UPDATE: Judge Rules Against Florist Who Refused Service To Gay Couple

I’ve written about Barronelle Stutzman and her Richland Washington flower shop, Arlene’s Flowers, several times, the first time almost two years ago, so let’s replay the back-story first:

Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed live in Washington, and, having been together for a while, and since Washington made all of its citizens equal, they decided to get married in September 2013.

And, since during their nearly decade-long relationship they ordered special occasion flowers — birthdays, anniversaries, condolences and such — from Arlene's Flowers, they decided to use the same florist for their wedding flowers, But Arlene’s owner, and that would be Barronelle Stutzman, turned them down because, as she says:

"Rob came into the store and was talking about getting married. I told him because of my relationship with Jesus Christ that I couldn't do his wedding."

Robert Ingersoll talked with Stutzman a bit, respectfully, but he felt hurt by the rejection:

"It really hurt because it was somebody I knew. We laid awake all night Saturday. It was eating at our souls. There was never a question she'd be the one to do our flowers. She does amazing work."

Ingersoll wrote a Facebook post about their disappointment in Stutzman and Arlene's Flowers, and suddenly the story was everywhere, with people leaving comments, both positive and critical of the florist who won't do same-sex weddings.

Many pointed out that Stutzman's refusal to provide flowers for the Ingersoll-Freed wedding just might be against Washington law because, while state law exempts religious organizations from having to perform same-sex weddings, it doesn't allow the same exemptions for businesses.

All of which lead to a lawsuit when Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a consumer protection lawsuit today against Arlene's Flowers, Barronelle Stutzman, for refusing provide flowers for a same-sex wedding.

The lawsuit alleges that when Stutzman refused to provide goods or services on the basis of sexual orientation in a place of public accommodation, she was violating the state's anti-discrimination law and was, therefore, also violating laws designed to protect consumers. Since Stutzman operates a business that sells floral arrangements for opposite-sex weddings, Ferguson says she must provide that same service to same-sex couples.

This all went back and forth about The Gays and the baby Jeebus and flowers and cakes and weddings and religion and public businesses, and it is still going on because last week Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom decided that the state of Washington has the authority to bring a consumer protection lawsuit against Barronelle Stutzman for refusing to do a floral arrangement for The Gays; he also ruled that Stutzman can be held personally liable for violating the Consumer Protection Act.

The judge still has two more motions to rule on in the lawsuit, including whether the facts case show the florist violated the Consumer Protection Act and the Washington Law Against Discrimination.

Stutzman’s lawyers are saying she declined not because of the couple’s sexual orientation, but because of her religious views on marriage.

But it was her views on marriage of a gay couple, a couple with a different sexual orientation than, allegedly, her own, so that argument is kind of ridiculous; if she didn’t provide flowers because of her views on marriage wouldn’t that mean she wouldn’t provide flowers for straight couples, too?

Look, it boils down to this: the state attorney general is asking for a permanent injunction requiring Stutzman and her shop to comply with the consumer protection law. Simple. You sell flowers, sell flowers, and keep the Baby Jeebus out of it.

I mean, does she check the religious status of all her customers? Does she find out what all the arrangements are for before she makes them? She doesn’t think The Gays should be married because, in her tiny head the Baby Jeebus told her so, but she can’t let the Baby Jeebus tell her how to run her business.

This would have all been a non-story had she just made the flowers. Now it’ll drag on and on … and she’ll still lose.

via LGBTQ Nation

Back Story from ISBL:
Barronelle Stutzman, of Arlene's Flowers, and The Baby Jeebus, Don't Sell Flowers For Same-Sex Weddings
Barronelle Stutzman Gets Busted!

Mr. and Mr.

I remember as a kid — a not-yet-out-but-knowing-I-was-different kid — telling my mother that I would never get married, but I would have a maid to take care of my kids.

How things change; as I remember that story, I think it was my first shot at coming out — as a six-year-old, I think — because, even then, I never thought I could get married, would be allowed to get married, but I always thought I could have children, if that’s what I wanted.

Years later, years later, after meeting Carlos, falling in love with Carlos, and moving three-thousand miles to be with Carlos, I still never thought I could get married, and,  while I like children — deep-fried with a side of ranch dressing … I kid — I knew I didn’t really want children.

