Meet the Two Christian Artists Fighting Back Against Phoenix's 'Anti-Discrimination' Law

Brittany M. Hughes | June 8, 2016
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Just because the Left has an obnoxious habit of stripping away Americans' rights while shoving their liberal agenda down everyone's throats doesn’t mean religious people have to take it lying down.  

Case in point: meet the two Christian artists in Arizona who are suing the city of Phoenix over the city’s anti-discrimination law, saying the regulation violates their freedom of religious exercise.

Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib, create customized, hand-painted art and signs, including for events such as weddings. It’s their official policy to only create art that’s in line with their religious beliefs, avoiding art that is blatantly offensive or crude, or that goes against their belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.

But rather than wait around for a same-sex couple to come along and sue them for refusing to make a hand-painted “Pick a seat, not a side” chalkboard for their wedding, Duka and Koski are preemptively taking the fight to the courts themselves.

From the Arizona Republic:

After starting their small business, Joanna and Breanna learned that the Phoenix law prohibits businesses from "discriminating" based on sexual orientation and from communicating any message that "implies" people are "unwelcome" because of sexual orientation. Although the two young women happily create art for everyone regardless of sexual orientation, Phoenix interprets its law to require them to create art for events, like same-sex wedding ceremonies, that are completely at odds with their religious beliefs.

Phoenix also interprets its law to prevent them from explaining their religious beliefs and why they must create art consistent with their beliefs. For Joanna and Breanna, that's a bridge too far.

The current Arizona law states Duka and Koski could face a daily fine of up to $2,500 and six months in jail if they refuse to make art for a same-sex wedding. Obviously wanting to avoid the government’s penalty for violating their own religious beliefs, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a pre-enforcement challenge to the law in the Maricopa County Superior Court, as well as a motion of preliminary injunction.

These two ladies have good reason to be worried that the next knock on their shop door could come along with an inevitable lawsuit. A court ruled last year that an Oregon bakery that refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding owed the emotionally distraught gay couple a whopping $135,000 in damages.

Another baker in Colorado was sued in 2012 for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding that would’ve included a rainbow, a symbol often used to represent the LGTB community. The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Jack Phillips had violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by refusing to bake their cake.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2014 refused to hear the case of a New Mexico photographer who declined to photograph a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony -- despite the fact that at the time, same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in the state.

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