By DEXTER DUGGAN
The video begins with Barronelle Stutzman, a florist in Washington state, sifting through letters at a dining table covered with a flower-patterned white cloth, with the Bible at hand.
“She has received a lot of letters of support,” as well as some hate mail, attorney Kristen Waggoner told The Wanderer, adding that each letter matters to her. “She reads it and she cries. She’s just so grateful” for the support expressed.
Stutzman is the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, in Richland, Wash., who has been targeted by a powerful legal assault to force her to celebrate “same-sex marriage,” contrary to her Christian beliefs.
Homosexual activists used to taunt people opposed to their crusade by asking, “How does my gay marriage hurt you?”
In the age of Barack Obama, that question is being answered in Richland, a city not far from the Oregon border, at the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima Rivers.
Waggoner, senior vice president of legal services with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), said Washington’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, put pressure on Stutzman, while a judge ruled that she not only provide flowers to celebrate a “same-sex” wedding but also attend the ceremony to furnish “full wedding support,” such as touching up the same-sex couple’s corsages.
Moreover, the young-looking 70-year-old Stutzman, a Southern Baptist, is being sued on both the business and personal level, with the potential to wipe her out financially because she merely honors the traditional understanding of marriage that has prevailed virtually throughout the history of the world.
A summary of the case by ADF, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based national organization that defends religious liberty and traditional morality, says Stutzman “has served and employed people who identify as homosexual over the course of many years. Despite this, the Washington attorney general sued her for exercising her constitutionally protected freedom to act consistent with her faith by referring a longtime customer to a nearby florist for a same-sex ceremony.
“She had provided flowers to the customer [Robert Ingersoll] and his partner many times, but could not participate in and design floral arrangements for his same-sex ceremony,” ADF says. “The state is not only suing Stutzman’s business but is also suing her personally. Stutzman, a grandmother who has worked in the floral industry for 40 years, faces the loss of her business and her personal assets.”
Even though the marketplace gave the same-sex couple “plenty of . . . options” to obtain floral arrangements from other local businesses, Stutzman is being told “the ACLU and the government will bring about your personal and your financial ruin” if she dares follow her conscience, Waggoner said.
Attorney General Ferguson, a Democrat, personally jumped into the case after hearing about it. Then the ACLU joined in piling on and also is suing Stutzman on both the business and personal levels, Waggoner said.
Even if Ferguson drops his case, the ACLU could continue its action against her, Waggoner said.
Ferguson said that if Stutzman accepts clients for traditional weddings, she must serve “same-sex weddings,” too, or else she can’t do business with any wedding, Waggoner said.
“For a florist, to get out of the wedding business is absurd,” she said, alluding to the major portion of their work that florists do for such ceremonies.
The attorney general is sending a clear message that “your homosexual conduct is protected,” but not a Christian’s conscience, “and that’s the definition of intolerance,” Waggoner told The Wanderer.
Wikipedia biographical information says Ferguson graduated from the Catholic Bishop Blanchet High School in Seattle.
Stutzman declined Ferguson’s offer on February 19 to drop his action if she paid $2,001 and agreed “not to discriminate.”
Waggoner told The Wanderer during a February 27 interview that “it’s very disturbing that it’s gone this far and that she’s going to have to appeal this decision.”
She said she expects an appeal on behalf of Stutzman to be filed within 60 says.
In a February 20 letter on her Arlene’s Flowers stationery, Stutzman told Ferguson: “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 honor God in doing what I do best is more important.
“Washington’s constitution guarantees us ‘freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment’,” she wrote. “I cannot sell that precious freedom. You are asking me to walk in the way of a well-known betrayer, one who sold something of infinite worth for 30 pieces of silver. That is something I will not do.”
A government that can tell someone what she must do this way is “terrifying,” Waggoner said. “. . . This type of a ruling will affect everyone. . . .
“It’s very clear that the laws that we put in place to prevent discrimination . . . are being used to punish people, to force them to conform . . . and to destroy them if they have a different view about marriage,” she said.
Early in the proceedings, ADF issued a news release on May 16, 2013, saying: “‘Barronelle has been creating floral arrangements for Robert Ingersoll for nearly nine years,’ the countersuit [to Ingersoll’s suit] states. ‘Barronelle enjoys the warm and cordial relationship that she has developed with Mr. Ingersoll….
“‘Barronelle has known that Robert Ingersoll identifies himself as gay throughout most of their nine-year relationship. That fact never made any difference in the way Mr. Ingersoll was treated as a customer. Arlene’s Flowers routinely designs floral arrangements for other gay and lesbian clientele. Arlene’s Flowers has also had openly gay employees’,” the news release said.
In January a local Superior Court judge ruled against Stutzman, saying she “must provide full wedding support for same-sex ceremonies, including custom design work to decorate the ceremony, delivery to the forum, staying at the ceremony to touch up arrangements, and assisting the wedding party,” according to a February 18 ADF news release.
The release added that “Ferguson, in an unprecedented move, [had] filed a suit of his own against her after hearing about the situation through news reports, not because of any complaint filed with his office.”
Despite this legal muscle against an individual Christian, “We have a long and noble history…of protecting personal expression as well as religious liberty,” Waggoner said.
Stutzman views her floral work as artistic expression.
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