After helping with the effort to raise money for the Indiana pizzeria owners who had shut down their shop — people who respect freedom of conscience responded by donating close to $850K in the course of a couple of days — someone on Twitter alerted me to another gofundme page, this one for a 70-year-old florist who was being sued and who had been prosecuted by the state’s AG for refusing to do arrangements for a same sex marriage ceremony. This woman, in business 40 years, was in danger of losing her business, her savings, and even her house — all because she didn’t feel she could participate in a ceremony that went against her religious convictions concerning marriage.
This woman didn’t deny service to gay customers. In fact, the person suing her had been a customer of hers for 9 years — an openly gay customer — and had never been “discriminated against.”
So I worked to get the word out, at the request of a reader — alerting some of the big names on Twitter and asking them to Tweet out the call to fund this woman’s legal defense fund, which had raised at the time a bit over $30K in 30 days: I Tweeted Chris Loesch (who along with wife Dana were among the organizers of the pizzeria drive), David Limbaugh, Ace, Allah, Ben Shapiro, and others, almost all of whom responded immediately and gave life to the drive.
That’s how we can beat off vicious, vindictive worker bee mobs. And I’m happy to note that Arlene’s Flowers has raised $86,465 at the time of this posting, only about $13.5K shy of the fund’s goal — with about $50K of that total coming in the last 2 days. You can learn the backstory here:
If you have the means, I ask you to help her make her goal. I hate bullies. And in particular, I hate bully prosecutors. For obvious reasons.
Too, I’d like to thank those of you who continue to contribute to this site. Since I last updated the prior post, I’d like to recognize these contributors:
Bryce D
Blitz
James W
John A
SDN
bh
I’m lucky to have the readers I do. Have a happy rest of your Passover/Easter weekend, everyone!
providing flowers is an inherently secular activity this lady is stupid
No one should be forced into a contract with any other person. Ever.
Freedom of association trumps any hamster’s opinion of anyone else’s intelligence.
No one should be forced into a contract with any other person. Ever.
yes yes yes i agree with this
hf
You have as much knowledge of the floral business as you do rocket science.
The lady did provide flowers … she barred no one from walking into her store and buying anything on the shelves or in the cooler.
Participating in an event — where customized arrangements including decorating the place of the event — is not the same thing.
While arguing with some Left fascists on this subject, I could never get a straight answer on whether or not a bakery (or florist or photographer) should be forced to provide services to a Westboro Church wedding.
“Oh, but that would be participating in HATE, you can’t force someone to do that!”
“That has never happened and would never happen so I’m not going to answer.”
Well, holy moly — I found out here something like that actually DID happen
ok let’s put two flowers in a room
one is a orchid what is destined for to brighten the front desk of a marriott courtyard
one is a orchid what is destined for to be used as a centerpiece on a table at the reception dinner following the wedding of Jeremy Creamcheese and Rollie O’Monkeypickles
teach me how to tell them apart
So the baker who refused to provide a KKK cake (oh it’s only cake! no one can tell them apart!) was rightfully sued?
nonono you shouldn’t sue people for stuff like that all it does is show everybody you have way too much free time on your hands
Then leave the florist (baker, photographer, t-shirt shop, film maker, et al) alone.
Either all parties voluntarily agree to participate in a transaction, or the transaction doesn’t happen.
Already contributed to both.
People should not be coerced into doing something that violates their conscience (religious beliefs). Why is this so hard to understand?
I don’t want any government coercion related to any private business. Any owner should be able to refuse service to anyone.
I hope they would also make it clear who they have decided not to serve so I can decide whether or not I want to enter into any exchanges with them.
meet the married christian lesbian bakers who REFUSED to bake a cake for their own wedding
what happens next will make your blood boil!
Does what happens next involve me being teleported into outer space without a suit?
The problem is “discrimination” has become a dirty word, erroneously muddied up with racism, which in itself has degraded from believing/treating a different race as less than human or at least inferior, to disagreeing with someone of a different race.
Used to be having “discriminating tastes” was a good thing, the mark of a gentleman. Now, since discrimination became a bad thing, I can’t help but feel, when considering America’s general population and culture, I’m witnessing a stampede to join the circus freak show amongst my fellow citizens.
It’s very unsettling. Doubly so, I’d imagine, when one is forced to act the freak, like these business people mentioned in the post…
i thought involuntary servitude was outlawed in this failstuffcountry
Except for the first four months of the year, if you earn taxable income.
thanks noted
Dar, the KKK cake story is a hoax.
I fell for it too. But it’s not a news source. It doesn’t link to any credible sources, nor do credible sources link to it.
providing flowers is an inherently secular activity this lady is stupid
That’s not your call, ‘feets. She gets to decide whether she’s being asked to participate in a sacrilege or not.
Everybody gets to opt out of things that offend their sensibilities. That’s what America has been about since 1620.
Ace is 100% right on this wise.
Also, Dana says that the pizza people are going to share the donations with the other victims of the witch hunt, so donations there are helping all of the peeps.
Who Am I – Casting Crown
oh crap, di, sorry I didn’t further check out the link.
though, the baker who refused to bake a “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler” for the little kid who was named A.H. is a real story
but no one ever thought to sue THAT baker
Yeah, we’ve also got Crowder as a total flamer ordering a fabulous gay wedding cake at Muslim bakeries and being turned down.
Tons of stunts trying to test theory that the RFRA dust-up was purely to make an example of hated Christians and all of them come up with the same answer: duh.
This one’s fun: https://twitter.com/ChrisLoesch/status/584368927922196481
Apparently, K stands for 1 million in the Koch Krafty Kode book.
I’ll bet you a dollar that woman is a vote-counter in a Dem precinct.
I get tired of this being about religion. For personal services like this, people should be allowed to let their conscience be their guide. I would expect an animal loving baker to refuse to decorate a cake celebrating little Jenny’s first deer kill.
I have mentioned the Nazi examples and have got back that Nazis are not a protected group. So, I guess some people do want special treatment and not just equality.
Starkist doesn’t want tunas with discriminating taste, they want tunas that taste good
Turns out them injuns are also homophobes: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/list-tribal-laws-prohibiting-gay-marriage-30119709
GO AFTER ‘EM FEETS! Their morality is all Jesus-y and stuff.
gack
they don’t even count as dregs
Gotta say, I really appreciated the push you gave for the other gofundme, Jeff.
Not everyday you see things work out as you’d like.
“I don’t want any government coercion related to any private business. Any owner should be able to refuse service to anyone.
I hope they would also make it clear who they have decided not to serve so I can decide whether or not I want to enter into any exchanges with them.”
That there is what might be properly described as market forces.
There probably is a post here, cranky. There’s something to be said here.
I hope they would also make it clear who they have decided not to serve so I can decide whether or not I want to enter into any exchanges with them.
So all of the homophobic businesses should put a yellow emblem near the door, I guess.
So we’ll know.