Gay Marriage as an attack on Christianity

Not explicitly. But Paul points out that

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It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

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seek not a wife.

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It is good for a man to {be a virgin}

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after all:

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He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord....he that is married careth for the things that are of the world

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And thus one should be chaste. It is better to be unmarried and chaste says Paul:

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I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.

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Of course, fornication is worse than unchastity so:

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But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.

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So marriage isn't good. It's just better than being horny and screwing around.So it seems to me, although Paul would disagree specifically through special pleading perhaps, that his general argument is that gays should marry because it is better for a gay to be in a monogomous relationships where they promise in front of god to remain so than for them to tied by no vows and live in fornication. Being gay and a fornicator is surely doubly sinful than just being one or the other.As Paul later says:

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Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.

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If you were called to find men attractive then you must abide by that, and if you cannot contain your lusts, you should marry as living a sin with one is better than fornicating with many.

Maths for a start.If we assume that Wedding Cake makers are equally Muslim and Christian, there are still 70 times more Christians than Muslims. We'd need to see over 100 suits against Christians and none against Muslims before we'd be able to detect any noticeable bias. We've only seen a handful. So the sample size is way too small to expect to see Muslims appear.Also the assumption that Muslim new businesses are equally likely to start a bakery that serves wedding cakes is questionable.Then it might also be the case that Muslims are less likely to feel that selling a wedding cake for a same-sex marriages is haraam.So there's a bunch of reasons, where only the first is even needed to explain the evidence.

And I don't understand how anyone can think selling a cake for a gay wedding suggests the opinion that the baker thinks the wedding is a legitimate wedding in the eyes of God. So we still have work to do reach agreement. Still, we should keep trying, eh? Well, naturally. But if you single homosexuals out for particular attention its going to look like you 'Bible believing' Christians have some particular animus against homosexuals. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God - right?

I'm happy to agree that it's a person's conscience and I'm not suggesting a person be forced to act against their conscience, but I still don't see how the wedding cake baking and selling procedure is the same as treating the marriage as legitimate.Do you agree, at least, that your right to life takes precedence over my religious right to sacrifice you to my gods? Since the bakers are happy to sell other products one option is for them to stop selling the products that put them into moral difficulties.Or, if a civil partnership that is called a marriage is a problem and this is all about what people are calling things, and Christians don't have a right to tell people what they choose to call things - why don't the Christian bakers stop selling wedding cakes but sell 'celebration cakes'. If the people buying the cakes choose to celebrate sinful things that's up to them, but the bakers aren't legitimizing anything by calling it a wedding themselves, only acknowledging the right for people to celebrate in a free fashion. Yes, as we often are. And that's the point. There are many sins, but Christians seem to be primarily focussed on complaining and being difficult about homosexuality considerably more. I seldom hear about Christians refusing people that get drunk a little too much, adulterers, the effeminate (unless they are overtly trans). Do Christian bakers also refuse Muslim wedding cakes? Atheist Wedding cakes? Do they ever check to make sure they aren't accidentally condoning any other sin? Isn't everybody a sinner and so shouldn't they refuse wedding cakes to everybody? And thus, it seems that there is some particular animus against gays.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

So legitimizing an occasion which intrinsically rejects Jesus as God and the only Way is OK? I should remind you that Eid involves chanting 'Allāhu Akbar' A festival created by Mohammed etc etc.

In which case I'll remind you that any principles you manage to establish while you have the power to do so, can and will be used against you when you lack the power. Meaning Christians may one day be the ones being victimized by the notion of refusing on the grounds of conscience: "Sorry I don't sell guns to Christians as it violates my conscience" or something like that.

The principle isn't the conscience. The principle is that one's conscience should override other people's freedoms. If you establish this, it can easily turn against you.As an example see the Christian displays in government buildings controversies. The principle set by allowing these displays tends towards allowing Satanists the same. Likewise, Christians being allowed to hand out Bibles in school sets a principle which allows Satanists and atheists to do likewise. If a further principle of 'Only the majority religious view gets these privileges' then a shift in demographics could leave the Christians disenfranchised.And I'll leave it at pointing out that survey results show that younger people are increasingly irreligious, and the younger Christians are increasingly in disagreement with your view of the religion. So said demographic shifts are a distinct likelihood.

