On one hand, I believe heavily in free speech to the point where as a principle (but not a constitutional thing) I find a lot of twitter and facebook's recent behavior awful.

On a personal level, I think religion is stupid and people who refuse to give service to anyone over it equally stupid(especially since if they were actually following Jesus's word they wouldn't be doing it. There's a lot about not judging and jesus hanging out with sinners in the new testament). I try not to let this affect my policy opinions since I try to be logical not emotional about them but I'm not sure how well I succeed. Religious beliefs do seem to be about the only reason people are trying to push for these sorts of things too.

Another point on a personal level is I would not want to work with someone on something like my wedding with someone who secretly hated who I am. Especially if they were being coerced by the government to do it.

So overall I'm altogether confused about the whole issue.

One thing I am sure of is that I am absolutely against any kind of religious exemption to any law whatsoever. Make the law one way or another.

They shouldn't be business owners if our social contract hurts their feelings. Commerce is a regulated activity.

Should a black florist be forced to make arrangements for a KKK wedding?

Should a Muslim butcher be forced to prepare pork for his customers?

I don't know about you but I wouldn't want to eat something that someone didn't really want to make for me. Can you trust food that was only made under threat of government action? I can't.

The last point, fair. No one said the cake had to be good :P It's just their professional reputation on the line.

The protected populations are rather limited "race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation", there may be additional protections in your jurisdiction + it has to be a product/service you already provide.

If you bake cakes, you can't refuse a cake to a gay couple; you could refuse on any number of other grounds though. If you don't sell pork, you can't be forced to. But breaking our laws because you like a book (legally speaking) is not allowed.

* FYI I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, if you're refusing service to anyone for anything other than business reasons you should double check with your counsel. You could be violating feduciary duty, etc.

I find it silly that a devout Christian can be sued into bankruptcy because he or she doesn't want to photograph a wedding ceremony with two brides.

The law has no regard for silly.

Moreover, you're missing the point. I picked people for my example because we all understand how repugnant those people would find it to be forced to take part in certain actions.

I get it, religious people are a convenient target of scorn and ridicule but the government shouldn't be in the business of coercing people to provide non-essential services to others.

So, a black ER doctor should have to provide assistance to the KKK member who was just shot and a Jewish pharmacist should have to fill the prescription for the neo-nazi's cancer medication.

Those are life and death issues, so they're not the same as someone getting their feelings hurt because someone else didn't want to associate with them.

The first two you listed here are, if it is proven in court that they were discriminating based on sexual-orientation. If the baker doesn't do bespoke decorations, fine. If the photographer doesn't shoot weddings, fine.

If you don't obey the law A) you're not a good Christian B) you don't get to engage in commerce in the United States of America.

Also please show me in your holy book where it says "thou shall not participate in commerce with homosexuals"

Yes, that was the point. I'm talking about the weaponization of the law.

Also please show me in your holy book where it says "thou shall not participate in commerce with homosexuals"

Please show me where I ever said that it was my book.

If they are bankrupt it's more likely they spent all their money on their crusade in the courts + lost IMO.

Just cause you like a book doesn't mean you can ignore the law.

Those devout Christians had no business exchanging services for currency if they can't respect the law. Commerce is regulated per our Constitution.

I have noticed that every time you say this, you conveniently leave out "religion". It's against the law to discriminate against someone because of their religion too.

Commerce is regulated per our Constitution.

Interstate commerce is regulated per our Constitution. Intrastate commerce falls under other laws.

Further in those places, the populations that non-discrimination laws protect need protecting. If it weren't for the law their livelyhoods and lives would be in greater danger.

I'm from the middle of nowhere and so are my gay brothers, one of whom recently got married. I've experienced this. I've fought this. Don't try to feed me this invisble hand solving discrimination and hate crimes horseshit.

Libertarians...

How on earth do you jump from "he was doing something illegal so the police had the right to enforce the law" to "the amount of force used was appropriate and unfortunately led to his death". You may have lost the thread of the conversation, but no one was talking about bakers being killed by inappropriate use of police force in the course of compelling them to serve gay weddings.

No.

Do you have any evidence for that?

Who exactly has lost their minds here?

There is no such thing.

Honest question: which right would that be? I've never heard about that before.

> The U.S. Supreme Court has said repeatedly that the First Amendment protects an "individual freedom of mind"—e.g., (1943), which affirmed the right not to salute the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance—which the government violates whenever it tells a person that she must or must not speak. Forcing a photographer to create a unique piece of art violates that freedom of the mind.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/choosing-what-to-photograph...

