Is your concern about vendors not affiliated with a religious group, like a florist or a photographer, or religious organizations as vendors of churches and wedding services?
I asked two questions, because I see each of them creating situations that require some thought. One question is about private vendors who are personally religious but not part of a religious organization. The other question is about religious organizations that provide services as missions beyond worship services.
Regarding your first question in your post above this one, what did the Illinois court base their decision on as to the pharmacist? I ask, because to me, it is far more intrusive, and I think raises a host of Constitutional issues, to force someone to provide a private service on site, such as photographing a wedding. So absent some statute covering the pharmacist, and not others, it seems almost
a fortiori to me that the photographer would have a similar exemption under the case law precedent.
If you are talking about a flower shop, where folks walk in and buy flowers, how would the vendor even know their purpose as a practical matter? That gets close to the public accommodations issue, and I don't think such an exception is appropriate, to refuse to sell a product based on the purpose the customer intends to use it, if legal, which it certainly is here.
Regarding religious missions, which are charitable, they have a right to serve whom they wish. I see no issue there,
unless state funding is involved. We have discussed that one before. I am not sure how it applies to weddings, or possibly could. We talked about adoptions. But passing the gay marriage law in Illinois, will not have any impact as to the status quo, which as I understand it, is that religious organizations cannot get state funding, if they refuse adoption services for same gender couples who have entered a "civil union."
So the only argument as to the adoption matter standing in the way of one supporting the gay marriage bill, is to hold gays hostage as to affording them a right to marriage in order to extract a fix of the existing laws as to religious organizations and same gender couple adoptions. That clearly seems just wrong to me to do that. You don't deny someone a right they should have, because in another context, someone else's rights as one might see it are being violated. Two wrongs do not make a right. But sure, I see nothing wrong with trying to get an amendment to the Bill to deal with the adoption issue - but not as a
sine qua non. It should stand on its one merits.
Make sense?