The law was passed before she opened her shop as far as I can tell. The law was passed in March 2007. She opened shop in the summer of 2007. Then you are basically saying no compromise is possible. Because the only compromise you'll accept is one where you 'win'. As long as someone considers what the gays are doing a wedding the bakers won't want to have anything to do with it, even if they aren't being asked to validate it as a marriage. Which seems to scream animus to me. If Christians {and others} weren't systematically being prejudiced towards homosexuals there'd have been nothing for the gay rights people to make anything of. And let me remind you that I'm arguing that that the subject is so often about what the gays are doing, how the gays are sinful etc., and seldom on other sins. Which is strongly suggestive that gays are being singled out and that animus is at play rather than the pretence about 'sin' and 'conscience'. Well its also to avoid the sin of fornication according to the Bible.So it isn't about the fact that gays are sinning, its because you disagree that what they are doing is marriage, but you won't be happy with simply not being mandated to call it a marriage, or acknowledge it as a marriage - you will only be content when you can impose your beliefs on others through acts of discrimination. Look you can call it what you want. If you want to think the gays are mistaken in thinking it is a marriage go for it. If you want to think the government is mistaken in calling it a marriage you are free to do so. If you think the gays are engaged in a secular partnership ceremony not a marriage that's absolutely fine.

The argument was that the law came out of nowhere. The counter-argument that it did not seems perfectly valid to me.Further to this, the Klein's discussed the Masterpiece Bakeries cake a year earlier (the bakery that made a cake for a dog wedding, but refused the cake for a gay wedding in 2012) and had already decided they would act in contravention to the laws should the issue come to them, so even the argument that a business owner being ignorant of business laws applicable in their area at the time they were setting up their business ultimately falls over anyway.

I'm an English employee.
They were Oregonian business owners.They have much more reason to know what the laws and statutes with regards to conducting business in Oregon. This was an Oregon law on how a business should operate its trade in Oregon. They not only had a reason to know, they had a legal and ethical duty to know.Their response to learning a complaint was being raised, and the appropriate legislation under which they were running afoul to post the names and address of the couple on Facebook and talk about their 'brave stand' to Conservative media, proudly proclaim they would continue to refuse to serve same-sex couples and put up a sign in their window asserting this.

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(1) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation, without any distinction, discrimination or restriction on account of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status or age if the individual is of age, as described in this section, or older.... It is an unlawful practice for any person to deny full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation in violation of this section..

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Notice that discrimination will be made in place of public accommodation prohibited; age exceptions. Except as provided by laws governing the consumption of alcoholic beverages by minors, the use of marijuana items, as defined in ORS 475B.015,by persons under 21 years of age, the frequenting by minors of places of public accommodation where alcoholic beverages are served and the frequenting by persons under 21 years of age of places of public accommodation where marijuana items are sold, and except for special rates or services offered to persons 50 years of age or older, it is an unlawful practice for any person acting on behalf of any place of public accommodation as defined in ORS 659A.400 to publish, circulate, issue or display, or cause to be published, circulated, issued or displayed, any communication, notice, advertisement or sign of any kind to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services or privileges of the place of public accommodation will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination will be made against, any person on account of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status or age if the individual is of age, as described in this section, or older.