The government can't order you, as an individual, to bake someone a cake; but if you're a business discrimination is prohibited.

Engaging in commerce is a regulated activity per our Constitution.

EDIT: looked it up, they didn't want to bake a cake with bert & ernie and a pro-gay-marriage slogan.

A more sinister version of the same logic is the argument that states weren't discriminating against gay people by not letting them marry someone of the same sex because technically they could go find someone of the opposite sex and be granted a wedding license for a life of misery married to someone who they could literally never be attracted to instead of the person they were attracted to and loved. It's discrimination in either case.

I agree the states and Congress can regulate commerce, but those regulations are still subject to the First Amendment.

The moment you start a business you adapt an additional role to the one you already have ("private person"). In this role you have specific rights and obligations while you're in that role. It's the same reason that a person who is a police officer is allowed to arrest you while on duty (in his role as a police officer), but not when he is off duty (and in his role as a private citizen).

Folks who fought for Jim Crow laws did not view themselves as willfully evil people who discriminated for no reason. They viewed their own support of segregation as a principled moral stance. That's why they fought so hard.

Among other reasons, what do you do when people start inventing religions to get out of doing things they don't want to? Should the government be in the position of deciding which religions are "real"? Just look at the history of Scientology or modern Satanism for examples.

For me this issue is so frustrating because in the gospels, Jesus repeatedly went out of his way to accept and bless society's cast-offs. He tells his followers to turn the other cheek and be wary of imposing judgment.

Yet today, people who supposedly follow his teachings are eager to do the casting off themselves, based on a few sketchy line readings from elsewhere in the Bible. I just don't understand how someone can read the New Testament and come away with "be mean to gay people" as a priority message.

Perhaps more importantly, the difference between that and a landlord "offering service"?

We talk about the wedding cakes and the photographs, but it's important to remember that less than 50 years ago, blacks were constantly turned away from houses in nice neighborhoods for similar objections.

The "because of their religion" part is demonstrably nonsense.

People don't foster anti-gay feelings because of their religion, they trawl archaic text to justify anti-gay feelings that already exist.

It takes 30 seconds and a copy of Leviticus to disprove. Where's the conservative rage about tattoos (Leviticus 19:28), or oysters (Leviticus 11:10)?

You haven't even begun to consider these issues, yet here you are issuing sweeping proclamations about the contents and motivations of other people's hearts. Dare I say that you are not fostering anti-Christian feelings because of your understanding, but you trawl archaic text to justify anti-Christian feelings that already exist.

Because they don't want to follow that rule, and they see other Christians not following that rule.

Under your interpretation (that Christian attitudes are recieved from the Bible) Christian law would have remained largely static for the past 1600 years since the Bible was compiled, which is clearly not the case. For example, the treatment of adultery and usury have changed unrecognisably.

Having either attended or helped perform mass for half of my life, I can tell you for a fact that most Christians have no interest at all in treating the Bible as 'law' and instead use it for inspiration, comfort, or occasionally a crutch when making tough decisions. They recieve their morality and prejudices from themselves and from their peers.

If anyone was actually interested in treating the Bible as law then Theology would be a legal field not an academic one.

> ... you trawl archaic text to justify anti-Christian feelings that already exist.

Nonsense, I haven't said a single anti-christian word... and my pre-existing feelings are against the rationalisation of bigotry being treated as special, or worthy.

Prejudice (and we all have plenty) is to be examined and squashed, not protected.

> ... how they relate to the New Covenant

This is topical. Jesus teaches "love thy neighbour", and the Good Samaritan, lessons that we could all let a little closer to our hearts in times of wall-building, rejection of refugees, and threats of war.

So given that people's rights would be grossly violated if lots of businesses turned them away, the law must say that no business may turn them away.

Social contract theory ;)

One thing I wonder, though, is: what if the owner or sole proprietor "quits" their business? Are they still criminally/civilly liable after they've "given up" their additional role? And, if something like that'd actually fly, would they ever be able to return to their [line of] business, or would they have to quit forever?

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: [The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Several high court rulings have concluded that it includes intrastate commerce. It's wide reaching & has historically been the main tool for combating discrimination.

Humans tend to distrust/dislike those we're not close to. Lots of evidence shows associating with people builds empathy. Taken to its extreme, segregation causes us to 'other' people and lose empathy.

