Hitching Post suit could be tossed

A U.S. District Court judge has been asked to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the city of Coeur d'Alene by the Hitching Post.

Lawyers with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian rights legal advocacy organization, filed the suit in October on behalf of Hitching Post owners Don and Evelyn Knapp. The civil rights lawsuit claims the Knapps are being forced to violate their religious beliefs and perform same-sex marriages because of the city's anti-discrimination ordinance.

But the motion for dismissal, filed Feb. 23 by Boise-based attorney Kirtlan Naylor, asserts that the lawsuit has no standing since there was never any legal action pursued against the Knapps in relation to the ordinance.

"Plaintiffs filed suit without receiving a single threat that their newly formed religious corporation would be prosecuted pursuant to the ordinance, and apparently without realizing that their new religious corporation was excepted from the ordinance," the motion states.

In an email to The Press Wednesday, ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco wrote that his organization looks "forward to vindicating our client's freedom in court."

"The government can't tell ministers they must perform same-sex marriages under threat of jail time and crippling fines," Tedesco wrote. "And that's exactly what the city did to Pastor Knapp and what the ordinance allows the city to do to others."

However, in a formal declaration accompanying the dismissal request, City Attorney Mike Gridley refuted those claims. Gridley wrote that when the lawsuit was filed, he learned the Knapps had created a new religious corporation, Hitching Post Weddings LLC, and filed a certificate of organization with the Idaho Secretary of State in September of 2014.

"As a result, the Hitching Post Weddings LLC, and its owners, Donald and Evelyn Knapp, as presently constituted, are a religious corporation excepted from the anti-discrimination ordinance," Gridley wrote.

The city attorney also noted an Oct. 23, 2014, verbal complaint, received by the Coeur d'Alene Police Department, asserting that the Knapps refused to perform a same-sex wedding ceremony.

"I knew that plaintiffs were excepted from the anti-discrimination ordinance," Gridley wrote. "Therefore, I informed the police department that plaintiffs had committed no legal wrong and would not be prosecuted for any violation."

Coeur d'Alene's anti-discrimination ordinance has been on the books for more than a year, and the city has not pursued legal action against anyone for violating it.