> The person was more than willing to sell them a cake because he did not discriminate in his business on who he sold his items. What the disagreement was on is he did not want to perform the artwork on the cake.

No, he refused to make any cake at all for the event for which one waa sought, explicitly because it was a same sex wedding. Artwork was not the issue:

---quote---

Phillips informed the couple that he does not “create” wedding cakes for same-sex weddings. Ibid. He explained, “I’ll make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don’t make cakes for same sex weddings.”

---end quote---

MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD., ET AL. v. COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION ET AL. 584 US ____ (2018), No. 16-111, slip op. @ 4 (Sup.Ct., June 4, 2018) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

I removed the example because it was a poor analogy. Regardless, a webhost or cloud provider is within their right to turn away anyone's business, including if it violates their Terms of Service (which is open to broad interpretation by the business). Can't discriminate against a protected class of course, but that's not the case here.

The law, as it currently stands, cannot force a technology provider to provide a platform for content if they prefer not to host it.

The point is not about what the company is able to do legally. Because the legality of things is the lowest possible bar that we could set in our society. It's a really poor excuse to do something and say well it's not illegal.

My point is this excessive moral arbitration that causes the exclusion of people and entities from society is a very dangerous path to head down. We should want individuals to make moral and political decisions and participate in the processes that allow for change and remediation. By having companies both large and small become the moral arbiters and forcibly excluding people from the participation in society will only ever end badly.

Who is this path dangerous for? Society as a whole? Or the malicious who are attempting to take advantage of weaknesses in societal fabric or democracy? When certain systems fail, we require other systems to take up the slack. In this case, private industry is stepping in where government (in this case, the State of Texas) as horrifically failed. The legislation in question was specifically crafted to subvert US Supreme Court (Roe vs Wade) precedence.

> My point is this excessive moral arbitration that causes the exclusion of people and entities from society is a very dangerous path to head down. We should want individuals to make moral and political decisions and participate in the processes that allow for change and remediation. By having companies both large and small become the moral arbiters and forcibly excluding people from the participation in society will only ever end badly.

Some people and entities should be excluded due to incompatibility (broadly speaking, but would include human rights beliefs, harming others, etc). Their participation is not in good faith. They are not attempting to have a debate or a discussion, but are attempting to rule through tyranny. In this example, Texan conservatives are ramming through legislation to enforce their belief system on the women of Texas. They are simply running up against the consequences of such (distasteful, unethical) behavior, and as conservatives, you would think they're comfortable with the idea of personal responsibility and business freedom, and consequently are prepared to face the repercussions of their decisions.

You can have a conversation, a discussion, or a debate of ideas with a rational actor operating in good faith; you punch a bully in the face.

Regardless of your or anyone's personal preference for the law, it ought to be respected on the ground that the men and women who passed it are at least to some degree elected by the people. We're not talking about King Henry VIII here — this is a democratically elected republic trying to build laws that meet the needs and wants of their supporters. If GoDaddy is selectively enforcing its ToS to disable potentially legitimate government action then there is an argument to be made that they are unjustly wielding their oligopolistic power. Either GoDaddy should be required to enforce its ToS across the board or it should be required to do business with the Texas government. GoDaddy cannot be considered a content neutral provider under Section 230 if it is selectively enforcing. When this kind of thing has happened in the past, the government has enacted and enforced antitrust laws — e.g. Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Unjust laws are not to be respected, and should be challenged through every avenue available. The Will of the People and their elected representatives brought us slavery, the internment of the Japanese, and horrific medical testing without consent on minorities (to name a few democratically supported gross human rights violations) after all.

The executive branch isn’t going to take any actions that support Texas in this matter from an antitrust perspective (Biden’s comments have made it exceptionally clear where they stand on Texas’ legislation as an assault on the rights of women).

Slavery was upheld by democratically elected governments too, wasn't it? People have a duty to not respect unjust laws - that has been the major factor of change in society.

Otherwise women wouldn't be voting in the US still.

>Or the malicious who are attempting to take advantage of weaknesses in societal fabric or democracy

Classic. "They" want to take away your rights, off course. The shadowy malicious, always scheming in secrecy, always forcing companies' hands to crack down and decide things that have nothing to do with them.

This is not flirting with fascism at all. (Not until it's used against you, at any rate.)

>We should want individuals to make moral and political decisions and participate in the processes that allow for change and remediation. By having companies both large and small become the moral arbiters and forcibly excluding people from the participation in society will only ever end badly.

Allowing corporations to make decisions on moral, ethical or political grounds isn't at odds with your framing of individual agency. If corporations (or other organized entities) do something that most associated individuals find to be truly against their moral and political sensibilities, then in a world where individual agency matters the way you imply it does, people would simply dissociate from the company/organization at some point.

I doubt that will happen with any kind of scale in this case, as there are some behaviors and beliefs that - while legal - are generally viewed as undesirable, and aren't going to garner any support from your average employee. Doxxing and harassing women seeking abortions is just one of many such cases.

The more critical answer is that religion has a special place in the US, and is among the foremost of rights. A business which develops religious art for any of their customers except with regards to Christian art would also be violating constitutional rights, despite the fact that their non-Christian offerings are available to all.

Also, we could pick easier discussions like how religious organizations have broad freedoms to discriminate against gay individuals, such as by firing gay employees or evicting gay students. There it becomes clear that religious rights have a very special place in law, and that gay marital benefits by the likes of Microsoft or Google is simply an expression of soft company power.

Furthermore, gay protections exist at the federal level largely due to a previous Supreme Court with a Sandra Day O'Connor acting as a pivotal vote. It is not obvious how Lawrence v Texas, which legalized gay sex, would've turned out in today's court.

> What was upheld is you cannot enforce an artist to do work for you against their own opinions.

That was not the decision, though it appears to be a common misconception. The decision was that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had exhibited hostility towards religion and that wasn't allowed. They didn't rule on free speech grounds.