Where should there be "The right to refuse service"?

But why do Christian bakers not refuse to serve fat people, as a matter of conscience ? Why do they not refuse to take out business loans, as a matter of conscience ?What is it about homosexuality, that makes it such a special sin in your eyes, that it's the only one that raises difficulties of conscience ?

You miss my point though. You are saying that people have the right to sin - fair enough.However, you are also saying that you want Christians to have the right to refuse service if it celebrates a sin.By providing a cake to a glutton, however, you are facilitating a sin - you are enabling that sin. And by the same measure, by taking out a loan, a Christian is facilitating - indeed actively participating in the actual commission of a sin.These are on the face of it, demonstrably more egregious acts of sin-encouragement than baking a cake, for use in part of a ceremony, which celebrates a partnership, which includes elements of behaviour, which you hold sinful.And yet no-one has an issue of conscience in relation to facilitating gluttony or usury.You say the sin of homosexuality isn't special, but you must be blind not to see that the reaction of some fundamentalists to it is extremely special.

But you aren't addressing the bedrock of my point - which is why homosexuality raises objections which gluttony and usury don't.In no case is the Christian being invited to participate in what they see as the sin. The homosexual or the glutton is free to do as they wish in relation to homosexual sex or eating a load of pies.But I see no valid reason for a Christian baker to say "I won't bake a cake for your homosexual marriage, but I will sell a dozen cakes to that morbidly obese guy who's about to commit gluttony." If anything, the baker is supporting the gluttony more than the homosexual activity. How can you reasonably distinguish between the two, and say that it is only in relation to homosexuality that there's any issue of conscience ? In both cases the baker can ask the customer to go elsewhere, thereby enabling the sin - but in relation to gluttony, no-one ever does.How does this distinction work, which you're seeking to draw between supporting and enabling ?

Yeah, I get that's what you think. What I don't get is why you aren't so fussed about other sins. Why is homosexuality so darned high on your outrage meter, compared to gluttony or usury or coveting thy neighbour's wife and stuff ? Why are there no fundamentalist rallies against the obese being able to celebrate their gluttony - in public, no less. Why no kids wearing "God hates userers" t-shirts ? Why no Christian demands for the banks to cease trading ? Why no Christian hotel owners demanding to see marriage certificates, before allowing lust-filled couples to rent a room ?In a thousand ways, on a thousand days, Christians the world over facilitate, support, encourage, enable and actively participate in what they see as sins. Why is it that the only thing that gets them so fired up, is a couple of dudes loving each other ? (A couple of attractive women is fine, if they do it on film).

This parallel has been raised many times before, but would it be equally vile to try to force businesses to shut down, if they refused to serve black people ?How do you distinguish the two forms of prejudice ?

I disagree. I think that a society in which there are places you don't want to go, because of your sexuality, colour or gender, is a society in need of fixing. And part of the toolbox to fix it are anti-discrimination laws and the enshrining of legal equality.And those laws don't get introduced just because of rioting and burning. They got introduced in the UK without any such impetus. And the laws in both our countries, seeking to prevent sex discrimination also got introduced without women burning anything or rioting (though there were some demonstrations). They got introduced because people didn't want their societies to tolerate racial or sex discrimination.Me, I want to be part of a society which has laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexuality. Not out of sense of intrusive protectiveness - but because I don't want my society to be a homophobic one.That won't be achieved in my lifetime - but it might in my grandchildren's, if we now speak up, educate, confront, and slap down the homophobes here and there.

Exclusively, no. But as a part of fixing things, it's essential. There's all sorts of interesting debates we can have about what a society entails, but I've not heard of any definitions which don't include common rules of behaviour. And when the rules are to try to prevent or limit harm being done to people, we make them laws, rather than mere social expectations. Preventing harm to others is important, and there are folks who don't give a stuff about social expectations - so we have to be in a position to bring the force of law to bear. Yeah, I wasn't involved in that. Which is not what legislation does. It legislates people's behaviour. They can believe whatever they like.

In addition to the points made by Paul, you're also free to protest against gluttony and sloth. You can organise picket lines to try to persuade people not to shop or work on the Sabbath. You can draw up petitions against anyone who covets his neighbour's ass (I'm pretty safe on that one - neither of my neighbours' asses is anything special). You can, as a Christian community, collectively refuse to use banks and participate in usury. You can write pamphlets encouraging a strict adherence to biblical dietary requirements.You can do all of these things, as well as peacefully protest against gay peoples' rights.But you won't, will you ?

