If I call a pizza place and tell them that I want two dozen pizzas delivered somewhere tomorrow night they will assume that it's some sort of gathering, but they won't ask what it is (it could be anything from a children's birthday party to a work function to a church gathering to a wedding). All the pizza place will do is ask for my credit card number and general info. And the reason for this is because they know that them providing pizza doesn't indicate their opinion one way or another on what the occasion is (nobody cares if there are a bunch of Papa John's boxes in a meth lab, it's just pizza).
However, weddings are different. A decorated wedding cake from a specific bakery carries an implicit endorsement and the same goes for a catering company with their name on vans outside. The ACLU and others might make a fuss, but would anyone really be surprised if a bakery refused to make a cake promoting pedophilia? Would a caterer be expected to cater an orgy? This is no different.
Seventeen years ago when my wife and I were getting things arranged for our wedding there was a particular bakery that we wanted to have the cake from. We made an appointment, went and tasted cakes, picked out a design and had it all figured out UNTIL we informed them that the wedding was over a hundred miles away and then the bakery refused to do it. We went back and forth for several days, we offered to pay for renting a refrigerated truck, we said we'd pay extra for their workers, we would have a fully-equipped commercial kitchen for them to use, etc. Basically, we told them that we would give them anything they wanted to make the cake; however, they were unwilling to take the risk of ruining the cake, they wouldn't even let us have someone else pick up the cake from them and bring it BECAUSE IT WOULD AFFECT THEIR REPUTATION. So, we respected their decision and got our wedding cake elsewhere and we continued to buy cakes and pastries from them until we moved away two years ago, we certainly never contemplated suing them.
That is an excellent story, Wagglebee, and it gives one reason a business can have to not provide a service. Marlowe gave one for lawyers the other day. They might simply not want to take a particular case or a particular kind of case.
I'll admit that I think race is a different issue. Race is my one holdout. There is something about a location that has a history of rejecting gingers, for instance, that would bother me. I wouldn't like a sign in a door that says, "No Gingers!" And the poor gingers could be living in an area where a majority feels negative toward gingers.
Where would they shop, eat, whatever?
In a big city, there'd be plenty of other businesses the gingers or their friends could shop at, and the ginger-haters would suffer in their business because of it. But in some small towns, that ginger-hating group could comprise the entire town.
But RACE is NOT a choice, a behavior, a whim. Race is among the highest order genetic typologies with zero deviation.
A simple test would be: is the product or service consumed for its own sake or is it an accessory to another goal or event? If it is an accessory, then the goal or event may be objected to on religious, or political, or any other freedom of association grounds. If it is a product or service the merchant already sells, and is consumed as such, then rules of public accommodation apply, as with segregated businesses back then.
There are two problems with the bills like the Indiana one. First, they do not distinguish between these two cases. Second, they make is a question specifically of religion, whereas it really is a freedom of association issue. For example, a seamstress might refuse to sow KKK gowns or a caterer might refuse to serve a political gathering.