Hitching Post dispute floods Cd'A offices

Coeur d’Alene City Hall has been inundated this week with phone calls and emails regarding the Hitching Post and the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

The mayor alone has received more than 2,500 emails, said city spokesman Keith Erickson.

“It’s been on overload — and I think it’s the misinformation that we’re threatening to throw the Knapps in jail,” Erickson said.

Erickson was referring to Hitching Post wedding chapel owners Don and Evelyn Knapp, the couple of ordained ministers who are suing the city of Coeur d’Alene. The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court, claims that through its anti-discrimination ordinance, the city is violating the Knapps’ constitutional rights to free speech and religious freedom by forcing them to solemnize same-sex marriages.

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