This line of legal theory inverts the Constitutional relationship between citizen and government. But this also goes back several generations and will be difficult to unravel.
You will recall that black people where treated quite poorly by whites in some areas of the county. Blacks could not use a lot of bathrooms that were otherwise open to the public. They were denied services like some restaurants and lodging. Instead of finding ways to change people’s hearts and minds, it was decided to use government to force business to serve blacks. This was done in many cases by declaring that a business was a “public accommodation”.
In the process, the private property rights and right of free association of the business owner were infringed and destroyed. But the Constitution nowhere gives government this power, except that the courts have allowed it. And of course government is not done expanding this power.
In the course of time, other groups such as homosexuals have successfully lobbied government to include them in the list classes of people who qualify as a protected class. And thus we now have the case where a person who is is business can no longer politely decline to engage in a commercial transaction that violates their conscience when it comes to some moral issues.
This takes government into a relationship of power with respect to private behavior, a relationship that is nowhere found in the Constitution. Can we ever roll back the definition of a business as a “public accommodation”? I doubt it. But if we did, how many restaurants and convenience stores in the South decide to restrict service to any minority? And what kind of social backlash would rightly result should they put up a “No Colored” sign once again? The fact that it would be an outrage proves that these laws are now obsolete. That people have changed their hearts and minds about the treatment of others. Yet the law will stay and continue to be expanded. And as a result there will be some professions and some types of businesses that conservative Christians will not engage in, because they know that they are only setting themselves up to be destroyed.
#LoveWins => #BakeTheCake => #ReligionIsHate => #PinkSwastika => #LoveRedefined ==> #LoveWins
There is a huge difference between selling a black customer a slice if the same pie that a white person bought or who slept in the same bed a white guy did, etc.
But they are demanding the baker/florist etc create for them.
To me that is a huge distinction. Don’t know if its a legal one, but its different nonetheless.