Again, the big “L†libertarian in me says that the free market should rule and alone decide the winners and losers and that no one should be forced to engage in any business transaction or in employment, hiring decisions for that matter, with anyone they don’t want to engage with or object to and for whatever reason. I would think that businesses who blatantly discriminates against enough groups will probably not be in business very long or will have only a limited clientele. But if that’s their choice then so be it.
But with that, understand that if Christians can decide who and who they will not do business with based on their religious beliefs and objecting to others who do not hold to their same beliefs, then others of other religions or those of no religion should also then be able to decide not to do business with Christians.
The small “l†libertarian in me says that’s not probably going to work.
For instance, today you can’t discriminate based solely on race nor IMO should you. I certainly wouldn’t patronize a business like a restaurant that hung a “Whites Only†sign on their door. And to be honest, I’m not so sure I’d patronize a bakery that chooses to only serve Christians, not to mention only “certain types†of Christians. Should a bakery run by evangelicals be allowed to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a Mormon or Catholic wedding? Well perhaps they should, in a Libertarian fairyland.
And what if one of the Christian bakers who doesn’t bake cakes for gay couples, has a supplier of cake decorating supplies who says “based on your policies with which I disagree, I no longer want to sell supplies to you anymore� Is that OK? Or is that persecution?
Perhaps we can institute some sort of signage to be displayed in front of every business and in their advertising sort of like we do with signage on trucks that indicate what sort of hazardous materials they are hauling to indicate who they will or will not do business with.
An anti-gay business might display a rainbow flag with an X through it and a pro-gay, a rainbow flag without the X. And a business that doesn’t want to serve Blacks or Jews, they could have their sign too (no wait, I think we had those before).
A business that doesn’t want to serve evangelical Christians would display a different sign, like an image of Jesus with an X through it, a Catholic business could display a crucifix indicating they only want to do business with other Catholics and a Muslim owned business could display a sign with a woman wearing a burka to indicate they don’t serve unmarried women unaccompanied by a male relative while another could display a sign with a burka with an X through it, an Atheist business a Darwin Fish to indicate they don’t want creationists as customers, an Elephant to indicate we only serve Republicans, a Donkey to indicate we only serve Democrats, a Pepe the Frog to indicate we hate pretty much everyone, and so on and so on, but that signage could end up getting quite large.
But that surely won’t work when protestant Christians who are still the vast majority in the US, object to being discriminated against.
Understand that if one business is allowed to discriminate against someone you don’t like and you are fine with that, understand that you may be one day on the receiving end of similar discrimination from someone who doesn’t like you. If you are OK with that, fine and perhaps we all should be fine with that if we really believe in freedom of religion and of free association, but I doubt many are when they end up on the receiving end.
In other words, “sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bugâ€.
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Let's try this again.
If I owned a custom T-shirt shop, and made T-shirts, would I then have the option to not make T-shirts with the word F**K on them? (spelled out?) or would I be imposing on someone's (someone
else's) First Amendment Right to Freedom of Expression by refusing?
If I refuse to put your design on the shirt, but will sell you a shirt on which you can put your own design, is that okay? Or will I be sued for not putting what you want on the shirt, emotional distress (really???) etc.?
Because that's what is happening here. These Bakers would sell them a cake, they just wouldn't custom decorate it with the message they wanted (the message which makes it a
wedding cake).
