An Annapolis, Md., company whose old-fashioned trolleys are iconic in the city's
wedding scene has abandoned the nuptial industry rather than serve same-sex
couples.
The owner of Discover Annapolis Tours said he decided to walk away from
$50,000 in annual revenue instead of compromising his Christian convictions
when same-sex marriages become legal in Maryland in less than a week. And he
has urged prospective clients to lobby state lawmakers for a religious
exemption for wedding vendors.
While most wedding businesses across the country embraced the chance to
serve same-sex couples, a small minority has struggled to balance religious
beliefs against business interests.
Wedding vendors elsewhere who refused to accommodate same-sex couples
have faced discrimination lawsuits -- and lost. Legal experts said Discover
Annapolis Tours sidesteps legal trouble by avoiding all weddings.
"If they're providing services to the public, they can't discriminate who
they provide their services to," said Glendora Hughes, general counsel for the
Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. The commission enforces public
accommodation laws that prohibit businesses from discriminating on the basis
of race, sexual orientation and other characteristics.
The trolley company's decision, publicized by a straight groom offended
by what he called "repressive bigotry," offers a snapshot of a local business
navigating a new landscape in Maryland's wedding industry, and leaving it
behind for a competitor to swoop in.
The head of the Maryland Wedding Professionals Association said the
trolley company is the second vendor to refuse business over the state's
same-sex marriage law, which voters upheld in November. The Maryland clergyman
who led opposition to same-sex marriage called the trolley company's choice to
abandon profits on principle "gutsy" and predicted that more businesses would
quietly follow suit.
"That's a bold and noble statement," said Derek McCoy, executive director
of the Maryland Marriage Alliance. "The other option would have been just to
become a legal case."
Frank Schubert, the political strategist who ran campaigns against
same-sex marriage in Maryland and three other states this year, said opponents
predicted collateral damage from legalizing same-sex unions.
"This is exactly what happens," Schubert said, adding that religious
liberty is "right in the cross hairs of this debate. ... The law doesn't
protect people of faith. It simply doesn't."
Schubert pointed to a handful of other examples publicized in news
reports across the country of wedding vendors sued for refusing to accommodate
a same-sex ceremony: a pair of Vermont innkeepers, a New Jersey church group
and a New Mexico wedding photographer.
A Christian conservative group financed an appeal in the case in New
Mexico -- where same-sex marriages are not recognized but, as in Maryland,
"public accommodation" laws prohibit discrimination based on sexual
orientation. A lesbian couple tried to hire the photographer for their
commitment ceremony, but the photographer's attorneys argued that artists have
a constitutional right to refuse to endorse a message they do not support,
according to the Religion News Service. Two New Mexico courts have sided with
the lesbian couple who sued, and the state's highest court agreed to hear the
