Celebrities refusing to perform at a Presidential inauguration is completely different than the cake shop denying goods and services due to one’s sexual identity. A tortured analogy, for sure. Trump will be just fine one way or another whether they perform. But when you make it legal to discriminate based upon one’s sexual identity, it leads to unequal access of numerous goods and services that are vital to everyday life. Now, we’re talking more at stake than a wedding cake. What if the only gas station for 200 miles in a rural area refuses to sell gas to LBGTQI customers? What if the only grocery store in that area is bigoted, too? Even if you’re talking about non-essential items, it runs counter to the Equal Protection clause.
I’ve heard it argued, “why would you want to buy a cake anyway from a cake shop that hates you?” Not from you, Jake, but just in case we’re going there, it doesn’t matter. Not only is that a patriarchal, paternalistic attitude, but LBGTQI folks should have the right to purchase a cake from Anita Bryant Confections if they want to. Maybe the bigoted cake shop has a lower price, is closer, has a service plan that fits the ceremony better, or just has the prettiest cake. Lots of reasons to put up with people whose ideologies do not jibe with theirs. Just do business and be done with it. This country has had enough of religious pleas to go all Jim Crow on LBGTQI citizens.
Deeply religious bigots love to think they are some persecuted group. Of course, none of them consider that their discriminatory beliefs are abhorrent to people who stand for equality. If I owned a cake shop, as much as I wouldn’t like it, I would have to sell a cake to them and be consistent by catering to customers with beliefs that offend me. I would do that in a heartbeat in exchange for marginalized groups not being denied service elsewhere. That’s called a compromise, something the religious right has great difficulty with. Interpretation of 2000+ year-old scripture does not dictate how the rest of us do things in 2017. Sorry.