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When I worked in a bar I had to know a variety of laws related to the industry: weights and measures, age restrictions, prostitution laws and other things.When I worked in insurance I had to know a lot of random laws, but also Data Protection and consumer rights laws.Where I work now I have a bunch of other laws I need to be aware of.If you can't keep track of the laws that are relevant to your business, then running a business is probably not for you. My counter argument was to Faith. My point that I feel the counterargument is a valid one was to you. I think pointing out that the law did not come out of nowhere while they were operating their business as they had always done is a valid counterargument to the argument that the law came out of nowhere while they were operating their business as they had always done. I don't think the Kleins ever made the argument that it was a surprise.In addition, if food hygiene regulations changed while they were operating a business they have a duty to know them and if necessary, change their procedures. The Kleins - Sweet Cakes by Melissa - were in 2013, they were hit with a six figure compensation order due to the egregious nature of their behaviour, and their repeated verbal and written commitment to continuing to break the law after being informed of it.The Masterpiece cakeshop case was 2012, they weren't sued per se - in that there was no money or damages at stake Masterpiece was merely ordered to comply with the law, retrain their staff and provide reports tp demonstrate their compliance with the law. The Kleins were aware of this case before they made their refusal. They were, in effect, acting as Christian activists trying to win a case for religious rights of Christians to discriminate in public business operations - seeking media attention for their cause, fund raising on GoFundMe etc.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Once you remove the mote from thine eye. I'm pretty sure Oregon "Trade Practices, Labor and Employment" statutes directly effect an Oregonian business. BOLI seemed to agree. If they don't understand their duties as an operator of a business they should have hired someone who does. Or just worked in a bakery where the owners/managers there would teach them these things. Had they merely refused they would probably been simply told to comply with the law and maybe faced some nominal costs or fines. That's what happened to Masterpiece Cakes, and they were a bigger operation than the Kleins, and the Kleins were aware of the Masterpeice Cakes case - so again, they weren't even ignorant if you wanted to play the 'ignorance of the law is understandable' card. Because it's mean and unlawful. It's possible to believe dumb and bigoted stuff and not be mean and do unlawful things. However, another reason why they might not do it is that they were fined $135,000 and raised over $400,000 in donations and became 'Conservative Christian heroes'. Yeah, though I'd say it was quite a bit before that, like in 2012 when they agreed to take a stand for Christian values over the law of man if it ever came to them as it had for Masterpiece Bakery, and definitely they knew that publishing complainants names and addresses they knew what they were doing - and going on Conservative Radio .

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You know, it was something i had a feeling as going to come an issue and I discussed it with my wife when the state of Washington, which right across the river from us legalized gay marriage and we watched Masterpiece Bakery going through the same issue that we ended up going through. But, you know, it was one of those situations where we said 'well I can see it is going to become an issue but we have to stand firm. It's our belief and we have a right to it, you know'.

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I'm glad you seem to be agreeing with my earlier comment than their actions , and presumably the consequences of them, were not trivial. Such that the 'fuck you' comment doesn't apparently apply to you after all.The consequences to them were also not trivial. Though they made more money from it than they had to pay, so there is that.The consequences to Masterpiece and Ashers was a slap on the wrist and an order to comply with the law. A proportional response, I feel. Likewise with the token fine imposed on Stutzman - the florist who refused services for a gay wedding. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

By 'adapted' I assume the meaning is, changed so that its obvious homophobic roots wouldn't be quite so evident:

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Desensitization

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Desensitization, wrote Kirk and Madsen, means subjecting the public to a continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible. If ‘straights’ can’t shut off the shower, they may at least eventually get used to being wet.

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As previously stated, glamorizing and normalizing homosexual conduct in our public schools is a full time endeavor. But the schools represent only one field of battle in the war over America’s body, mind and soul.

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With the aid of a willing mainstream media and a like-minded Hollywood, societal desensitization has been largely achieved. Blockbusters like Tom Hanks’ Philadelphia, the late Heath Ledger’s Brokeback Mountain, and television programs like Will and Grace and Ellen represent a modern-day fairy tale, creating a dishonest and sympathetic portrayal of a lifestyle which is emotionally, spiritually and physically sterile.

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Reality is replaced with fantasy. Gone are references to, or images of, the millions of homosexual men wasting away in hospice due to behaviorally related diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and Syphilis. (Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences. As Romans 6:23 says, The wages of sin is death.)

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And gone are references to, or images of, men and women trapped in the homosexual lifestyle who aimlessly seek to fill a spiritual and emotional void through promiscuous and meaningless sexual encounters.

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The homosexual group, GLAAD, even offers awards to the television networks that most effectively carry the homosexual lobby’s water. The more distorted and positive the portrayal of homosexual conduct and the more frequently the networks shows such portrayals; the more likely networks are to win the coveted awards.

