First of all, the court didn’t rule specifically on that. But second, no one (not even the baker) is arguing that it should be legal to refuse to make a cake because someone is gay. He’s arguing that he should be able to make a cake for a gay wedding. The baker said specifically he would make birthday cakes or whatever.

There’s a subtle difference.

I do think you should be allowed to not make a cake for a Mormon wedding if such a wedding violates your conscious. Heaven knows there are enough people out there who think Mormons have horns and are going to burn in Hell, so there are probably people who would refuse such a request.

Actually, BethRa, the baker made it clear (and the court noted this) that he would do anything but a wedding cake for the gay couple.

Frankly, I don’t understand the wedding cake aspect, but I’m not a cake decorator. To me, it’s a cake. Once it’s out the door, who cares? But to him, it obviously matters.

Overall, I see it like forcing me to write a blog post endorsing something I don’t endorse.

And I have zero problem if someone doesn’t want to make a cake for a Mormon wedding. They don’t have to and I wouldn’t want to buy it from them.

But, overall the court ruling was more about fairness in decision making. The Colorado Civil Rights commission showed hostility toward religion and that was the problem. If they had, instead, done a balancing of rights, it might have gone the other way. And, in fact, that’s why the court said we will have to wait for other cases to clarify.

No, I would not insist EHRL write a blog post about something she didn’t believe in. But I would object heartily if she wrote blogs, but tried to block my access to them because I’m a great big lesbian.

The gay couple Mr Phillips blew off the second he found out they were gay were not asking him to bless their union, they just wanted to give him money to make a cake. Wanting to give money to Xtian bakers is not discriminating against them.

Wrong! The ones “going after bakeries” are NOT going after Jewish or Muslim bakeries; clearly they are targeting Christian-owned bakeries for the political/social climate in the US will go along with bashing Christians, but not bashing Jewish or Muslim owned bakeries.

Also, the issue isn’t one of “denying the buyer their rights,” the real issue is should someone be forced to perform a creative service for something they don’t support.

These aren’t cases of someone walking in off the street and being told they cannot buy the common items for sale to the general public. They are cases of someone demanding that someone in the creative services (and creating a special wedding cake is a creative service – just try to tell most brides that their wedding cake is just “off the shelf common cake” ha!) be forced to provide those services without the right to refuse.

Would you (or I) demand that Suzanne write a blog post about something that you (or I) want but she is opposed to? That isn’t fair to Suzanne – even if we pay her for it. I would call if theft – theft of her creative services that she wasn’t willing to sell.

The discrimination (really it is bullying!) seems to go in the direction that most in the news media and liberals can’t see; or don’t want to see.

False equivalence. No one’s closing down Christian bakeries – they’re just requiring them to adhere to the same anti-discrimination laws as the rest of the state.

As someone from a faith that has experienced a lot of persecution from the US government, I imagine Suzanne is opposed to the government discriminating on religion.

If the government starts closing down Christian bakeries, are Muslim bakeries next? I don’t think the US government has a good track record on this.

He won because the Court found that he didn’t get a fair hearing, based on some hostile comments made by one of the members of Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission. They were actually quite clear that they weren’t ruling on whether his cakes qualified as art or protected speech, or whether that would trump CO’s antidiscrimination laws.

Because they’re engaged in providing goods and services to the public, and should have to follow applicable law. And the law in Colorado states that if you provide goods and services to the public, you cannot refuse to provide those goods and services to people based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.