And now, fourteen year s after that, I realized I could get married — perhaps not in South Carolina, yet — and that I would get married. We both wanted to do it, and we planned it a couple of times, but it never seemed to work out; things happen, life happens.

I wanted to get married on our anniversary, October 17, because, and he’ll hate me for saying it and then he’ll quickly forget I said it at all, Carlos is bad with dates; I figured the last thing he needed was another “us” date to recall.

So this year, this past summer actually, we decided to go for it. We’d planned a trip to New York City — one of our favorite spots where equality has landed — and planned a week of sights and shows and drinks and just plain fun. I called my father and told him the good news; he said he was so happy for us but that he wouldn’t, couldn’t come, because he doesn’t 'do' big cities. I thought, Oh that’s okay, Dad and let it go, but every time we talked about it, he’d always say that same thing.

And then it hit me: I’m an idiot.

My father was saying how much he wanted to see Carlos and I marry; he’d seen my brother get married, he walked my sister down the aisle, and he wanted to see Carlos and I marry as well.

New York was out, and Bellingham, Washington was in.

The only difference was that in Washington we’d have a three-day waiting period from getting the license to the actual I do’s rather than the twenty-four-hour waiting period in New York. But, it meant that much to my Dad, and it meant that much to me to have him there for this big life event, so it was worth it.

So, Washington there we went; up to Sumas, in fact, a literal hop and skip — no jump because it’s that close — to the Canadian border. Dad’s house is about thirty minutes from Bellingham — a smallish beautiful city along Bellingham Bay — and that’s where we went last Monday to fill out the marriage license.

One hiccup? I’d forgotten Monday was Columbus Day and, as I tend to do, I was freaking out that, if the government buildings were closed, we might miss our three day window to get married on the 17th and since we were leaving on the 18th to come home, we might completely miss this chance. 

Damn that Columbus and his bad sense of direction; had he made it to India, we wouldn’t be taking a day off in America!

Luckily, though, for whatever reason, all government buildings were open, and off we went for the license; the first step and it was a snap. Sign here, show an ID, and hand over some cash; bing bang boom, done.

Then it was off to lunch with my Dad and while driving we wondered about the three-day waiting period. I told Carlos it gave people a chance to make sure this was what they wanted to do and he replied,

Yeah, three days! Because fourteen years isn’t long enough.

I almost drove off the road.

But the wait was on; we spent time with my Dad; we spent time touring the area; we spent time making sure we had the rings, the jackets, the kilt, the shoes, the address, the judge’s name. I guess we did need to three days.

By Friday we were ready and anxious to get this thing done. Since the only person we know in Washington is my Dad, and we needed two witnesses, my father asked a friend of his to join us. I’d met Casey before, and liked her, and, well, witness this already! Casey brought along her boyfriend Tyler, so we ended up with a spare, you know just in case.

At four-thirty we ran into the Bellingham Courthouse — through security … do I really need to take my belt off — and upstairs to where Judge Henley was waiting for us. Then it was short trek down the hall to an open courtroom, followed by a few instructions, a quick chat …

Judge Henley said the ceremony calls for the use of the words ‘spouse’ or the use of the words ‘husband’ and asked what we wanted to do. Carlos and I said, in unison, Husbands!

Anyone can have a spouse, we wanted a husband.

I don’t remember too much about the actual ceremony, really. I remember giggling a little and giving Carlos a side-eye during the richer-poorer part because I thought he’d say, Hmm, poorer? Maybe not so much.

And I remember getting teary-eyed listening to him repeat his vows because Carlos can be very serious and he rarely gets weepy; but he stumbled over some words, and his voice cracked, and my eyes watered, but we made it through.

A quick exchange of rings — again, that’s them up there on top — and it was kiss the groom.

Kiss.The.Groom. Who knew? Bing bang boom, married.

Afterwards, my father took the wedding gang out for dinner at a great restaurant along the bay, where we could watch the sunset over the marina, and drink a little and laugh a lot, and just let it all sink in. My father, some new friends, and my new husband.

It was all so simple, really, and yet such a long time coming; from the days when that little kid never thought he could get married to last week when a  much older kid realized he could, and would, and did.

Fourteen years down, the rest of our lives to go.

