Interlochen Public Radio: But Elk Rapids Attorney Steve Francis has been scrutinizing the local law and he says there’s a certain group of Traverse City business owners who might want to take notice.
“The secondary effect of this particular ordinance is really the restriction of Christian speech and Christian belief, and that’s what really concerns me,” Francis says . . . He volunteers as an attorney with a national group called the Alliance Defense Fund, which defended a Christian couple who ran a photography studio in New Mexico. The owners ran afoul of a similar law when they refused to photograph a civil union between two women.
“So we argued that to force this couple to take pictures of a lesbian commitment ceremony, which was against their religious beliefs, was forced speech,” he says. “The human rights commission found against this couple, fined them $6,600 and that’s being appealed in state court in New Mexico. That’s the kind of thing that really concerns me with this particular ordinance.”
