The court decided wrongly in that instance. Presumably the judge and/or jury had never actually decorated a cake themselves. It's an artistic work, and the government shouldn't be able to force somebody to create an artistic or creative work. Of course, you think the government should force people to do stuff like that, because you are... a fascist?

OK... so you can believe whatever you want, but you aren't allowed to talk about your beliefs? You should just keep quiet about them? BZZZZZZZTT! Wrong answer. Back to civics 101.

I agree with that... so what are we arguing about, exactly? I think you're going to say that you want the government to force somebody to do something. Isn't that right? (Libero-fascists are always doing that sort of thing.)

Then why did you mention it in your reply? What is this mysterious "conversation" you reference, anyway? Seriously, stop pointing your snooty nose so high up in the air and you may actually engage with other people who are trying to discuss things rationally.

Sure, you are welcome to start a religion related to that and believe anything you want to. But you can't force other people to cooperate with your religion. Why are you so big on forcing other people do stuff? Why do you want the government to force artisans do stuff [that violates their consciences]? Why can't you just chill?

If you are an American who studied civics in school, you should know this stuff. Freedom of religion, dude.

OK, smartypants, what law says that you can force an artisan to perform a creative work for you if they prefer not to?

It's admittedly a hypothetical. I can't say whether orthodox Jewish bakery owners would knowingly apply a Christian symbol to their product. People are different. Maybe all of them would. Maybe some would, and some wouldn't. My point is that you'd have to be a really disgusting jerk to try to destroy a small business owner's livelihood just because they're trying to stay true to their own dictates of conscience. The gay lobby stoops that low, and it disgusts me. How hard is it to walk down the street and pick a different shop? Talk about first world problems.

No, you're just in denial because I made a point you don't have an answer for. If you ask the kosher bakery for rolls decorated with a traditional Jewish symbol or Hebrew letter, they might be happy to comply. But if you ask for rolls decorated with a cross, they have objections because they disagree with your religion.

If heterosexual wedding planners ask a Christian cake decorator for a wedding cake topped with husband/wife figures, the bakery is happy to comply. If a gay couple ask for husband/husband wedding topper, the baker declines and asks them to contact a different bakery.

You tell me, what's the difference, genius? (And why do you hate Jewish small business owners and want to see them bankrupted because of their religion?)

I hope you clean up that sarcasm you dripped all over the floor. ;)

OK, my dear AC. Do you have the right to go to Brooklyn, find a kosher bakery run by Orthodox Jews, and demand that they create "holy cross" themed and decorated rolls for an Easter party? If they decline and ask you to contact a different bakery, should you have the right to sue them and ultimately bankrupt them and drive them out of business if they continue to follow their religious scruples?

To be consistent, you'll have to agree that the above is just as legit as the current Gay lobby's bullying. So my next question -- why do you hate Jewish people?

Nonsense. You are spreading misinformation about the law and about the reason for the law.

Nobody should be able to force an artisan out of business because they refuse to accept commissioning for a creative work, where the work itself is specified so as to violate the artists or artisan's religious convictions. Anyone who is fairminded can see the difference between creative works (like cake design and photography) versus general services like food at the deli or buying a ticket at the movie theater.

Unfortunately, the gay lobby is not always fairminded. They want to bankrupt and destroy small business owners who refuse to be bullied.

Good grief, so many people are piling on and hating Indiana for this, but they are mistaken. This is not about saying "we don't serve your kind here". This is about establishing guidelines for government to avoid reflexively punishing religious individuals over their scruples of conscience.

If you want to talk about brainless and/or dishonest liberal media, today would be the day, because the NYT, CNN, and any number of other outlets are acting like this is something new and unnecessary that Indiana is doing, when in fact the opposite is true. There has been a very similar federal law on the books since Chuck Schumer proposed it and then-President Bill Clinton signed it into law. The only reason Indiana enacted a state law equivalent is that courts have determined that the federal law doesn't protect religious individuals from non-compliance with certain local laws.

This is not to allow the local deli to refuse to serve gays, and in fact will not allow them to do so. This is to prevent bullies and jerks from picking on people who happen to be small business owners over their religion.

Example: if a Christian goes to a kosher bakery and asks for "holy cross" themed rolls for an Easter party, and the proprieters kindly offer to refer them to the secular baker down the street, should the Christian sue those dirty Jews for all they've got, and attempt to bankrupt them and destroy their business over this scruple of religious conscience? No, of course not. The Christian would be a jerk in that case. So why are so many gays being jerks about the exact same kind of thing?

Sad to say, my own code probably has a huge number of them. I'd approximate it as:

(int)0xFFFF... with a bunch more F's

Nope, not true. I have a friend with a Physics Ph.D. who does nuclear weapons related research at LANL. Her work is read only by fellow DoD scientists and certainly is not published in public journals.

OK, fair enough to some extent, I agree that people clamoring for sharia law and/or jihad isn't a real threat as long as individuals never act on their barbarous ideology (unfortunately many individuals do), and as long as Muslims don't become the majority locally, regionally, or nationally (they have in some areas here, and regionally/nationally elsewhere in the world). A pretty good litmus test for how the progression to sharia is going would be to walk through a neighborhood wearing a yarmulke and see how you are treated. That's not safe in some neighborhoods of Paris these days, although I have a vague understanding that it's politically incorrect for me to point that out. It's weird how Jew-hatred goes in and out of vogue among the self-designated intelligentsia of Western culture; currently it's "in".

One of us is in denial about the obvious, that's for sure.

Aha, that is creative. I hadn't thought of it that way.