Equal Rights Amendment: The Right of Same-Sex Couples
On March 1st, 2013, a long-time client Robert Ingersoll walked into Arleen’s flowers in Richland Washington, intending to order flowers to use for his upcoming wedding with his partner Curt Freed. However, when he walked in, he was quite surprised at what happened next. After shopping at Arleen’s flowers for almost a decade, he was declined service. Why was this? It was due to the fact that the owner, Barronelle Stutzman's consciousness and religious beliefs didn’t allow her to have any part in a same-sex wedding. Her reason? Mrs. Stutzman believed that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and because of this, she would not sell and/or create floral arrangements for their same-sex wedding.
Everyone has an equal right to purchase flowers, do they not? The shop owner, Mrs. Stutzman, wrongfully rejected the couple because they were wanting to purchase flowers to help celebrate their marriage; but because they were of the same sex, she refused. Under the protection of the Equal Rights Amendment, stating that is“ was to provide for the legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex,” this is an obvious violation. While Mrs. Stutzman had served everyone in the past, regardless of their sexual orientation, it was her conscience that would not allow her to sell flowers to celebrate a same-sex marriage even though she and Mr. Ingersoll, her long-term customer, had been friends for many years. While it may have been her conscience preventing her from selling flowers due to the fact that she doesn’t believe in a same-sex marriage, the Washington State Law Against Discrimination makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate based on race, creed, color, national origin, sex, marital status or the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability. Not only did the Washington State sue Mrs. Stutzman but the couple, Curt Freed and Robert Ingersoll, also sued Mrs. Stutzman for violating Washington’s anti-discrimination law.
Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed are two gay men that love each very much and decided they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. They had been in a committed relationship since 2004, so when Washington State began to legally recognize the rights of same-sex marriage in February 2012 they began to discuss the next big step which was to stand in front of family, friends, and each other in order to promise to be there “for better or worse, in sickness and in health”. Several months later, in December of 2012, Mr. Freed proposed to his long-time love, Mr. Ingersoll. Soon thereafter, the couple excitedly began to plan their wedding. They discussed many details such as flowers, cake, and guest arrangements. They had decided they wanted to purchase flowers from their favorite floral shop, Arleen’s Flowers, where Mr. Ingersoll had been a long-time loyal customer. After going into the store and speaking with the manager, Robert was told he needed to come back to speak with the owner, Mrs. Stutzman, in order to begin his order. On March 1st, 2013, Mr. Ingersoll walked into Arleen’s Flowers to speak with store owner Mrs. Stutzman. After Robert told Mrs. Stutzman, that he was engaged and wanted her bouquet shop to provide the flowers, Mrs. Stutzman took Rob’s hand and said that she could not sell him flowers for the wedding because of “her relationship with Jesus Christ.” Mr. Ingersoll never once asked her to attend the wedding, only to provide the flowers but before he could even say what he wanted for the wedding, Mrs. Stutzman said she would not be providing her services due to her “religious views.” By refusing Robert Ingersoll’s service, Mrs. Stuntman is breaking a set of laws called the WLAD. The WLAD stands for The Washington State Law Against Discrimination which is designed to protect and defend people/individuals in WA State from being discriminated against. The WLAD prohibits acts that “directly or indirectly result in any distinction, restriction, or discrimination in any place of public accommodation” on the basis of sexual orientation and guarantees individuals “the right to purchase any service, commodity or article of personal property offered or sold on, or by, any establishment to the public,” without having to worry about being discriminated based on sex, gender, race, age, and sexual orientation. In WA, it is required by law that businesses that are open to the public, like Arleen’s Flowers, can’t refuse service to customers based on the customer’s race, color, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or military status. In fact, “The WLAD forbids Mrs. Stutzman only from acting on her personal belief to discriminate in the operation of her public accommodation.” This means that under Washington State law, it is legally prohibited for Mr. Ingersoll to be refused service simply because of who he loves.