Association certainly breeds empathy, but what if that association is forced by a third party? If I didn't want to interact with a member of group X, and the government decided I had to interact with them or face some arbitrary punishment, initial interactions would be stained by that use of implied force. When you add religion into the mix, tensions are even worse because you might find yourself stuck between blasphemy and judicial punishment.

Its not like everyone feels 'forced', its only a few people (just like I don't feel forced to drive within lanes or not kill people - these don't register for me). But the impact of their attitudes is potentially much greater.

Lets say there are 3 groups of people - (M)inority group, (P)rejudiced people who have businesses, and (E)veryone else.

In this instance, the forced interaction is only forced on P, which is a small number.

P's actions would have broader impact though. The M's would find themselves less welcome in certain areas, and over time (justifiably) choose to go elsewhere. Less M's mean E's would have less interaction with M's.

P's unchecked actions would also begin to normalize P's behavior, and embolden their stance. Normalization would potentially increase the number of E's becoming P's.

Over a long time, this could create an environment where M's choose to leave entirely, E's simply lose out on the opportunity to interact with M's, and increase the likelihood E's turn in to P's through osmosis of P's normalized behavior, and because of lack of personal experience with M's. The P/E community get segregated from the M community, and whenever there are struggles between those communities (which always happen between communities, e.g. resources, culture, etc), empathy is not there to keep things civil. All due to a few Prejudiced individuals not liking being 'forced' to interact with others during the course of their personal choice to engage in (government regulated) economic activity.

Basically, a few rotten apples spoils the lot.

In cases where the number of prejudiced is higher and thus the minority group is unlikely to be able to avoid dealing with a prejudiced business owner, it's unlikely that the two groups would have ever gotten along in the first place.

This happens, a lot. Again, per my previous comment, behavior is normalized, potentially creating a hostile environment.

> After all, we're talking about the prejudiced group simply not wanting to have to associate with the minority group, not necessarily hating them or wishing harm upon them.

We don't necessarily know that. The law certainly doesn't know that.

> We all have people who don't like us, often unjustifiably, but we just avoid interacting with those individuals rather than abstaining from interaction with anyone in their community.

It only takes a small number of people or a few bad interactions for one to choose to avoid an entire area.

> In cases where the number of prejudiced is higher and thus the minority group is unlikely to be able to avoid dealing with a prejudiced business owner, it's unlikely that the two groups would have ever gotten along in the first place.

That's an assumption. Again, plenty of evidence to show that people who don't associate have prejudices that can be extinguished through repeat exposure.

I can see that these all seem small issues in the individual instance, but the thrust of my argument is their cumulative effect has broader implications.

At the risk of seeming too personal (and I mean this sincerely and not in a mean way), it honestly doesn't sound like you've been in an environment where you've felt unwelcome in this way, or spoken to someone who's felt that way about their experiences in certain areas.

[edit] by search, I mean on Google rather than HN

Also, faith means "trust", not "irrational opinion".

Not quite, faith means "trust" in an "irrational opinion". Howerver, everyone should have the right to trust whatever opinion rational or irrational.

That sort of faith can absolutely be rational.

I encourage you to look up the history of segregation in the U.S. That approach works out very badly.

but I see your point and concede that it can be a dangerous slippery slope.

Very different, but still a long way to go. I remember reading that in ~1959 (this is from memory, so all details are a bit hazy) 95% of Americans opposed legalizing interracial marriage; now of course a similar number support its legality - it's a non-issue. Look at the boom in the black middle class (it's amazing what people do when you give them a chance). Look at LGBTQ rights and the incredible advance of women in society.

On the other hand, look at who won the November election, offering the most brazen racially and religiously prejudiced, hateful messages of any major party candidate, possibly ever, and openly partnering with the most powerful agent of white supremacy in the U.S. (Bannon). Look at how minorities are treated by law enforcement in many places. Look at the overwhelming prevalence of white-skinned people (and men) in movies, IT (name the top 10 industry leaders in the last 25 years), national and state government, Fortune 500 CEOs, etc etc.

It is not fair one way or the other. You have also put yourself in the unenviable position of determining what can and can not be controlled by an individual - this will not end well.

| ...equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.

IE, a specific group of people in specific set of places. That does not include discrimination against "things people can't control" in any and all establishments.

That's like saying you didn't steal my money, you've just enforced a rule that I can only spend my money on you.