars* who support same-sex marriage offers the best statement we are
likely to see on the method of reconciliation between these competing
rights. “The proper response to the mostly avoidable conflict between
gay rights and religious liberty is to protect the liberty of both
sides,” the Amici brief argues. “Both sexual minorities and religious
minorities make essentially parallel claims on the larger society.

“Both sexual orientation and religious faith, and the conduct that
follows from each, are fundamental to human identity. Both same-sex
couples and religious organisations and believers committed to
traditional understandings of marriage, face hostile regulation that
condemns their most cherished commitments as evil.

“Legislative bargaining is critical to protecting religious liberty in
the growing number of states where religious objections to same-sex
marriage have become unpopular.”

If same-sex marriage is authorised in Australia, this is the approach
that should prevail. If Coalition MPs who support traditional marriage
were prudent they would begin preparing the legal conditions under which
freedom of conscience can exist with same-sex marriage. If pro-same-sex
marriage MPs were prudent they would do the same, as Wilson advocates,
and if they are serious and convince traditionalists then they may find
more MPs joining their ranks.

There should be no doubt, however, about the bottom line: the Australian
parliament should not legislate the right to same-sex marriage on the
altar of denying institutions and individuals the right to their conscience.

The Amici brief begins with a core proposition: the issue of religious
liberty cannot be used to deny same-sex marriage. But this leads to the
next proposition: the legalisation of same-sex marriage cannot be used
to deploy state power against religious organisation and believers. This
spirit can prevail only if churches respect same-sex couples and if
same-sex couples respect religious discretion. That requires the removal
of hate and malice from the -debate. The -essence of the moral
liberation required is put in these terms: “The gain for human liberty
will be greatly undermined if same-sex couples now force religious
dissenters to violate their conscience in the same way that those
dissenters, when they had the power to do so, forced same-sex couples to
hide in the closet.”

This raises the question about the real ideology of the same-sex
marriage campaign. Is it merely to allow gays to marry? Or is its
ultimate purpose to impose “marriage equality” across the entire
society, civil and religious. Ideologies do not normally stop at the
halfway mark. Is “marriage equality”, as designed and evolving by its
advocates, an ideology that can live with two different concepts of
marriage, civil and religious? The Amici brief makes clear that limiting
religious exemptions to just pastors performing wedding ceremonies is
completely inadequate. There is a wide range of other issues to be
considered. Must religious colleges provide married housing to same-sex
couples? Must churches and synagogues employ spouses in same-sex
marriages even though this flouts their religious teaching? Must
religious social-service agencies place children for adoption with
same-sex couples?

Will religious institutions be penalised by losing government contracts,
tax exemptions and access to public facilities? Will religious
institutions and schools be penalised if they teach their own beliefs
about marriage, thereby contradicting the state’s view of marriage? Or
will the state laws via anti-discrimination legislation be mobilised to
force the state’s view on to religious institutions?

What of the provision of ser-vices? In much of the US a gay publicist
can refuse to provide services for an anti-gay event. That is acceptable
under the law. Can a person decline to provide services for a gay
marriage, not because the person discriminates against gays but because
they see the marriage as a religious event and therefore it defies their
religious beliefs? The Amici brief argues that it is essential to
distinguish the two relationships — protecting the right of same-sex
couples to civil marriage and protecting religious actors’ right to
uphold their view of religious marriage.

The US Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v Hodges is flawed for two
reasons. First, as Chief Justice John Roberts said in dissent: “The
court is not a legislator. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea
should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power
to say what the law is, not what it should be.”

This decision is an arrogant denial of US democracy and law-making even
though it follows a US tradition of law creation by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court pre-empted the process by which state legislature
after state legislature was voting on same-sex marriage.

Justice Antonin Scalia said in dissent: “Until the courts put a stop to
it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at
its best.”

The second problem, as Australian lawyer and priest Frank Brennan
argues, is that the upshot in the US will be “years of litigation” about
the rights of religious bodies that is sure to be “nasty and hard
fought”. The reason is because a court decision will now replace
legislative decisions.

The consequence is writ large: where marriage equality is delivered by
court decision, religious liberty is not protected. Where marriage
equality in the US is delivered by the legislature there tends to be a
political bargain, with religious liberty provisions of varying extents.

The applause in this country for the US Supreme Court decision, while
understandable, is a disappointing and bad omen. It suggests the public
grasp of this issue in Australia is far distant from the debate that is
needed.

“I have accepted the inevitability that civil marriage in Australia will
be redefined to include same-sex couples,” Brennan told Inquirer. But
Brennan warned it was “another thing” to require “all persons,
regardless of their religious beliefs, to treat same-sex couples even in
the life and activities of the church as if they were married in the
eyes of the church”.

He poses a series of questions. Will religious institutions in Australia
be able to follow current policy on shared accommodation on a church
site? Will religious schools be able to limit employment to teachers who
follow church teaching on sexual relations? Will faith- based adoptive
agencies be able to prefer placement with a traditional family unit?

Brennan said these and related issues “should now be squarely on the
table”. In truth, this is long overdue. Brennan finished, however, on an
ominous note: “Some of us support the state recognition of both same-sex
marriage AND (his emphasis) religious freedom exercised in speech,
actions and institutional arrangements. Sadly, many who advocate
same-sex marriage have no time for those of us who espouse religious
freedom as well.”

Brennan’s fears are well placed given the debate in Australia in recent
times. The politicians are not serious about this issue and neither is
the media. It is reduced to a footnote of minor import yet rolled out to
justify their same-sex marriage policy.

As Wilson knows, this is not the way to proceed. It only guarantees
institutional division and rancour. The core question remains: what is
the real ideological objective of the same-sex marriage campaign?

* Brief of Douglas Laycock, Thomas C. Berg, David Blankenhorn, Marie A.
Failinger and Edward McGlynn Gaffney.