By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services via Arizona Capitol Times
Arizona’s chief prosecutor is urging the state’s high court to block Phoenix from enforcing its anti-discrimination ordinance against two women who refuse to craft wedding materials for same-sex nuptials.
In a legal brief filed with the state Supreme Court, Attorney General Mark Brnovich argues that Arizona and a handful of other states who have signed on with him “have compelling interests in protecting their citizens’ freedoms of speech and religion secured by the United States Constitution, as well as by their individual state constitutions.”
Conversely, Brnovich says that siding with Phoenix in the legal fight amounts to “coercing artists to use their talents to create government-sponsored messages.”
“It forces petitioners to create art that expresses the message that particular unions are marriages, despite their sincerely held religious beliefs that such union are not marriages and are antithetical to God’s design for marriage,” he said.
