{"id":607557,"date":"2021-07-31T14:36:22","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T18:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=607557"},"modified":"2021-07-31T14:36:30","modified_gmt":"2021-07-31T18:36:30","slug":"family-farmers-refused-to-hold-same-sex-weddings-were-banned-from-a-local-farmers-market-now-they-await-a-judges-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/family-farmers-refused-to-hold-same-sex-weddings-were-banned-from-a-local-farmers-market-now-they-await-a-judges-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Farmers Refused To Hold Same-Sex Weddings, Were Banned From A Local Farmer\u2019s Market. Now They Await A Judge\u2019s Ruling."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">40<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffamily-farmers-refused-to-hold-same-sex-weddings-were-banned-from-a-local-farmers-market-now-they-await-a-judges-ruling%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=607557&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1303486876.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A family farm is waiting to receive a ruling in their lawsuit against the city of East Lansing, Michigan after they were banned from a city-run market for refusing to allow same-sex weddings on their property.<\/p>\n<p>Fox News <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/michigan-farm-east-lansing-trial-religious-objection-gay-marraige\">reported<\/a> that Country Mill Farms \u2013 operated by Stephen and Bridget Tennes \u2013 began their legal battle in 2016, when the couple said on Facebook that they opposed same-sex weddings for religious reasons. They temporarily stopped hosting weddings on their property after a backlash to the post.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2016, the family announced on Facebook that it would start holding weddings again \u2013 but not for same-sex couples.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Country Mill engages in expressing its purpose and beliefs through the operation of its business and it intentionally communicates messages that promote its owners\u2019 beliefs and declines to communicate messages that violate those beliefs,\u201d the farm said at the time. \u201cFor this reason, Country Mill reserves the right to deny a request for services that would require it to communicate, engage in, or host expression that violates the owners\u2019 sincerely held religious beliefs and conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The City of East Lansing then banned Country Mill from its farmer\u2019s market, citing a new policy requiring all vendors to be in line with the city\u2019s non-discrimination policy in their business operations.<\/p>\n<p>The family sued, and the case was taken up by Alliance Defending Freedom, which has experience in cases such as this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf a city can target and punish a farmer for his religious beliefs on marriage, and do the things that they did and get away with that kind of authority over somebody\u2019s religious beliefs\u2026 they really have the power to try to impact everybody\u2019s religious beliefs,\u201d ADF senior counsel Kate Anderson told Fox News.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit received a bench trial last week and is awaiting a ruling from a judge. In the farm\u2019s favor are two Supreme Court rulings that were decided since the family\u2019s troubles began, although those decisions may not help in this case.<\/p>\n<p>From Fox News:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"31\">\n<p><em>\u201cJust like Catholic Social Services in the Supreme Court\u2019s recent Fulton v. City of Philadelphia decision, Steve Tennes seeks to operate his family farm, Country Mill, consistent with the tenets of his Catholic faith but \u2018does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else,&#8217;\u201d the trial brief for Country Mill says. \u201cYet City officials in East Lansing dislike Tennes\u2019s religious beliefs, speech, and practice. So, the City created a policy to ban Tennes\u2014and only him\u2014from its Farmer\u2019s Market.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>East Lansing, however, argues that Fulton has one major difference from the case at hand \u2013 the Catholic foster agency in that case was a nonprofit with a religious mission. Country Mil Farms, the city says, \u201cis a privately held business enterprise that operates for profit and, as this Court has stated \u2018is not a religious institution.&#8217;\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The city also points out that Masterpiece Cakeshop \u2013 in which a Colorado baker won after being sued for not making a cake for a gay wedding \u2013 was decided on narrow grounds due to the outright hostility the civil rights commission in Colorado expressed toward Christianity. There was no such hostility in this case, it said.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Country Mill\u2019s attorneys, however, point to a statement from East Lansing Mayor Ruth Beier, in which she called the family \u201cbigots.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t doubt that you\u2019re allowed to be a bigot\u2026 You can say it on Facebook, you can say ridiculous, horrible, hateful things,\u201d Beier reportedly said. \u201cWhat we said is if you actually do discriminate in your business by not allowing same-sex couples to marry on your farm, then we don\u2019t want you in East Lansing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A George W. Bush-appointed judge will be ruling on the case.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<\/em>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A family farm is waiting to receive a ruling in their lawsuit against the city of East Lansing, Michigan after they were banned from a city-run market for refusing to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}