We've reported on the case of the New Mexico photographer before. Ian Tuttle at National Review Online charts the dangerous precedent it sets for religious liberty and free speech:

In its desire to prop up the same-sex-marriage agenda, though, the court has rejected that distinction and, in doing so, established a shocking precedent: Not only photographers but writers, videographers, graphic designers, and a host of others who market their services can now be legitimately forced by the government to work on behalf of causes with which they disagree.

... Elane Photography plans to appeal its case to the New Mexico Supreme Court and, if necessary, to the U.S. Supreme Court. But it’s not merely a matter of overturning an unfavorable ruling. The implications of the decision are staggering. “It needs to be reversed,” Lorence argues, “as a matter of ordered liberty.” The decision could be used to effectively bar those opposed to same-sex marriage (or any other liberal cause) from the marketplace.

... And while it is certainly not clear that as goes New Mexico, so goes the nation, if liberal activists and their judicial backers can chip away at conscience protections in cities and states, they will eventually succeed at the federal level.

Eugene Volokh's legal experts blog:

"So the New Mexico Court of Appeals held last week in the long-pending Elane Photography v. Willock (N.M. Ct. App. May 31, 2012). The court began by holding that the state law that bans sexual orientation discrimination in places of public accommodation applies to professional wedding photographers’ decisions not to photograph same-sex commitment ceremonies: Such photography businesses are “places of public accommodation” under the language of the law, and the discrimination between legally recognized opposite-sex marriages (New Mexico only recognizes such marriages) and same-sex commitment ceremonies constitutes discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The court then rejected the argument of the photographer (Elane Huguenin, the co-owner and principal photographer for Elane Photography) that penalizing her for not photographing such same-sex ceremonies was an unconstitutional “speech compulsion.” The First Amendment, Huguenin argued, has been repeatedly held to protect the right to speak as well as the right not to speak; and the right not to speak includes the right not to create artistic expression that one doesn’t want to create. And just as the First Amendment protects speech that is said for money (indeed, most books, newspapers, movies, and the like are created and distributed commercially), so it protects the right not to create certain artistic works for money, even if one is in that line of business. But the court disagreed..."