Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

Photo above, Steve and Bridget Tennes

September 2017 – Homosexual activists went to court when Mississippi bakers declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Lower courts sided with the homosexuals, but on June 22, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana, enacted the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, a law signed by Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant in 2016, giving businesses freedom to abstain from offering their services due to religious beliefs. According to the New York Times, this law applies not only to bakers, florists, and wedding photographers, but also to county clerks and adoption agencies.

In another case, the Tennes family in East Lansing, Michigan, has been banned from selling their produce at a local farmers’ market. The Tenneses own Country Mill Farm, an orchard which also serves as a wedding venue. When Steve Tennes refused to host a homosexual wedding at his farm, East Lansing created a new ordinance that stated no vendor could refuse business to a person based on sexual identity.

onenewsnow.com, 6/26/17; world.wng.org, 6/6/17