Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is braying about her intervention in yet another out-of-state lawsuit — this one to protect a Washington state florist who doesn’t want to sell flowers to gay people for use at their wedding.
In addition to fighting to protect people to discriminate in interstate commerce,
Rutledge says she’s writing the “co-lead” brief on a plea to the U.S. Supreme Court to say the Washington State Supreme Court acted unconstitutionally. She contends it’s a violation of Stutzman’s religious freedom to be compelled to provide flowers for a customer’s same-sex wedding. Arkansas has already gone down the road to Rutledge’s approval by passing a law allowing religion to be used as a pretext to discriminate in commerce,
It’s a slippery slope when you argue that the sale of flowers violates a religious belief or amounts to constitutionally protected speech. It didn’t work for the segs who said their religion required racial discrimination in the sale of fried chicken and diner coffee. But neither the U.S. nor the Supreme Court is in the 60s any longer. Rutledge may yet be able to claim another victory for discrimination.
I hope the day comes that the attorney general must defend a Little Rock restaurant that refuses to deliver a pizza to a fornicating legislator’s Sugar Shack. Religion, don’t you know?