Trump Administration Sides With Christian Photographer

LGBT, Religious Freedom, Rights of Conscience, , ,

We’ve heard time and again about Christian photographers, bakers, florists, and wedding chapel owners being dragged into court because they declined to take part in a same-sex wedding or ceremony.

Sometimes the Christian business owners win their cases. Other times they lose.

These court cases often center on local ordinances or state laws that give people special privileges or protections based on sexual-orientation or gender identity.

During the Obama Administration, we saw wave after wave of radical LGBT policies rolled out at the federal level.

However, we seem to be experiencing a little bit of a reprieve under the Trump Administration.

Recently the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in a federal court in Kentucky arguing that the government cannot force a Christian photographer to photograph a same-sex wedding.

Alliance Defending Freedom is handling a lawsuit on behalf of photographer Chelsey Nelson over the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro “Fairness Ordinance.”

The ordinance grants special rights and privileges to people based on sexual-orientation and gender identity.

In the federal government’s statement about the lawsuit, the U.S. Attorney General’s office wrote,

The United States is committed to protecting the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, which include both the right to “the free exercise” of religion and “the freedom of speech.” . . . These freedoms lie at the heart of a free society and are the “effectual guardian of every other right.”

The statement goes on to say that forcing Chelsey Nelson to photograph a same-sex wedding would violate her First Amendment rights and that she probably would win any court case over the issue.

We have said before that religious liberty is a casualty of the radical efforts to redefine marriage.

Thankfully, the federal government is siding withe people of faith right now.

Hopefully this court case will result in better protections for the free exercise of religion in the future.

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Trial Court Date Set for Ten Commandments Monument

Religious Freedom

Last week, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker set a trial court date for the lawsuit over Arkansas’ monument of the Ten Commandments.

The trial will begin the week of July 13, 2020.

In 2015 Sen. Jason Rapert (R – Conway) sponsored a law authorizing a monument of the Ten Commandments on the Arkansas State Capitol Grounds.

It was placed on the Capitol lawn on June 27, 2017.

Less than 24 hours later, a man plowed a vehicle into the monument, completely destroying it.

The monument was rebuilt and placed on the Capitol grounds in April of 2018.

Now the American Humanist Association, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the Satanic Temple all are part of a lawsuit to have the monument removed.

In a written statement last week, Sen. Jason Rapert said, “the Ten Commandments are an important component to the foundation of the laws and legal system of the United State of America and the State of Arkansas.”

Sen. Rapert went on to note that the monument of the Ten Commandments was not publicly funded.

“Over 800 donors gave funds to help us fulfill this project. . . . Private donations were used to rebuild the monument which was reinstalled with the addition of security bollards to protect it,” he said.

The monument is identical to one the U.S. Supreme Court ruled constitutional in Texas in 2005.

Frankly, there just shouldn’t be anything controversial about a monument honoring the significance of the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are one of the earliest examples of the rule of law in human history.

The Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are amazing documents, but the Ten Commandments are the great-great-granddaddy of them all.

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