Report: "Christian photographer sues Virginia over law that may force him to service gay weddings."

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MNathaniel said:
maybe whether such photographers should start more carefully listing themselves as “Catholic and [XYZ] event photographers”,
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I can’t picture the Canadian government forcing Christians to sew a cross onto their clothing. :tshirt:✝️
 
If you don’t want to service a gay wedding than either make it a policy of not catering to weddings period or only offer wedding services to a private club.

Private clubs aren’t held to the same standards as businesses open to the public; that’s why the churches can’t be sued for refusing to officiate gay weddings.
 
That’s not the solution. Catholics shouldn’t have to evade and somehow run around situations that contradict our religious beliefs. The State should provide, in law, for freedom of religion and freedom of association.

A man should be able to run his business as he sees fit within reason. Allowing no Hispanics would be wrong. Not photographing a gay person’s dog’s photos or graduation photos could be considered wrong. But participating in an event that goes against one’s beliefs, having to “support” it (as attendance implies), having to refer to it as a wedding, and having to speak to the mismatched couple and pretend all is well is too much to ask one man, and it should be his choice to abstain.
 
BornInMarch said:
Private clubs aren’t held to the same standards as businesses open to the public;
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The issue is whether this “standard” to which a business is held is just. Why must that “standard” make no allowance for genuine religious convictions?
 
There is an allowance though: the photographer could have chosen not to cater to cater to weddings at all. If he did that there’d be no grounds to sue him for discrimination because he wouldn’t be treating customers differently based solely on their sexuality.
 
1Lord1Faith said:
People have the right to refuse service to anyone that they don’t want to serve.
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Unless their reason for refusing service is because of a categorization (race, sex, disability status, so on). In some areas sexual orientation is included in that list.

That said, I’m inclined to think a photographer against gay marriage might not do a good job at a gay marriage.
 
If they call themselves a photographer at all – I can imagine a suicide party customer saying “we want photos, you’re a photographer. So do it.” They could call it one last family portrait or something.
I’m a musician who has played many dozens of weddings. I am basically on hiatus from that, until I figure out how to get out of playing gay “weddings”.
 
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Mythicalbio said:
This is just stupid. There is no sin in taking photos of a gay wedding, at least none that I know of
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This isn’t the primary issue with these cases. The issues are number one, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion and number two, the government forcing businesses to provide a service, regardless of the person or group in question.

Whether or not it is a sin to provide the service is a totally separate issue.
 
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BornInMarch said:
There is an allowance though: the photographer could have chosen not to cater to cater to weddings at all. If he did that there’d be no grounds to sue him for discrimination because he wouldn’t be treating customers differently based solely on their sexuality.
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Yes but that’s probably a huge part of most photographer’s business.
I think a way to get around this would be to say “I only work at these churches for weddings” – then have a list. Kind of like certain reception halls have a list of caterers that they work with. Churches could help out Christian business owners by having an arrangement like that.
 
Here’s a question though – when I have gotten wedding jobs in the past, there were certain brides that I could see were going to be a huge pain. I said “no thanks” to their wedding job, because I could see that there was going to be a huge outlay of time / energy having to deal with a bridezilla. What if bridezilla is lgbtq (and the hypothetical business owner is okay with gay weddings) and the business owner wants to say “no thanks” to their business, how would one protect oneself? “I didn’t deny service because you’re LGBtq, I denied service because you’re a jerk”.
 
You have a little problem understanding freedom. Of course the photographer can get out of doing all weddings. But what he wants is to get out of doing false “weddings.”
 
Jen95 said:
Yes but that’s probably a huge part of most photographer’s business.
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Well in America you can’t have it both ways; if you want to be open to the public you can’t also pick and choose which members of the public to exclude based on sexual orientation. The photographer had a choice between convictions and profit, but tried to have it both ways.
Jen95 said:
I think a way to get around this would be to say “I only work at these churches for weddings” – then have a list. Kind of like certain reception halls have a list of caterers that they work with. Churches could help out Christian business owners by having an arrangement like that.
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That could work, but then if one of those churches decided to officiate a gay wedding the photographer wouldn’t have a legally acceptable excuse not to cater.
Lara said:
You have a little problem understanding freedom. Of course the photographer can get out of doing all weddings. But what he wants is to get out of doing false “weddings.”
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I understand freedom just fine, and freedom means people don’t have to live by or even believe in Christian values. To the LGBT couples who get married, and to the nation’s government, these are real weddings and just as meaningful as heterosexual ones.
 
