"Religious conservatives are the targets of discrimination, lawyer says"

"Religious conservatives are the ones being discriminated against for their stance of conscience." said Jordan Lawrence a veteran attorney who in 2006 represented a female photographer in one of the cases widely cited in the “religious freedom" law.

“Nobody has a religion that says they have to deny service to gay people, the way the other side portrays this issue,” he said. “That completely distorts reality and makes this seem like a segregated lunch counter in the South.”

He added: “I’ve had a long time to ponder this and I can’t think of a single person who has said ‘My religion says I can’t sell goods and services to gay people.’ Nobody.”

What some are saying, he insisted, is that they cannot be a party to a ceremony in which marriage is defined differently than between one man and one woman—or serve as an advocate for such a marriage.

People such as website designers, videographers, social media specialists and advertising agencies that devise campaigns—if asked to advocate political or religious platforms— have a right under the law to decline

“They don’t have a standard product – it’s a message they have to formulate to put out there, but people want to ignore the fact that asking a [Christian] website designer to create a website that God does not exist could create some crisis of conscience.”

The threshold for denying services in a religious protection case, he said, is whether the task required by the religious person is “expressive.” Does the job involve some sort of creativity?

Here, Jordan Lawrence cites a couple of instances, one, which made it's way to the New Mexico Supreme court, where a concurrence accompanying the court’s opinion, one of the justices wrote that the Huguenins (a photographer) “now are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives,” adding “it is the price of citizenship.”

The second instance, an example where this time a governor was singled out for her Christian belief, did not go to the courts, but it did make the news.

In 2012, Sante Fe, N.M., hair stylist Antonio Darden made news when he said he would no longer cut the hair of Gov. Susana Martinez—or offer her the secret hair coloring recipe he designed just for her—because he disagreed with her opposition to gay marriage. Although his stand did not involve a religious protection law, Lorence used the anecdote to make a point.

“The governor’s aides called not too long ago, wanting another appointment to come in,” Darden, who is gay, told a local television station at the time, "Because of her stances and her views on this, I told her aides no. They called the next day, asking if I’d changed my mind about taking the governor in and I said no.”

Lorence said the media rallied behind Darden.

“The stories said ‘Wow, what a principled guy. They treated him like a hero because the governor violated his beliefs,” Lorence said — and the fervor caught on.

“Waiters and waitresses in the area vowed not to provide service to the governor if she came in to eat because of her stance on same-sex marriage,” he said.

Lorence believes laws that protect religious convictions are in place for a reason, and should not be politicized.

“Because this hairdresser was on the right side of the political debate, he got a pass in the press,” he said. “It’s wrong to view religious liberty laws as a fortress of the conservatives, that if you wipe out laws protecting religious liberty you’ve somehow seized a strategic stronghold of the enemy and brought them closer to defeat.”

Reached at his shop, Dardon told the Los Angeles Times that he had every right to deny service.

How can the hairdresser not see that it is HE who is singling out people, indeed punishing the governor for her Christian beliefs?