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Published On: Fri, Oct 24th, 2014

ACLU retreats from lawsuit against Idaho pastors on performing gay marriages

The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho announced Thursday that it will not wage a legal challenge against Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, run by Donald and Evelyn Knapp, which it had said was in violation of a local non-discrimination ordinance for theirrefusal to marry same-sex couples.

Leo Morales, the ACLU’s interim executive director, said that chapel owners Donald and Evelyn Knapp, both ordained Christian ministers, recently changed their business status to become a “religious corporation,” according to the Associated Press.

photo/Twitter

photo/Twitter

Morales made these comments during a press conference Thursday, noting that the new designation would likely exempt the family from performing gay marriage ceremonies so long as Hitching Post — which will remain a for-profit business — exclusively performs faith-based weddings.

“As long as a entity is conducting a religious activity, that is accepted. That should be accepted under the nondiscrimination law in Coeur d’Alene,” Morales told TheBlaze Friday. “Once that entity begins to offer other services that are secular services, we believe it then falls under the category of public accommodation.”

Jeremy Tedesco, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative legal firm representing the Knapps, told TheBlaze Friday that there is no official  ”religious corporation” status outside of the nonprofit realm, per se, and that his clients had merely changed their status from an S-corporation to a Limited Liability Corporation.

Tedesco believes that the ACLU is in “major damage control” over the fact that a non-discrimination ordinance that they have defended has been used to limit the speech of ordained ministers.

“The ACLU is terrified … that the ordinance has been used exactly the way we said it would be,” Tedesco said. “The ACLU wants nothing to do with the worst possible set of facts that could result from one of these ordinances.”

If the ACLU is correct in its contention that the Knapps are protected under their current business status, then Tedesco said he believes new language must be added to the ordinance to protect the Hitching Post and other businesses like it.

“This situation is very nuanced, it’s also very new for us and for most of the attorneys involved in the case,” Morales admitted during the press conference.

Knapps have been locked in a legal battle with Coeur d’Alene officials over their refusal to marry gay couples, with the city responding to their recently filed federal lawsuit Monday by asking that them reconsider taking legal action.

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About the Author

- Writer and Co-Founder of The Global Dispatch, Brandon has been covering news, offering commentary for years, beginning professionally in 2003 on Crazed Fanboy before expanding into other blogs and sites. Appearing on several radio shows, Brandon has hosted Dispatch Radio, written his first novel (The Rise of the Templar) and completed the three years Global University program in Ministerial Studies to be a pastor. To Contact Brandon email [email protected] ATTN: BRANDON

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