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As Kirk and Madsen put it, homosexuals should be portrayed as the Everyman. In no time, they said, a skillful and clever media campaign could have the gay community looking like the veritable fairy godmother to Western Civilization.

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Prophetic words from two very smart men.

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Jamming

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Jamming refers to the public smearing of Christians, traditionalists or anyone else who opposes the gay agenda. Jam homo-hatred (i.e., disagreement with homosexual behaviors) by linking it to Nazi horror, wrote Kirk and Madsen. Associate all who oppose homosexuality with images of ‘Klansmen demanding that gays be slaughtered,’ ‘hysterical backwoods preachers,’ ‘menacing punks,’ and a ‘tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed.’

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In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector ... The purpose of victim imagery is to make straights feel very uncomfortable, they suggested.

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But, perhaps Kirk and Madsen’s most revealing admission came when they said, [O]ur effect is achieved without reference to facts, logic, or proof.

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And so words like homophobe and heterosexism were pulled from thin air, not because they had substance, but because they were effective jamming tools. Anyone who holds traditional values relative to human sexuality suddenly became a homophobe, a hatemonger, a bigot.

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Not even churches are safe.

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Gays can undermine the moral authority of homo-hating churches over less fervent adherents by portraying [them] as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the latest findings of psychology. Against the atavistic tug of ‘Old Time Religion’ one must set the mightier pull of science and public opinion. Such an ‘unholy’ alliance has already worked well in America against the churches, on such topics as divorce and abortion. [T]hat alliance can work for gays.

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And, oh, how it has.

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Conversion

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Conversion means, in the words of Kirk and Madsen, conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.

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In the early stages of any campaign to reach straight America, the masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex should be downplayed and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much as possible. First let the camel get his nose inside the tent and only later his unsightly derriere!

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So, as Kirk and Madsen both astutely understood and surprisingly admitted, homosexual activism is really a big game of hide the ball. In order to achieve widespread acceptance of gayness, they had to remove the focus from what homosexuality really is (deviant sexual conduct) and shift it onto the craftily manufactured specter of gay civil rights.

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In order to cut through much of the propagandist sugarcoating, one need only consider what two men must actually do in order to consummate a so-called gay marriage. Kirk and Madsen understood that. Most people are repulsed by the mechanics of homosexual conduct, but everyone is for civil rights. Of course, in reality, the homosexual lifestyle has nothing to do with civil rights and everything to do with conduct.

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Therein lies the deception.

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But There’s Hope

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There’s hope for people who are trapped in the homosexual lifestyle or who suffer from unwanted same-sex attraction. Part of our fallen condition as humans is that we are all subject to sin. Those who know the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, are no better or worse than those who engage in homosexual sin.

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But through the loving and redemptive power of Jesus Christ, we can all find salvation from sin. So can homosexuals. Gayness is not an immutable or unchangeable condition as homosexual apologists would have you believe. People can find freedom from homosexual behaviors and even from same-sex attractions. It’s not easy, but untold thousands of former homosexuals have done it.

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There’s also hope in the ongoing battle between the gay agenda and our national moral integrity. Concerned Women for America (CWA) endeavors on a daily basis to counter this destructive movement throughout all facets of culture and public policy.

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With God’s help, we can turn back the tide of sexual and moral relativism that has both permeated our society and offended our founding principles.

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Perhaps you should use a better source? Here's the original material, without the homophobe interjecting editorializing:

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Desensitization:

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Prejudice = Alerting Signal. Warns tribal
mammals that a potential alien mammal
is in the vicinity and should be fought
or fled. Two things can happen: 1) Strong
or Weak Stimulus: fight it or flee from
it; and 2) Low Grade Stimulus: don’t take
action against it, irrelevanc
y, get used to it. (148)
b.
If H present themselves as different and
threatening, then straights go on alert and
fight against them.
c.
To desensitize straights,
H inundate them with conscious flood of H related
advertising, presented in the least offens
ive fashion. If straights can’t shut the
shower off, they may at least eventu
ally get used to being wet.

