City Can’t Ban Farmer From Market for Views on Same-Sex Marriage, Judge Rules

 

Six years after a Michigan city barred a farmer from selling apples and other fruit at an outdoor market because he doesn’t allow same-sex weddings on his property, a federal judge has ruled that the city violated his constitutional right to religious freedom.

The original 2017 decision by East Lansing to exclude farmers Steve and Bridget Tennes and their Country Mill Farms from the market “constituted a burden on plaintiffs’ religious beliefs,” District Judge Paul Maloney ruled last week, citing Supreme Court precedent.

Tennes and his wife, who are Catholic, “were forced to choose between following their religious beliefs and a government benefit for which they were otherwise qualified,” Maloney, of the District Court for the Western District of Michigan, wrote in his Aug. 21 opinion.

“He serves and welcomes everyone to his stand [at the farmers market]. No one is ever turned away,” lawyer John Bursch, a senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, said of Tennes, The Associated Press reported...MORE