For the record, I support gay marriage, but I also support religious freedom.
I do believe their first amendment rights were infringed upon. I'm not 100% familiar with the laws that govern a private business and what reasons they can legally refuse service to someone. I would think that religious reasons would qualify as an exception, as opposed to refusing based on race or something.
There is a problem there though, and I think this is why the government may have made the decision they did. If they allow this to take place, it opens a loophole for people to refuse service to gay/lesbian people under the false pretense of religious freedom, but really they're just refusing them service because they're gay/lesbian and they don't like that. This is one step away from hate crimes.
Once again though, I do think the government overstepped their boundary here. If all the details you provided are true, then this was an infringement on their first amendment rights.
As for Separation of Church and State, I think this is an example where it was not followed, thus proving my point. I don't see where your argument FOR State adopting religion comes into play here. If I'm missing the point please point it out.
Maybe there was a miscommunication on either of our parts.
Thanks for you input.
Its two sides of the same issue, and its complex in that regard. But it was the first example I could come up with and one that is current.
For the record I support marriage equality also.
Let me try to unpack this a little bit, because people often for some reason fail to see this accurately here, its a subtle distinction but an important one.
Suppose the bakery I had mentioned above had a standard line of products they sold, and would routinely take custom orders also. Any gay person was welcome in their store to purchase their goods. The lesbian couple that sued them initially chose that bakery to go to because they liked their products and had formed a good relationship with them over time. So the bakers were not excluding homosexuals from their business.
I got married once, we hired a baker to bake our cake, they did, then she brought it and served it and was in our photos and everything, it was my understanding this was what the lesbian couple wanted, the bakers involved in their wedding, in all be it a minor roll, but involved just the same.
For such services this is beyond food service, this is more like an artist, and any artist has a right to refuse any request for services that are offered for any reason, as far as I know. Try to hire an artist to paint your portrait, they're welcome to refuse for any reason. The reason behind this is because the work involved is deeply personal in nature.
So back to the bakery, had the lesbians come in wanting something on the cheap, a sheet cake with some special writing on it or a bunch of frosted cup cakes and all that, this would be another issue, the bakers declined to be deeply involved in a ceremony that was against their main stream deeply held religious convictions. It is not the same thing as the old "whites Only" segregation applied to gay and straight.
I do not think this would open up the door for businesses to deny goods and services for normal, run of the mill off the shelf type stuff. It would allow bakers and photographers and others who provide services for weddings the ability to deny taking part in these events, in doing so it would open up room for someone to fill that demand and perform those services for the gay community themselves. That being said, I don't think the majority of business owners out there would turn down the business, but you and I are both just speculating here. So my point is that even if a majority of current providers would deny the new business, it only creates opportunity for others.
The reason I say this is a religion and state issue is because the state here is demanding that religious people do things that go against their religion.