The owner of Arlene's Flowers, Mrs. Stuztman, not only refuses to provide service to the same-sex couple but also states that she didn't allow her employees to create floral arrangements for Ingersoll and his partner as she felt like any employee in the store to approve or participate in the wedding was supporting the freedom and right of same-sex marriage. She also stated, that “she would not endorse the equality of marriage.” Therefore, Mrs. Stutzman is not refusing service solely on her religious beliefs but instead, also taking a political standpoint of not supporting Mr. Ingrasoll and his partner of their marriage. By taking this political stance and withholding her employees the ability to arrange the flowers for the couple’s wedding, this is no longer just an argument based upon the differing religious views. Her current position and her illegal actions led to the development of an “unwritten store policy” to where she would not allow a same-sex couple to be served for their marriage ceremony. Her unwritten policy discriminated against same-sex couples simply based on which gender her customers choose to marry. By restricting service to certain groups of people, based on sexual orientation, she clearly violated the Washington State Law Against Discrimination.
A few years prior to this case, there was a case in Colorado with a similar scenario. In July 201, there was a bakery in Colorado where the owner refused to make a wedding cake for same-sex marriage. The owner, Jack Phillips, refused to design and bake the cake, saying that gay marriage violated his religious belief. The gay couple, Craig and Mullins, filed a discrimination complaint in September of 2012 against Masterpiece Cakeshop, and the owner, Jack Phillips. This was shortly after the couple’s visit to the shop where they were discriminated against based on their sexual orientation. The couple even stated that “This isn’t about a cake,” Craig stated while participating in a Supreme Court hearing. “It isn’t about weddings—it has never been about weddings. We all desire fair and equal treatment, and that’s why we’re here today.”
In Colorado, the Anti-Discrimination Act prohibits businesses from discriminating, including sexual orientation. It was said in court that “while . . . religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law. Not only did Phillips decline Craig and Mullins, but later found out that Phillips had turned away at least five other same-sex couples who had sought to buy baked goods for their wedding receptions, including one couple who simply wanted to order cupcakes. By declining service to the same-sex couple, Phillips was conveying a message of not supporting marriage equality.
When thinking about this case from a philosophical perspective, Isiah Berlin's two concepts of liberty come into play. Negative Freedom is an individual's freedom of speech, stating that individuals should have a large amount of freedom which the state must not interfere with. As stated in Contemporary Political Philosophy, “political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others.” Negative freedom is defined as individuals are free to make choices, and freedom from government involvement, but one must allow for equality of opportunity. When Mrs. Stutzman held her position, she restricted and took away her customers' negative freedom right to procure flowers, solely based on Mr. Ingersoll's sexual orientation.
While every individual has the right to believe what they want, businesses have a legal and ethical responsibility to respect freedom of expression. It’s the business’s long-term interest to support everyone's basic rights. Taking a religious standpoint as Mrs. Stutzman did, it severely affected her business as she became involved in a long-term legal battle simply by declining service to a same-sex couple. Mrs. Stutzman took away the couple's positive (liberty) freedom which is defined as “The freedom which consists in being one's own master, and the freedom which consists in not being prevented from choosing as I do by other men, may, on the face of it, seem concepts at no great logical distance from each other…..same thing.” Mrs. Stutzman took away Mr. Ingersoll's right to purchase flowers which overall took away his positive freedom because he could not patronage this business without being turned away.