Jim Gaylord Finally Gets An Apology

In 1972, Jim Gaylord was teaching social studies at Tacoma’s Wilson High School. He was 35 years old, popular with the students and his co-workers, and a confirmed bachelor, which was what most people called gay men in those early post-Stonewall days.

Jim knew he was gay — he’d known since he was quite young — but it wasn’t until the early 70s that he came out to himself and began seeking out other gay men for friendship and companionship, being very careful to keep his private life private; even his colleagues had no idea he was gay.

One day, though, one of his students, who knew a gay adult friend of Gaylord’s, came to talk with Jim about his own attraction to other boys. It was a brief conversation, at best, and Jim barely recalled much of it, but a time later that young boy tried to take his own life.

He survived, but while being interviewed by the police the boy said he’d spoken to Jim Gaylord because he assumed he was gay. What happened next was, and is, shocking.

The police took that information to the vice principal of the high school, who came to Jim’s house one night and asked him point blank if he was a “homosexual.” Jim decided then and there that he was tired of lying by omission and said it was true, he was gay.

A few weeks later he received a letter of termination; it said, in part:

“The specific probable cause for your discharge is that you have admitted occupying a public status that is incompatible with the conduct required of teachers in this district. Specifically, that you have admitted being a publicly known homosexual.”

Jim Gaylord, now 76, never taught school again.

But Jim fought back; openly gay — even to his parents who hadn’t known their son was gay until he was fired — Jim, who’d always taught his students about civil rights and equality and standing up for one’s self, was not going to just quietly sit back and do nothing.

He was jobless, with a mortgage to pay and no income, but thankfully his local teacher’s union stood behind him, even hiring him as their office manager so he would have an income and support.

So Jim appealed the termination to the school board, whose five-member panel had met in secret to fire him but, at his hearing only three showed up; it was still enough to let his termination for being gay stand.

But Jim wasn’t done, and he decided he would sue the school board for wrongful termination. And while many of Jim’s fellow teachers and more than a few students testified on his behalf — and just as many testified against him — a judge ruled in favor of the school district, saying that, in effect, being gay was immoral and the district was within its rights to fire Gaylord.

Jim then appealed his case to the Washington state Supreme Court where, in 1977, five years after being fired, that court ruled that a school board can discharge a teacher if it feels the teacher’s ability to do the job is impaired, and they felt that the complaints about Jim being gay did, in fact, impair his ability to do his job; ironically, though, the complaints about Jim being gay came out after he was fired.

Jim still refused to surrender and appealed his case to the US Supreme Court, who declined to hear his case at all. He would never get his job back. What he did get, though, some forty-two years after being fired, was quite unexpected, and yet quite welcome.

Another young gay man wanted to talk to Jim Gaylord, though this young man came to Jim to talk about being fired for being gay as part of an Oasis — Tacoma’s support and resource center for LGBT youth — oral history project.

Seth Kirby, the executive director of Oasis, was unaware of Gaylord’s story, but began wondering if the Tacoma school district would consider an apology to Gaylord? After placing a number of calls, climbing the ladder of succession, Kirby finally spoke with Kurt Miller, the Tacoma School Board president, who said an apology to Jim Gaylord was long overdue.

And when Oasis presented its oral histories project — including Jim Gaylord’s story — during its annual fundraiser, Proud Outloud, Kurt Miller formally apologized; Miller also spoke about the differences in Tacoma’s public schools from those old days when Jim Gaylord taught, noting that the school board recently passed a nondiscrimination and equity policy for students that deals with gender identity and sexual orientation; and the district has the same policy for its employees.

Jim Gaylord, who still lives in that Tacoma house where the vice principal knocked forty-two years ago, is a retired librarian — a job he took when his case when unheard by SCOTUS — and says he’s happy with the apology, even though he never asked for it.

“It helps put a relatively pleasant end on an unpleasant situation.”

And an end to an unpleasant time in this country where it was commonplace for gay men and women — especially those in education — to be fired simply for being gay, a condition that still exists in many parts of this country to this day.

And while the apology may seem a little too late, it does offer proof that the times have changed, and are changing. Jim Gaylord never taught again, but he stood up for himself, as a gay man, and stood up for an entire community. He may not have won his case, but he fought for himself as a gay man and that’s a lesson that keeps on giving.

If Jim Gaylord could stand up for us in 1972, then we can keep standing up for all of us in the LGBTQ community in 2014, and beyond.

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