​

2. Jamming:
a.
Insertion of incompatible emotion
into the pre-existing system. Like
sprinkling sand into a pocket watch.
b.
Jamming is more active and a
ggressive than desensitization.
c.
Jamming uses the rules of
Associative Conditioning
(when two things are
repeatedly juxtaposed, one’s feelings
about one thing are
transferred to the
other) and
Direct Emotional Modeling
(the inborn tendenc
y of human beings
to feel what they perceive ot
hers to be feelings). (150)
d.
Consequent internal confusion has two effects:
Unpleasant/Emotional
Dissonance
will tend to result in an alteration of previous beliefs and feelings
so as to resolve the internal conflict. And second, the
Internal Dissonance
will
tend to inhibit over expressi
on of the prejudicial emoti
on — which is, in itself,
useful and relieving. (151)
e.
All normal people feel shame when they
perceive that they
are not thinking,
feeling, or acting like one of
the pack. The trick is to
get the bigot into the
position of feeling a conf
licting twinge of shame,
along with his reward,
whenever his homohatred surfaces, so that his reward will be diluted or
spoiled. (151)
f.
Propagandistic advertising can depict homophobic and homohating bigots as
crude loudmouths and assholes — pe
ople who say not only faggot but
nigger, kike, and other shameful epit
hets — who are not Christian. It can
show them being criticized, hated,
shunned. It can depict H experiencing
horrific suffering as the direct result of
homohatred — suffering of which even
most bigots would be ashamed to be the cause. It can, in short, link
homohating bigotry with all sorts of attributes the bi
got would be ashamed to
possess, and with social consequences
he would find unpleasant and scary.
The attack, therefore, is on self-image
and on the pleasure in hating. (151-152)
g.
When our ads show a bigot — just like
the members of the target audience —
being criticized, hated, a
nd shunned, we make use of
Direct Emotional
7
Lou

​

Modeling
as well. Remember, a bigot seeks approval and liking from ‘his
crowd.’ When he sees someone like hims
elf being disapproved of and disliked
by ordinary Joes,
Direct Emotional Modeling
ensures that he will feel just
what they feel — and transfer it to hi
mself. This wrinkle effectively elicits
shame and doubt; Jamming any pleasure he might normally feel. In a very real
sense, every time a bigot sees such a th
ing, he is unlearning a little bit of the
lesson of prejudice taught him by
his parents and peers. (152)
h.
Effect of Jamming, is achieved without reference to facts, logic or proof.
Through repeated infralogical emoti
onal conditioning, his bigotry can be
alloyed in exactly the same way, whether
he is conscious of the attack or not.
Indeed, the more he is distracted by
any incidental, even specious, surface
arguments, the less conscious he’ll be of
the true nature of the process — which
is all to the good. (153)
i.
In short, Jamming succeeds insofar as it in
serts even a slight frisson of doubt
and shame into the previously unalloyed, self-righteous pleasure. Need
massive public exposure of th
e message to succeed.

