PAXTON, Ill. — A Christian-owned bed and breakfast that refused to host a same-sex wedding will have to pay $30,000 to the couple after a panel from the Illinois Human Rights Commission (IHRC) refused to hear the facility’s appeal.
But owner Jim Walder said he planned to appeal to the full state Human Rights Commission, according to The Christian Post. Walder said he was opposed to hosting the wedding in 2011 at TimberCreek Bed & Breakfast in Paxton, Illinois, because of religious reasons.
“In our opinion, forcing a small business with one employee to host a gay ‘marriage’ which violates the owner’s sincerely held biblical belief that marriage is between one man and one woman is an extreme circumstance, especially when marriage has been understood for thousands of years to be a union between one man and one woman,” he said. “We believe homosexuality is wrong and unnatural based on what the Bible says about it. If that is discrimination, I guess we unfortunately discriminate.”
The same-sex couple argued that Walder’s denial of service was a rejection of the Illinois Human Rights Act, according to the Post.
“This feels like blatant reverse discrimination against all business owners, Christian or otherwise, by the IHRC, which is supposed to be an unbiased neutral party in resolving complaints,” Walder said. (TAB)
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