Compelling a business, there's a big difference.

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.

actually that is exactly what the government did. The bakery didn't refuse to serve homosexuals. They did refused to bake a cake with say, two males at the top (paraphrasing the case).

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

Ok, but that does not change the fact that the bakery in this situation was in fact discriminating. You don't have to refuse all service to be discriminating illegally.

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.

The cases I listed above all involve sole proprietorships or closely-held companies, so compelling the business to engage in protected speech is tantamount to compelling the individual who owns the business to engage in protected speech.

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

> The cases I listed above all involve sole proprietorships or closely-held companies, so compelling the business to engage in protected speech is tantamount to compelling the individual who owns the business to engage in protected speech.

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).

Actually any citizen can arrest a lawbreaker, not just a police officer, and not just while one is on duty.

What's the difference between the wedding photographer who won't take a picture of a gay couple, and a bar/shop owner with "no dogs, no blacks, no Irish" policy?

The wedding photographer believes, because of their religion, that it would be unethical to participate in the wedding.

Business owners cited religious reasons to deny service to black people too. The KKK was founded as a nominally Christian organization.

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.

Gay marriage was an obvious win for individual rights and liberty. This issue is different: the discussion isn't around whether bars should be allowed to kick out LGBT patrons, it's whether bakers and photographers should be compelled to offer services which might be against their conscience. That's a important right that could be taken away, so it isn't obvious compelling bakers not to turn away LGBT clients is a net win for individual rights.

It's a tough issue, but so are all civil rights laws. They all force a business owner to serve or accommodate customers they might not want to. Calling something a religious objection shouldn't be a universal pass IMO.

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.

what is the fundamental difference between a bar "offering service" to patrons, and a photographer "offering service"?

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.

Why should a bartender be compelled to offer their services?

> The wedding photographer believes, because of their religion, that it would be unethical to participate in the wedding.

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)?

Your comment shows that you have not done even the most basic research into different kinds of Old Testament law, their function, how they relate to the New Covenant, underlying principles from Creation, etc. For example, how do you reconcile Christians eating non-kosher meat, since it is also forbidden in the OT?

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.

> For example, how do you reconcile Christians eating non-kosher meat, since it is also forbidden in the OT?

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.

Serving drinks is not protected speech; taking a photograph is.

Being paid to take a photograph is different though. That's not speech, that's a professional service.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. I imagine you would agree that a journalist still engages in protected speech when he writes articles in exchange for compensation. Why isn't a photographer also engaging in protected speech when he takes photos in exchange for compensation?

Are you saying that an act is no longer considered speech if you're paid for it? This seems to fly in the face of innumerable legal precedents, from porn to commissioned/sponsored art works to TV shows.

As it's engaging in commerce it is subject to regulation.

There's a decent, but by no means slam dunk, case that wedding photographers engage in protected expressive conduct. The case is significantly weaker one for bakers and florists.

This is true. The case is stronger if the baker designs a custom cake or has to write a message on the cake, or if the florist designs a custom floral arrangement.

Personally, I've always wondered if the people who don't want to make cakes for a gay wedding/provide flowers would be willing to subcontract that out to someone else. When you buy a cake you don't generally expect that specific person will be making that cake. This would allow them to not participate while at the same time protecting people from discrimination.

Alternatively, why doesn't the gay couple just go somewhere else? I would imagine that only a very small minority of bakers/photographers/florists have strong feelings on this issue, so it's not like it would be difficult to find equivalent service elsewhere.

Because the law can't depend on how many people would like to disregard it. If, in any particular locality, it's not a small minority at all, we're quickly back to "separate but equal". We've seen that movie and we know it doesn't end well.

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.

Simply put: there isn't always "somewhere else" they can go, and you can't have different standards for businesses depending on whether or not they're the bakery in town, or the only photographer in town, etc.

This is where Facebook and twitter bans tread as well. Moral outrage on its own does not justify social acceptability, however well meaning.

Those who oppose would still consider this participation.