Come on - let's debate this on the level. It would only be like the requirement to worship or sacrifice to the Roman gods, if you were being required to marry another woman, wouldn't it Faith ? Let's drop the hyoerbole in the comparisons.I can understand a certain feeling of conscience on the part of a really fundamental Christian (I happen to feel that certain feeling of conscience is outweighed by the rights of gay people). But as long as you exaggerate the outrage, you aren't going to present your case that well.So no - it isn't like Christians being forced to worship other gods. It's Christians being required not to withhold public services from people who have a different world view to them.

Possibly, but not because I'm not Christian. What I'm not getting, results from logical failures in the comparisons you're making.There's levels of imposition society could require upon Christians. In descending order of egregiousness:1. We could require you to give up your faith or adopt another. This is the equivalent level of imposition you were comparing the current situation with, when you comapared it with Christians being required to worship Roman gods. This is not happening. You are more than entitled to you Christian beliefs and worship.2. We could require you personally to act in a way which was explicitly contrary to your Chrisitan beliefs. This is not happening. We are not requiring you to marry another woman.3. We could require you to explicitly condone something which is contrary to your beliefs. This is not happening. No church will be required to conduct gay marriages. You are entitled to your freedom of speech on the issue.4. We could require you (and are requiring you) not to do something which does not explicitly condone something which is contrary to your beliefs. (Sorry for the triple negative, but it sort of keeps the flow going). You can bake a cake for someone, and still say you find their union contrary to God's law - you can't do that in situation 3 above, if you're conducting their wedding ceremony.5. We could require you not to do something which has nothing to do with your beliefs - eg don't speed on the highway.Now, I will happily concede and agree with you that we are not in area 5. I will agree that you feel uncomfortable about the concept of baking a cake for a gay wedding - that there is an element of conscience about it. But we are down at item 4 out of 5 on the outrage meter.I think that Christian businesses can afford to feel a bit uncomfortable, because they can still maintain their Christian views about gay weddings. I think as well, that the discomfort is outweighed by the harm in discriminating unjustly against a section of society. And let's face it - if you're right and we're wrong, you can get to feel smug about it in the afterlife.But let's stop with the exaggeration - we are not at levels 1, 2 or 3 above.

Yep, so that gay folks don't suffer more.

It's worth adding as well, that the pro-gay marriage slogan wasn't just a gratuitous request by the campaigner - it had a legitimate purpose, in that the cake was ordered for use at an event to support an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.That said, I suspect that the activist ordering the cake deliberately chose a Christian bakery to make a point.The point's a fair one to make though.It's also worth noting that both sides agreed that the damages would be a fairly nominal 500, which is being donated to charity. No one is being ruined, as a result of this test case.

Meh, we're pretty used to the idea that freedom of speech is not an absolute. We've had libel laws for centuries, and assault laws for as long (assault technically being the threat of violence, rather than the violence itself). More recently we've had laws punishing harassment and incitement to racial hatred etc. Definitely not uncomfortable with some limits being placed upon freedom of speech.And I agree with Tangle that our society tends to put limits on freedom of speech where those limits are to protect people, or those classes of people we think it's right to protect.It's a judgment call each time, and this instance it's close to the borderline, but in broad terms, I'm not too uncomfortable about it. But I would never preclude a restriction being placed on our freedom of speech, just because it is such a restriction - there's plenty such restrictions in place already. Freedom of speech may be somewhat sacred, but its halo is a bit tarnished with some naughtiness here and there.

Ok, I need to explore this a little further.Is it the case, in the States, that if a hotel owner refuses to allow black rights activists to hold a meeting in a conference room in the hotel, with a banner advocating black rights, as a result of that hotel owner's belief that black people should have fewer rights than white people, then the owner is entitled to do that ?Bear in mind that the owner omits to incite imminent violence, in this example.

I suppose the distinction I would draw, is that the creation of pictures and words on a cake, whilst distinct from baking the cake, is still part of the baker's service. As a customer, I don't have the machinery to reproduce the pictures on rice paper, or the ability with icing sugar to create neat wording. In that regard, I'd see the baker's artwork as similar to services provided by sky writers or sign makers.I'm pretty relaxed about holding the cake guy to account on this one, in large part because neither I nor anyone else I know would understand that the words were those of the cake guy - same as for sky writers, sign makers, printers and the like. It's part of the service - and that's what he was withholding from the customer.It's nuanced, I agree - and the cake guy did argue that he was happy to sell a cake to the activist, but not to write words he disagreed with. It's close to the borderline.But I think we do our society a greater service by saying that we won't tolerate a denial of a service to a gay person, than we do by refusing to accept a further limitation on a right of free speech. As with all rights, it's a balancing exercise.I can understand views to the contrary in this case though, when it is marginal.