​

3. Conversion
a.
Desensitization aims at lowering the inte
nsity of antiH emotional reactions to
a level approximating sheer indifference.
Jamming attempts to blockade or
counteract the rewarding ‘pride in prej
udice’ by attaching to homohaterd a
pre-existing, and punishing, sense of sham
e in being a bigot, a horse’s ass, and
a beater and murderer. Both of these t
echniques are prelude
s to our highest —
though necessarily very long-range —
goal, which is conversion. (153)
b.
Conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a
planned psychological attack, in the form
of propaganda fed to the nation via
the media. We mean ‘subverting’ the mechanism of prejudice to our own ends
— using the very process that made Ameri
ca hate us to
turn their hatred into
warm regard — whether they like it or not. (153-154)
c.
If Desensitization lets the watch
run down, and Jamming throws sand in the
works, Conversion reverses the spring so that the hands run backward.
(154)
d.
In conversion, the bigot,
who holds a very negative stereotypic picture, is
repeatedly exposed to literal picture/label pairs, in magazines, and on
billboards and TV, of H —
explicitly labeled as su
ch — who not only don’t look
like his picture of H, but are carefully se
lected to look either like the bigot and
his friends, or like any one of his other
stereotypes of all-
right guys — the kind
of people he already likes and admires.
This image must, of necessity, be
carefully tailored to be free of absolute
ly every element of the widely held
stereotypes of how ‘faggots’
look, dress, and sound. He or she must not be too
well or fashionably dressed; must not be
too handsome, that is mustn’t look
like a model, or well groomed. The image mu
st be that of an icon or normality
— a good beginning would be to take a
long look at Coors beer and Three
Musketeers candy commercials. Subseque
nt ads can branch out from that
solid basis to include really adorable, at
hletic teenagers, kindly grandmothers,
avuncular policemen, ad infinitem. (154)
e.
But it makes no difference that the ads ar
e lies; not to us,
because we’re using
them to ethically good effect, to counter negative stereotypes
that are every bit
8
as much lies, and far more wicked ones; not be bigots, because the ads will
have their effect on them whether
they believe them or not. (154)
f.
When a bigot is presented with an imag
e of the sort of
person of whom he
already has a positive stereotype, he
experiences an involuntary rush of
positive emotion, of good feeling; he’s b
een conditioned to experience it. But,
here, the good picture has the bad labe
l — H! (The ad may say something
rather like ‘Beauregard Smith-beer dr
inker, Good Ole Boy, pillar of the
community, 100% American, and H as a
mongoose.’) The bigot will feel two
incompatible emotions: a good response to
the picture, a bad response to the
label. At worst, the two will cancel one
another, and we will have successfully
Jammed, as above. At best, Associativ
e Conditioning will,
to however small
an extent, transfer the positive emotion a
ssociated with the picture to the label
itself, not immediately replacing the
negative response, but definitely
weakening it. (155)
g.
You may wonder why the transfer woul
dn’t proceed in the opposite direction.
The reason is simple:
pictures are stronger than words and evoke
emotional responses more powerfully
. The bigot is presen
ted with an actual
picture, its label will evoke in his mi
nd his own stereotypic
picture, but what
he sees in his mind’s eye will be weaker than what he actually sees in front of
him with the eyes in his face.
The more carefully selected the advertised
image is to reflect his ideal of the so
rt of person who just couldn’t be H,
the more effective it will be.
Moreover, he will,
by virtue of logical
necessity, see the positive picture in the ad before it can arouse his negative
picture, and first impressions have
an advantage over second. (155)
h.
In Conversion, we mimic the natural
process of stereotype-learning, with
the following effect: we take the bigo
t’s good feelings about all-right guys,
and attach them to the label ‘gay,’
either weakening or, eventually,
replacing his bad feelings toward the label and the prior stereotype.
(155)
i.
Understanding Direct Emotional M
odeling, you’ll readily foresee its
application to Conversion; whereas in
Jamming the target is shown a bigot
being rejected by his crowd fo
r his prejudice against H,
in Conversion the
target is shown his crowd actually
associating with H in good fellowship
.
Once again, it’s very difficult for th
e average person, who, by nature and
training, almost invariably feels what
he sees his fellows feeling, not to
respond in this knee-jerk fashion to a su
fficiently calculated advertisement. In
a way, most advertisement is founded upon
an answer of Yes, definitely! To
Mother’s sarcastic question:
I suppose if all the other
kids jumped off a bridge
and killed themselves, you would too?

---

I believe that is the original text of the section you quoted although I only found this section put together by a homophobe, it at least looks complete. Apologies for the formatting -pdfs can be annoying. The point of the book is largely in line with your arguments that gays should avoid aggressive combative tactics, appear to the normal every day guys and so on. In short it is a book that is arguing along similar lines as you have in this thread. Although it was from over 25 years ago now, and the camel's nose is in the tent. Hopefully we'll usher the rest of the body in soon enough.