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BornInMarch said:
If you don’t want to service a gay wedding than either make it a policy of not catering to weddings period or only offer wedding services to a private club.
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But a ritual celebrating erotic interactions and establishing contractual obligations between two people of identical genitalia isn’t a wedding, period.

Adopting that language just uncritically accepts the state’s imposition of the word ‘wedding’ onto rituals that aren’t actually (according to multiple religions) weddings. Because wedding implies marriage and no actual marriage can physically be consummated between people without complementary genitalia.

I don’t think we necessarily need to cede that linguistic territory.

But personally I’m fine to roll with the punches. If the state wants to co-opt the English words ‘wedding’ and ‘marriage’ to mean any contractual bond between people intending their relationship to involve erotic stimulation of some kind (even of intrinsically non-‘One-Flesh’ kinds, if the contracting parties lack the complementary genitalia to form One Flesh together), why don’t we just start using more precise language to refer to what we mean to refer to?

Like specifying we only celebrate ‘Basar Echad’ (‘One Flesh’, Genesis language in Hebrew) rituals. ‘One Flesh’ can only be achieved when complementary bodies unite (and the incomplete ‘half’ of a reproductive system in a woman, is joined to the incomplete ‘half’ of a reproductive system of a man, to together make one ‘whole’ reproductive organism (body): One Flesh, from which emerges the fruit of that one flesh: a child, whose flesh comes half from the father, half from the mother. The literal embodiment of marital love.

The language might sound really weird and I realistically don’t expect people to take me up on this wacky-sounding idea, but maybe that’s eventually where we need to go. Accepting that Christian culture isn’t the default anymore and that the state is secular, and being very precise in defining what ‘marriage’ means to us as a minority, and what precise kinds of unions we’re able to celebrate and affirm. Maybe using different and religions-specific language (going back to Hebrew roots) would help baffled outsiders understand that better.

As much as “Basar Echad Ceremonial Photographer” might take some getting used to. Haha.
 
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MNathaniel said:
But a ritual celebrating erotic interactions and establishing contractual obligations between two people of identical genitalia isn’t a wedding, period.
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So you’re saying that two people of the same gender are incapable of feeling romantic love for each other? Not even that they shouldn’t, but that it’s physically impossible? That sexual attraction and pragmatism is all there is?

In that case all I can say to the contrary is that the people engaging in these legal marriages would disagree. They would insist that what they feel for each other is romantic love no less pure than that felt by partners in heterosexual couples, and that their wedding celebrates that love (rather than any “erotic ritual”). They’d also ask what proof you have that a pair of men can’t be in love with each other, and if all you can provide is religious texts they’d ask why those texts should be legally binding in a country with no established religion?
 
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I essentially just think that long as cooperation isn’t explicit or formal then providing services to these events, even a death event, isn’t sinful. That is why I repeatedly mentioned things that are the same as it, adulterous weddings, photos of fornicators that will be used to celebrate their relationships, services for events celebrating or promoting a false religion (catering,manual labor helping set it up, etc). If one wants to avoid all of these things, that’s fine, I just take issue with it being presented as inherently sinful, because that is not how morality is determined. I also did not like how hypocritical it is, isolating only this type of sin, as if many things aren’t also objective mortal sins. Other roles in a wedding also might be taken to frame it as beautiful, providing clothes those marrying will wear, venue, food, etc. All of these things are remote material cooperation, so as long as your intentions are good, and the circumstances, then I would say it is fine to do.

Now all of that is separate from the issues of compelling people against their conscience (even if they wrongfully apprehend something as sinful). But I think not allowing for unjust discrimination is fine, I may be wrong but the issue seems to be all-or-nothing. Either one may discriminate against whoever for whatever wherever, or not, in businesses.
 
Gay marriage is a different level of sin than people living together in adultery. You can learn these things on Catholic Answers if you are interested in learning and not just arguing.
I’m wondering if you are Catholic?

 
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VanitasVanitatum said:
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Lara:
But what he wants is to get out of doing false “weddings.”
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Most weddings are false.
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Some weddings are more false than others.
 
Curious @Borninmarch, would two brothers, or two sisters, or uncle / nephew etc. qualify as marriage partners?
Why or why not?
 
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