In Contemporary Political Philosophy, author Cécile LaBorde discusses whether religion and society should be connected. Religion should be left out of society as it's up to everyone's discretion if they wish to participate in certain religious beliefs. When bringing the state into it, LaBorde states that “State entanglement with religion cannot be justified through reasons accessible to all citizens. In particular, establishments would entail privileging one religion over others or - in the case of multi-faith establishment - privileging religion as such.” With this said, the state can't make one religion better than another, and therefore makes sense for the state to not be involved in any religion. The principle of church-state separation in the U.S is what protects all Americans’ religious freedom. If the government were to promote Christianity or any religion for that matter, then our individual rights and diversity couldn't be maintained if we were a “faith-based” state. Therefore, in order to keep “respecting an establishment of religion”, businesses of the state cannot be faith-based. A state cannot favor one religion over another, nor should it favor a particular religion when there are also some who do not partake in any sort of religious practice. In the case against Arlene's Flowers, it is clear that the owner, Mrs. Stuztman took a religious standpoint in her business, no longer acting upon an unbiased perspective. She is allowing her own personal vendetta to get in the way of ethical business practices by discriminating against a same-sex couple purely because her beliefs are based upon the fact that marriage is between men and women. Over the past 15 years, the number of complaints about religious discrimination has increased by 50%. The most accurate example of this is when the flower shop owner turned down a same-sex couple just because of their sexual orientation. This clearly involves her own beliefs in a manner that should have the absence of such discrimination. It is the moral, legal and right thing to do when presenting equal opportunities to the plethora of customers that walk in and out of her door every day. In business, overt displays of personal views/opinions on religion in society can be unwelcome and counterproductive to the goals and objectives of the business. Therefore, religion and society need to be separate from each other so every individual has the same basic rights no matter what their gender, race, or sexual orientation is.
While owners such as Mrs. Stutman may not agree with all their employees' religious choices, she has to at least make an attempt at a reasonable accommodation. Companies and business owners cannot discriminate against certain classes and have to at least respect people's differing religious beliefs, whether they themselves believe in the same ideal or not. Mrs. Stuztman stated that selling floral arrangements to a same-sex couple went against her religious beliefs yet in the past she had sold flower arrangements to the same couple along with people with differing religious beliefs, specifically a Muslim and Atheist. So if she could sell flowers to people with differing religions, and even sold to this couple for years, why couldn’t she sell floral arrangements to a same-sex couple wedding? When Ms. Stutzman testified at her deposition, she stated that “Providing flowers for a wedding between Muslims would not necessarily constitute an endorsement of Islam, nor would providing flowers for an atheist couple endorse atheism.” This case also did not present any issue on forced participation since the shop or its owner was not asked to participate in any religious ceremonies. Mr. Ingersoll clarified that he was not inviting her nor was he asking her to attend the ceremony. He was simply asking her to create, arrange and sell the flowers, just like she had done over all the years prior.
In Contemporary Political Philosophy, Philosopher Charles Mills discusses the idea of racial contract. He introduces the theory of social contract which “tackles the legitimacy of the informal contract between people and their governing bodies as well as their moral ideologies.” It's an idea that there is you and me and that and “the me” is somehow better because I fit within the norm. When comparing martial beliefs and religion, it can be seen that religion is better and somehow overthrows one's marital preferences such as an individual's sexual orientation. With this in mind, the idea of a social contract can show that certain religions are higher because of these societal norms while someone's martial preferences aren't as important or “below” religion. An example is this would be police power and the concept that those in power such as guards, officers, or governing officials set up societal norms and if we don't follow those sets of rules, it could be considered a crime that's punishable. As stated by Charles Mills, “This contract in many ways subjugates certain races while elevating others because of these societal norms.” So when the business owner of Arlene's Flowers, Mrs. Stuztman, refused service to Mr. Ingersoll because of his sexual orientation, she is saying that her religious beliefs trump his marital right. While Mrs. Stuztman may not believe in a same-sex marriage, it is her moral obligation as a business owner to serve the public fairly and equally, no matter their race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
Overall, the case against Arlene's Flowers vs the State of Washington is something to think about. Mrs. Stutzman’s beliefs may not be willing to accept the idea of a same-sex marriage which is completely within her right. However, to refuse service to Mr. Ingersoll who was a long-time customer is not only offensive but morally wrong and unjust. The law is there to help people and laws such as the WLAD is designed to protect and defend people from being discriminated against simply because of whom they love. Mrs. Stutzman has the right to believe what she wants and while it may be against her core beliefs, it is her obligation as a business owner to separate religion and business transactions. Mr. Ingersoll only wanted to purchase some beautiful bouquets of flowers and did not ask for Mrs. Stuztman to attend. Therefore, it is up to Washington State to get justice for Mr. Ingersoll and Mr. Freed and get the justice they deserve so it never happens again and so they never feel like they have to be ashamed of being who they are.