I think you are misinformed.No livelihood was wiped out. The only significant fine was to the Klein's. They decided to stop their public accommodation.The family was not put on the street.The Bowman-Cryers were not 'butthurt' {and in this context it should be noted this is probably an inappropriate turn of phrase for a number of reasons} about not having their perfect wedding. They had their perfect wedding. Two of them, one before the SCOTUS ruling, and a legally binding one afterwards.However, their names and addresses were published on the internet by the Kleins which lead to a torrent of....unpleasant correspondence, fear of violent retribution etc. It lead to members of their family disowning them, and telling them they couldn't come onto family owned property or they would be shot - resulting in them not being able to visit their mother or grandmother. It resulted in an extended period of legitimate fear they would lose custody of their foster children. It resulted in enflaming long conditioned feelings of religious conflicts within the affected parties and a sense of unworthiness and humiliation. It lead to actual tangible damages to their lives, fear of the safety and welfare of their children and a torrent of hateful correspondence.All other cases I know of, the service providers had, at worst, to pay a day's or a week's worth of takings - and were simply told to comply with the law going forward. Wouldn't it depend on the actual damages? In the Masterpiece Bakery case there was no financial sum requested or given as far as I am aware. The court simply ordered them to comply with the law.But then, the Klein's solicited media attention and kept the pressure on and named and addressed the people complaining against them putting them in genuine fear for their safety and their children's safety and tore their family into pieces irreparably. They didn't sue, they complained to a labour and industry bureau - who agreed that a low six-figure reparation, given the particular circumstances (exacerbated by the Klein's continued insistence they would continue to break the rules of business), was justified.The other cases I know of were decided at between $1,000 - $6000, where any sum was awarded at all. I hope now you realize this is not the general way these things proceed and that only malicious actions and a demonstrated intent to do them again will likely result in such consequences.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

They can. They can either look to take a different perspective, change the business model slightly, or continue the business but not as a public accommodation. I'm happy gays are allowed to marry.
Apparently y'all were happy with all the financial, health and family problems hanging over the head of gays when gay marriage had no legal standing. Nobody is being forced to accept it. Businesses are required by many States (I don't think it is all States still, but maybe I'm wrong) to not discriminate against gays. That's all.Provide goods and services equally to all, or don't provide them. I don't see any forcing going on here. Again - it is more 'totalitarian' to deny people free and equal access than it is to require people to provide free and equal access to publicly available services.Again - are bathroom laws that force little girls to the little boys room totalitarian by your standards?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

The existence of people with a different perspective suggests otherwise. If the Bible said 'thou shalt not bake cakes for gay marriages' I'd agree. It doesn't. You have an interpretation, but it isn't the only legitimate one. You may never change, but changing ones mind about what they thought about the Bible is an option that some have chosen before. Bake all the other things that are not wedding cakes. Just like countless other bakeries have. Laws on this may vary. You could start by not being membership only, having a membership fee, having membership rules, associate yourself with a church and don't serve non-members. Things of that nature.The Boy Scouts of America were legally allowed to discriminate against gays, for instance. The Jews make up a tiny minority. Clearly the size of the minority should not be a factor in whether a religious group, say Muslims, should be allowed to discriminate against them. They apply to us both equally. I can't discriminate against Christians, even if I disagree with them. I can't take away your freedoms. I can however insist that your freedom is limited such that you cannot take away my freedoms.Would your entire argument suddenly fail if there were only 500,000 people in the USA that agreed with you? The role of marriage has clearly not been destroyed. It wasn't, it was to get the same protections, benefits and legal powers as others enjoy. Well - I suppose we could have argued that all legal rights, privileges and benefits of marriage be removed from heterosexuals. But that seems more destructive than asking to share in them. I'm not sure how something like that would give someone the right to make medical decisions when their partner is incapacitated, to visit them when they are sick and so on. The only solutions are to remove government from marriage, or include gays in marriage. Nobody wanted the former, so the latter was all that remained.And that still doesn't give anyone the right to discriminate. Even if marriage was removed from governmental affairs, you have suggested that even if gay people call their commitment ceremonies a 'marriage' then a refusal could be merited. So there you have it. The only compromise you'll accept is the one where our freedom and equality is curtailed and the Christians get to act in whatever way they choose without penalty. If only people had treated those forms of contract as equal this might have worked. But alas! The Bowman-Cryers were entering a private commitment and still they were refused service. *looks around* - Seems that marriage is as it ever was. In what way is it dead?