Crosstalk: February 27, 2015

Kristen Waggoner serves as Senior Vice President of Legal Services with Alliance Defending Freedom, leading their legal and media efforts. She has participated as counsel and prevailed in several high-profile constitutional cases dealing with matters such as same-sex marriage, pharmacist conscience rights and clergy-parishioner privilege. Barronelle Stutzman of Richland, Washington, is a 70 year old grandmother and the sole owner of Arlene's Flowers, a shop started by her mother. According to Kristen, Barronelle loves to serve her customers and her goal is to make friends with them and help them celebrate the important events in their lives. Barronelle met and became friends with a man named Rob Ingersoll about 10 years ago. While understanding Barronelle's religious stance, he nonetheless identified himself to her as a homosexual. Knowing these things about each other they became good friends and worked well together. In 2012 Washington began to recognize same-sex marriage legally. Not long after that, Rob came into the store and requested that Barronelle do his wedding. She politely told Rob that she couldn't do the wedding due to her relationship with Christ. She did, however, recommend 3 other florists. Once Rob left the store, Barronelle thought they would remain friends. Shortly after that, however, the attorney general in the State of Washington heard about this story through the media and sued her both personally and professionally. The suit has been ongoing for the past two years. Unfortunately more pressure has been added to Barronelle's case because the ACLU is also suing her so she is liable for both the attorney fees of the ACLU as well as those for the attorney general, an amount that will reach into seven figures should this go up through the appellate process. Everything Barronelle owns is at stake in this case. If you wish to show your support for her, you can contact the attorney general as well as the governor in the State of Washington at the numbers listed below.