Supporters crowdfund U.S. florist’s defence
• A florist in Washington state fined US$1,000 for refusing to sell a same-sex couple wedding flowers has netted more than US$85,000 in a crowdfunding campaign.
The Seattle Times reports that nearly half of the money on the gofundme.com page set up in late February for Barronelle Stutzman, 70, came in the last several days.
Supporters compare Ms. Stutzman’s benefit page to an Indiana pizza shop that raised more than US$800,000 after closing when a co-owner expressed support for the state’s new religious objections law to protect private business owners. The co-owner said the shop wouldn’t cater a gay wedding.
But Indiana legislators, facing mounting pressure, tweaked the law late last week to address concerns that it would allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.
The Washington state law, Attorney-General Bob Ferguson has said, “clearly prohibits discrimination against samesex couples.”
Ms. Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts in Richland, Wash., was fined US$1,000 in Benton County Superior Court in March after refusing to serve a same-sex couple in 2013.
That’s a violation of that state’s anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws, the court ruled. The ruling also requires the shop to make available to same-sex couples everything it sells to oppositesex couples.
But Ms. Stutzman said same-sex weddings go against her Southern Baptist beliefs. After she declined to agree to no longer discriminate, Mr. Ferguson said, his office filed a consumer-protection lawsuit.
“It’s about freedom, not money,” Ms. Stutzman wrote Mr. Ferguson on Feb. 20, two days after the court ruling, in a letter obtained by the Seattle newspaper.
“I certainly don’t relish the idea of losing my business, my home, and everything else that your lawsuit threatens to take from my family, but my freedom to honour God in doing what I do best is more important.”
Ms. Stutzman refused to sell flowers for the 2013 wedding of long-time customers Robert Ingersoll and his partner, Curt Freed, for religious reasons.
“[Robert] said he decided to get married, and before he got through, I grabbed his hand and said, ‘I am sorry. I can’t do your wedding because of my relationship with Jesus Christ,’ ” Ms. Stutzman told KEPR television in 2013.